Kinetics of charged drops in an aircraft wake

The controlled growth of particulates with prescribed dimension is of interest for many applications. For example, it is reasonable to use condensation of water vapor (containing in atmosphere as well as ejecting by engines) to visualize the heavy airliner wakes which could be dangerous for following aircraft [1]. In this case, microdroplets with radii compared to the wavelength of a sounding radiation are regarded as the “best aerosol”. However, stable electro-neutral microdrops cannot arise in undersaturated atmosphere. On the contrary, water molecule might condensate upon charged particles even at the condition of undersaturation. In this case, small drops (nanodroplets) arise, whose inertia prevent from immediate recombination of ions. In the present work, a possibility to control water vapor condensation by injection into flow ions generated by corona discharge is investigated. Kinetics analysis has revealed that the life-time of charged drop may attain hundreds second, meanwhile neutral drops evaporate relatively quickly.