Single Drop Breakage in Turbulent Flow: Statistical Data Analysis

Abstract

To improve breakage models in the population balance framework, single octanol droplet experiments have been performed in a channel flow and recorded by high-speed camera. The study investigates impact of mother drop size on the breakage time, breakage probability, average number of daughters and the daughter size distribution for known turbulence characteristics. Each breakage event is associated with an individual turbulence level, based on the local flow characteristics. A clearly defined statistical analysis is presented. Using 95% confidence intervals, the precision of each of the determined properties is described quantitatively. Furthermore, the confidence intervals are a tool for determining whether an increased number of experiments will yield a significant increase in the precision, considered against the sources of error. It is found that 35–50 breakage events are sufficient to obtain confidence intervals of desired precision.