Ultrasonic Salt Spray System

Design and Application of Ultrasonic Salt Spray System Technology for Marine Environment Simulation Testing

Introduction

The marine service environment has harsh working conditions such as high salt spray, high humidity, and high salt impurities. Power auxiliary equipment exposed to this environment for a long time is prone to corrosion, performance degradation, and operational failures, which directly affect the stability and service life of the equipment. Therefore, before the equipment is put into operation and applied, conducting full ocean salt spray environment simulation tests to verify the equipment’s salt spray corrosion resistance and adaptability to working conditions is the core link of equipment reliability verification.

In order to meet the marine environment adaptability testing requirements of a certain power auxiliary equipment, the existing testing site will undergo functional transformation and upgrade, and a dedicated marine environment simulation testing platform will be built. The traditional salt spray spray equipment has defects such as uneven droplet size, low atomization accuracy, poor flow regulation, and can not accurately reproduce the real sea salt spray working conditions. Based on this, the project develops a dedicated ultrasonic salt spray system, which relies on high-frequency ultrasonic atomization technology to generate refined and parameter controllable seawater salt spray. It is directed to the equipment inlet and simulates the salt spray erosion environment during actual operation at sea, providing precise environmental support for the quantitative testing of equipment salt spray resistance and long-term operational stability.

Core working principle of the system

The ultrasonic salt spray system is different from the traditional pneumatic and tower type salt spray spray equipment. Its core relies on the high-frequency ultrasonic atomization principle to realize the fine atomization of salt solution. The system generates high-frequency shear and cavitation effects on the proportioned seawater salt solution through high-speed vibration of high-frequency ultrasonic oscillators, accurately breaking the liquid solution into micrometer sized uniform droplets without the need for high-speed airflow impact. It relies on natural diffusion to form a stable and uniform salt spray environment. This atomization method effectively solves the problems of large droplet size dispersion, uneven salt spray deposition, and distorted working condition simulation in traditional equipment. It can highly restore the shape, particle size distribution, and diffusion characteristics of natural salt spray on the sea surface, greatly improving the authenticity of marine environment simulation testing and the repeatability and accuracy of test data.

Overall system architecture and core technical parameters

The customized ultrasonic salt spray system is an integrated equipment with a simplified overall structure and high degree of integration. The core is composed of control module, ultrasonic spray module, precision pumping module, and transmission supporting components. Each module cooperates to achieve full functional closed-loop of salt spray atomization, flow regulation, remote operation and maintenance, and environmental adaptation. The core technical indicators are designed around the requirements of marine simulation testing. The specific parameters and configuration requirements are as follows.

1 Core Hardware Configuration
The system hardware adopts a modular integrated design, adapted to long-term continuous testing conditions, and the core supporting components are standardized to ensure the stability of equipment operation and convenient maintenance. The whole set of equipment includes two sets of ultrasonic spray nozzles, two sets of special spray air caps, core controller, double syringe pumping mechanism and a full set of connecting cables and transmission pipelines, which can achieve continuous and stable salt spray operation.
Among them, the ultrasonic nozzle adopts a 75kHz high-frequency atomization design, combined with a dedicated aperture nozzle structure and corrosion-resistant sealing accessories, suitable for high salinity and high impurity salt solution working conditions, which can effectively avoid problems such as salt crystal blockage and seal aging failure, and meet the long-term high-intensity testing needs. A connection cable with a length of 5 meters or more is equipped between the controller and the nozzle to meet the requirements of equipment layout and installation spacing in the testing site, and to adapt to the overall spatial layout of the testing cabin.

2 Precise Traffic Control Performance
To meet the simulation requirements of ocean salt spray conditions with different intensity levels, the system has a wide range and high-precision flow regulation capability. The adjustable range of single nozzle solution spray flow rate is 0.04mL/min to 2mL/min, which can cover the full range of simulation scenarios from mild salt spray to strong salt spray. The system is equipped with an intelligent flow monitoring and control unit, which supports remote real-time flow parameter collection and numerical adjustment. At the same time, it can achieve remote start stop control of the solution spraying process, without the need for on-site manual operation, greatly improving the automation and intelligence level of the testing process.
The pumping module is designed with a double syringe structure. The volume of a single syringe is 140mL, and the overall solution storage capacity can reach 280mL. It can achieve uninterrupted continuous spray operation, effectively avoid the test interruption problem caused by insufficient single solution volume, and ensure the smooth implementation of long-term and continuous environmental simulation tests.

3 Atomization particle size and medium compatibility
The particle size of salt spray droplets is the core indicator that determines the authenticity of marine environment simulation. This system uses high-frequency ultrasonic precise atomization control to generate micrometer sized droplets in the range of 4 μ m to 13 μ m. The particle size distribution is uniform and conforms to the particle size characteristics of natural sea salt spray. It can accurately simulate the erosion mode of seawater salt spray on the inlet structure and internal pipelines of equipment, ensuring that the test results are highly matched with actual service scenarios.
In terms of spray medium adaptation, the system can be compatible with mixed water solutions containing sodium chloride, sodium sulfate, magnesium chloride, calcium chloride and other salts, fully adapted to the salt composition of real seawater, can restore the marine complex salt corrosion medium environment to the greatest extent, avoid the deviation of test results caused by single salt test, and improve the comprehensiveness of equipment environmental adaptability test.

4 Operating environment and electrical compatibility
The system has good environmental adaptability and can operate stably in the temperature range of 5 ℃ to 30 ℃, covering the temperature conditions of conventional testing sites and meeting the requirements of normalized testing operations. The electrical system is compatible with the general North American standard power supply specifications, supports 120VAC, 60Hz power frequency supply, and is equipped with standardized power interfaces to adapt to the site power supply system without the need for additional modification of power supply equipment, making installation and deployment convenient.

System Application Value and Summary

The customized ultrasonic salt spray system developed this time relies on high-precision ultrasonic atomization technology to solve the industry pain points of distortion, insufficient accuracy, and low automation level of traditional salt spray simulation equipment. The system, with its core advantages of precise droplet size control, wide range flow regulation, multi salt medium adaptation, remote intelligent control, and convenient operation and maintenance, can highly replicate the real marine salt spray service environment, providing a precise, stable, and controllable testing environment for the marine adaptability, corrosion resistance, and long-term operational reliability testing of power auxiliary equipment.

The implementation of this system will effectively fill the equipment gap in high-precision marine salt spray dynamic simulation testing, improve the standardization, precision, and intelligence level of equipment environmental reliability testing, provide core technical support for the design optimization, performance verification, and quality acceptance of marine equipment, and have important engineering application value for improving the overall reliability and service life of marine equipment.

About Cheersonic

Cheersonic is the leading developer and manufacturer of ultrasonic coating systems for applying precise, thin film coatings to protect, strengthen or smooth surfaces on parts and components for the microelectronics/electronics, alternative energy, medical and industrial markets, including specialized glass applications in construction and automotive.

Our coating solutions are environmentally-friendly, efficient and highly reliable, and enable dramatic reductions in overspray, savings in raw material, water and energy usage and provide improved process repeatability, transfer efficiency, high uniformity and reduced emissions.

If you have any technical questions, customization demands, or procurement inquiries about ultrasonic atomization nozzles, feel free to contact our professional sales and technical team for detailed parameters, customized solutions, and industry application support.
Email: market2@cheersonic.com