A Study of a Powder Coating Gun near Field: A Case of Staggered Concentric Jet Flow

This paper examines, experimentally and numerically, an isothermal coaxial air jet, created by an innovative nozzle design for an air propane torch, used for the thermal deposition of polymers. This design includes staggering the origins of the central and annular jets and creating an annular air jet with an inward radial velocity component. The experimental work used a Pitot tube to measure axial velocity on the jet centerline and in the fully developed flow. The static gauge pressure in the near field was also measured and found to be positive, an unexpected result. The numerical work used Gambit and Fluent. An extensive grid sensitivity study was conducted and it was found that results from a relatively coarse mesh were substantially the same as results from a mesh with almost 11 times the number of control volumes. A thorough evaluation of all of the RANS models in Fluent 6.3.26 found that the flow fields they calculated showed at most partial agreement with the experimental results. The greatest difference between numerical and experimental results was the incorrect prediction by all RANS models of a recirculation zone in the near field on the jet axis. Experimental work showed it did not exist.