Method and apparatus for forming high-speed liquid

An apparatus for forming high-speed liquid droplets, comprising:

• a source of high-pressure liquid;
• a turbulence generator, coupled to said source of high-pressure liquid, for creating perturbations in said high-pressure liquid;
• a droplet forming chamber, coupled to said turbulence generator;
• and
• a workpiece contacting hood, coupled to said droplet forming chamber, for directing said formed high-speed liquid droplets against a workpiece.

An apparatus for forming high-speed liquid droplets, comprising:

• a source of high-pressure liquid;
• a droplet forming chamber, coupled to said source of high-pressure liquid, said droplet forming chamber including at least one jet selected from the group consisting of a divergent jet, a fan jet and a cone jet;
• and
• a workpiece contacting hood, coupled to said droplet forming chamber, for directing said formed high-speed liquid droplets against a workpiece.

A method for forming high-speed liquid droplets, comprising the acts of:

• providing a source of high-pressure liquid;
• providing a droplet forming chamber, coupled to said source of high-pressure liquid, said droplet forming chamber including therein a low Weber number value;
• and
• providing a workpiece contacting hood, coupled to said droplet forming chamber, for directing said formed high-speed liquid droplets against a workpiece.

A method for forming high-speed liquid droplets, comprising the acts of:

• providing a source of high-pressure liquid;
• providing a turbulence generator, coupled to said source of high-pressure liquid, for creating perturbations in said high-pressure liquid;
• providing a droplet forming chamber, coupled to said turbulence generator;
• and
• providing a workpiece contacting hood, coupled to said droplet forming chamber, for directing said formed high-speed liquid droplets against a workpiece.

A method for forming high-speed liquid droplets, comprising the acts of:

• providing a source of high-pressure liquid;
• providing a droplet forming chamber, coupled to said source of high-pressure liquid, said droplet forming chamber including at least one jet selected from the group consisting of a divergent jet, a fan jet and a cone jet;
• and
• providing a workpiece contacting hood, coupled to said droplet forming chamber, for directing said formed high-speed liquid droplets against a workpiece.

A method for creating a train of high-speed, droplets or slugs from a high-speed liquid jet stream comprising the act of:

• imposing a perturbation of the high-speed jet's velocity Vj so that alternate sections of the jet coalesce to form drops and where the jet velocity perturbation is caused by a pressure perturbation in a plenum upstream of a jet-forming nozzle and where said pressure perturbation is generated by standing pressure waves in the plenum having a pressure anti-node near a jet-forming nozzle entry region, and where the standing pressure wave is supplied with energy from a side-branching resonator located near a velocity antinode of a standing pressure wave in the plenum in the side branching resonant tube, creating a liquid flow that in turn is driven by oscillations of an exit jet from the side-branch resonator through an orifice creating a submerged discharge jet in an adjacent liquid-filled chamber, to make a Strouhal number St=dj2/Vj2 λ2 (where dj2=diameter jet and Vj2=velocity of said jet and λ2=wave length of the standing wave in the side-branch resonator) of 0.3≦St≦0.5, and wherein said exit jet discharges into a second chamber full of the liquid and having its internal pressure adjusted and controlled by a throttling valve communicating to the environment or to a drain, and wherein the second chamber's pressure cooperates with the side-branch resonator's internal pressure to determine the jet velocity Vj2, and wherein the wave length λ2 is established by the length of the side-branch resonator viz λ2=n/2 where n is an odd, whole number so that a velocity antinode exists at the plenum end of the side-branch resonator and a pressure antinode exists at the exit nozzle of said side-branch resonator.