Droplet generation during liquid jet impingement onto a horizontal plate

In sodium-cooled fast reactors, liquid sodium leakage from piping may lead to fire accident. In the case that the liquid sodium is discharged as a liquid jet, a number of droplets are produced during liquid jet impingement on the structures; the surfaces of splashed droplets serve as a main reaction field of sodium combustion. In the present work, a liquid jet was emanated vertically downward from a circular nozzle hole onto a horizontal disk to measure the total amount and the maximum size of splashed droplets. It was found that the splashing rate was negligibly small when the liquid jet impinged as a continuous jet whilst a significant amount of liquid was splashed when the liquid jet impinged as a broken jet. Thus, a prediction method was first developed for the impact frequency of the primary droplets produced due to the jet breakup. It was then shown that a phenomenological model using the impact frequency and the impact Weber number as the important variables can predict the splashing rate well. It was also indicated that the size of the maximum splashed droplets was fairly proportional to the size of primary droplets.