Understanding spray technology: nozzles, droplets and distribution
A nozzle is an energy converter: it turns pressure into velocity and surface area. Whether the result cools, cleans, coats or humidifies depends on three variables – spray angle, flow coefficient and droplet spectrum. Anyone who knows these three can solve a spraying task by calculation rather than by experiment.
Designs compared
- Full-cone nozzles: evenly filled cone, ideal for cooling, dust suppression and washing
- Hollow-cone nozzles: finest droplets in a ring, ideal for gas scrubbing and humidification
- Flat-fan nozzles: defined band, ideal for booms, belts and row crops
- Solid-stream nozzles: focused jet with high impact for cleaning and descaling
For boom design the rule is: nozzle spacing follows from spray angle and distance to the target. At an 80° spray angle and 50 cm distance one nozzle covers around 84 cm – with the recommended 30 % overlap this results in a pitch of roughly 50 cm.
Tank cleaning as a special case
In tank cleaning it is not volume but impact energy per area that counts. Static spray balls work with high volume and low pressure, while rotating jet cleaners achieve far greater cleaning effect with a fraction of the water – an argument that shows up directly in water, chemical and effluent costs. More on the tank cleaning nozzles page; the matching feed pump is found under centrifugal pumps.