抄録
Usually, Trichloroethane has been used for the de-oiling and cleaning of machine parts. But its production and import have been prohibited since 1995 because of its possibility to destroy the ozone layer. Generally for biological and environmental safety, the de-oiling should be done with the physical method instead of the chemical method using detergent or solvent. As one of the physical method, a cleaning by a supersonic wet steam jet has been proposed. The steam jet with water droplets impinges on the oily surface of machine parts and removes the oil or smudge. In the present study, the low-cost and taper-shaped nozzles were fabricated with an electric discharge machining. The jet behaviors from the taper-shaped nozzles were carefully observed by using air and wet steam. The non-equilibrium model of wet steam was proposed and compared with the experimental results. The spatial distribution of low density regions along the jet axis was considered to contribute the cleaning and de-oiling. However, the condensate generated with the depressurization of steam depressed the injected steam mass flow rate. Furthermore, the steam cleaning was conducted for the plastic coin and the good cleaning effect could be confirmed in spite of the short cleaning duration.
