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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2016 Aug 15.
Published in final edited form as: Inhal Toxicol. 2015 May 13;27(5):247–253. doi: 10.3109/08958378.2015.1033570

Figure 1.

Figure 1

Principles of operation of the center flow tangential aerosol generator. To create aerosol particles, liquid (pink arrow) is delivered onto the center of the rotating top through an inlet. A stream of dilution air (blue arrows), contained by a conical upper air shroud, is fed around the liquid feed nozzle to direct airflow around the upper edge of the spinning top (≤80,000 rpm). An adjustable height fence (with openings) surrounds the top and continues about 1–1.5 mm below the top. A siphon vacuum (green arrows) pulls the air stream through the fence at various fractions of the inlet flow rate. This airflow is optimized to entrain and remove the smaller satellite particles while permitting the larger particles to continue into the aerosol chamber. Two observation ports are within the plenum and fitted with polycarbonate inserts. rpm = revolutions per minute.