A CFD Analysis of Water Jet Uniformity Using Oscillating Interior Atomizers for Insulator Cleaning

This article proposes to carry out a CFD analysis of the uniformity of a demineralized water jet through a mechanical design of a fluidic oscillating nozzle for washing insulation chains in high-voltage towers. According to various studies, the atomizers have different spray patterns, for example, full cone, hollow cone, and flat curtain, depending on the need of the project. In this study, the importance of the process lies in achieving the uniformity of the water flow at a distance of 2 to 3 m from the tower and at a pressure of 100 psi in the pipe to guarantee efficient, rapid cleaning and at the same time save money, water, and energy resources, since currently, the insulator cleaning activity could take between 4 h and 2 days, depending on the method to be used. In this sense, comparisons were made, in terms of speed and uniformity, with other structural methods that produce oscillations in the water jets to determine the efficiency of the vibrational structure designed for this study. In this aspect, the fluid mechanic calculations were carried out, as well as the simulation of the design of the new nozzle to obtain a minimum impact speed of 25 m per second. The geometric and mesh designs of the nozzles under study were carried out in the Ansys Spaceclaim and ICEM CFD software. Likewise, the results of the simulations were shown using the ANSYS Fluent software.