Engineering Commons^™

Schlieren Visualization Of Shaping Air During Operation Of An Electrostatic Rotary Bell Sprayer: Impact Of Shaping Air On Droplet Atomization And Transport, Adnan Darwish Ahmad, Ahmad M. Abubaker, Ahmad A. Salaimeh, Nelson K. Akafuah

Institute of Research for Technology Development Faculty Publications

Electrostatic rotary bell sprayers (ERBSs) are widely used in the automotive industry. In ERBS, atomization is facilitated using centrifugal forces which disintegrate the paint film inside the cup into droplets at the cup edge. The droplets are then transported by the flow of a shaping air (SA) and electrostatic forces to a target surface; the characteristics of these droplets dramatically influence the quality of a painted surface and the painting transfer efficiency. In the current paper, a novel Schlieren-based visualization of the shaping air in the absence of paint droplets was performed during a qualitative investigation to delineate shaping air …