Background on Sprays and Their Production

Abstract

A spray is [1] ``a dispersion of droplets with sufficient momentum to penetrate the surrounding medium''. The nozzle or other device that produces the spray is referred to as an atomizer and the surrounding medium is gaseous. Processes utilizing droplets require enough momentum to transport the droplets to where they are utilized or to provide mixing with the gas. We may go outside this definition of a spray to cover other processes that utilize liquid droplets such as; (1) those that use orderly arrays of droplets and (2) those that use a suspension of fine droplets (an aerosol) or droplets falling under the action of gravity.