Commentary :
The droplet size distribution of agricultural sprays is a key parameter affecting the efficiency of crop protection product application. The spray quality results from the interactions between physical properties of the liquid, the operating conditions and the nozzle geometry. The present contribution is first step of a work which aims at optimizing the design of mirror nozzle geometry to increase the agricultural spray application efficiency. The optimization will be realized numerically using the multiphase solver InterFoam available in OpenFoam toolbox. For the present paper the quality of the InterFoam solver has been assessed by simulating the impact of a water round jet on a flat plate. The comparison of the numerical prediction with the analytical solution showed a good agreement far from the jet impact. The discrepancies observed could arise from the limitation of the analytical solution close to the jet impact. Then, the solver was used to investigate the sensitivity of a mirror nozzle flow to the inlet geometry and the inlet flow rate. The sensitivity study of the nozzle geometry and the inlet flow rate on the downstream flow allowed us to see a strong effect of both parameters. The flow rate increase lead to a more homogeneous flow for most of the cases. The inlet shape affects significantly the downstream flow. The 140° circular segment inlet seems suitable for our objective of generating a homogeneous flow on the nozzle plate.
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