Atomization mechanism of a charged viscoelastic liquid sheet

In order to study atomization mechanism of a viscoelastic liquid sheet in an electric field, the spatial–temporal stability analysis of a viscoelastic liquid sheet injected into a dielectric stationary ambient gas in the presence of a vertical electric field is conducted. The dispersion relations of both sinuous and varicose disturbance modes are solved to explore the spatial–temporal instability of a charged viscoelastic sheet, by setting both the wave number and frequency complex. A parametric study is performed to test the influence of the dimensionless parameters on the absolute instability of the sheet. The results show that the increase of liquid Weber number and time constant ratio, or decrease of gas to liquid density ratio and Reynolds number, can damp the absolute instability. The effect of the liquid elasticity depends on the value of time constant ratio: when time constant ratio is small, the increase of liquid elasticity could amplify absolute growth rate, but the effect is weak when the elasticity number is relatively large; when time constant ratio is large, the increase of liquid elasticity cannot affect the absolute growth rate. Moreover, the variation of electrical Euler number can hardly influence the absolute instability of a charged viscoelastic sheet.