Spray Patterns Explained: Flat Fan, Cone, Jet and Mist, and Which Nozzle Makes Each

What a Spray Pattern Actually Is
Quick Answer
The Four Pattern Families
Pattern Families at a Glance
Flat Fan: The Even Band
Cone: Full and Hollow
Solid Jet: The Focused Stream
Mist: The Cloud
How the Orifice Shapes the Pattern
Pattern Geometry: Width, Overlap and Angle
Pattern vs Droplet: Two Different Decisions
Reference: Pattern by Nozzle Family
How to Pick the Pattern for Your Job
Verifying a Pattern in the Field
When the Pattern Is Wrong
FAQ
The Bottom Line

What a Spray Pattern Actually Is

A spray pattern is the shape the liquid makes as it travels through the air: the footprint it would leave on a wall held in front of the nozzle. It is the single most useful way to describe what a nozzle does, because the pattern decides what gets wet and what stays dry.

Every nozzle produces one of four spray patterns: a flat fan (a band), a cone (a circle, full or hollow), a solid jet (a stream), or a mist (a cloud of fine drops). The pattern is set by the orifice geometry and the pressure, not by the fluid, not by the brand. Two nozzles with the same orifice shape make the same pattern; the rest is flow and droplet size.

The practical point: you choose the pattern for the surface, then the nozzle for the pattern. A band for a flat surface, a cone for a volume, a jet for a point, a mist for air. Get the pattern right and the coverage follows; get it wrong and no amount of pressure fixes it.

Quick Answer

A spray pattern is the footprint the nozzle leaves on a surface, and it is set by the orifice geometry, not by pressure: a flat fan at 8 bar is still a flat fan, just wider and finer than at 2 bar. Four families cover every duty, flat fan, cone (full or hollow), solid stream and mist, and the variant inside a family is chosen by angle, flow and free passage. Choose the pattern from the target, size the nozzle for flow and pressure, then set the spacing: a tapered flat fan needs about 50% overlap for an even band, an even flat fan almost none. The commonest error is curing a striped pattern with pressure instead of a different orifice or a corrected overlap.

The Four Pattern Families

Pattern	Shape in air	Footprint on surface	Made by
Flat fan	A flat sheet, like a curtain	A band or ellipse	A slit orifice, sometimes with a deflector
Full cone	A solid cone of liquid	A filled circle	A swirl or spiral chamber
Hollow cone	A ring of liquid, empty centre	A ring	A tangential-entry swirl chamber
Solid jet	A coherent stream	A point	A round orifice, no swirl
Mist	A cloud of fine drops	A broad, soft patch	Air atomisation or a very small orifice

These five are the alphabet of spraying. Every nozzle in every catalogue is one of them, or a variant. The rest of this guide walks each one and tells you when to use it.

Pattern Families at a Glance

Angle and drop figures are typical for clean water at 2 to 4 bar on a new nozzle.

Pattern family	Drop size	Angle range	Coverage shape	Overlap needed	Typical duties
Flat fan, tapered	Medium to coarse	80 to 110°	Band, tapered ends	About 50%	Field booms
Flat fan, even	Medium, uniform	15 to 65°	Flat band	0 to 25%	Strip coating
Hollow cone	Fine, 100 to 250 µm	60 to 120°	Ring, dry centre	30 to 50%	Scrubbing
Full cone	Medium to coarse	60 to 100°	Filled circle	0 to 30%	Quenching, dust
Full cone, wide angle	Coarse at low pressure	110 to 135°	Wide filled circle	0 to 30%	Pile wetting
Solid stream	Coarsest, coherent	0 to 5°	Point, then band	Not applicable	Cutting
Spiral	Medium to coarse	60 to 170°	Filled or ring cone	0 to 30%	Scrubbers
Air atomising	Finest, SMD 10 to 60 µm	10 to 60°	Cone or soft cloud	Not applicable	Coating
Misting / fog	Fine, 20 to 100 µm	30 to 90°	Soft cloud	Not applicable	Cooling, dust

Flat Fan: The Even Band

A flat fan makes a sheet of liquid that opens into a band. Put a wall in front and you get a rectangle (or an ellipse at distance), not a circle.

How it’s made: liquid forced through a slit orifice, sometimes onto a deflector that turns the sheet into a fan. The angle of the fan (e.g. 15°, 65°, 110°) is the orifice’s opening.
What it’s for: flat surfaces: vehicle wash, crop spraying on a boom, coating a web, cleaning a conveyor. The band is the point.
The catch: the band is only even if the pressure is right and the edges overlap. Too wide an angle at too low a pressure and the band thins at the edges; too narrow and you waste the middle.
Our spec: flat-fan line runs 15° to 110°, flow quoted at 3 bar, with even-edge and tapered-edge options. See flat-fan-nozzles.

A flat fan is the workhorse of surface treatment. If the thing you’re spraying is flat, the answer is usually a fan.

Cone: Full and Hollow

A cone nozzle spins the liquid into a ring or a solid spray cone. There are two kinds, and the difference matters:

Full cone: liquid fills the cone; the footprint is a solid circle. Made by a swirl chamber that feeds liquid across the whole exit. Used for cooling, quenching, dust suppression: anywhere you want an even round patch.
Hollow cone: liquid forms a ring, the centre is empty; the footprint is a ring. Made by tangential entry that spins the liquid around the wall of the chamber. Used where you need a fine ring of drops: gas scrubbing, where the ring meets the packing, or coating where the edge matters more than the centre.

Our spiral line shows the split: SP-1/8 through SP-1/2 are full cone (0.2–18 L/min, free passage 2.5–9 mm); SP-3/4 and SP-1 are hollow cone (8–90 L/min). See spiral-nozzles. The free passage is the clog resistance. A 9 mm passage swallows what a 2.5 mm would sieve.

Pick full cone for an even round patch, hollow cone when the ring is what does the work.

Solid Jet: The Focused Stream

A solid jet is a coherent stream with no swirl. The liquid leaves a round orifice and stays a stream until it breaks up. The footprint is a point that becomes a narrow band at distance.

How it’s made: a straight round orifice, no swirl chamber. The stream stays coherent because nothing spins it.
What it’s for: reaching a point: cutting, descaling, jet cleaning, washing the far wall of a tank, marking. The impact is the point. A jet at distance delivers force a fan cannot.
The catch: a jet wets one spot. For a surface you need many jets (a multi-jet header) or you move it. A single jet on a broad surface is a stripe machine.
Our spec: jet nozzles in solid stream, flat fan and multi-jet variants, sized by orifice and pressure. See jet nozzles.

A jet is for when you need to hit one thing hard, not wet everything softly.

Mist: The Cloud

A mist is a cloud of very fine drops. The pattern is diffuse, the footprint broad and soft. It is made either by a very small orifice at high pressure (hydraulic misting) or by air atomisation (drops sheared by air).

Hydraulic misting: small orifice, high pressure; drops of 20–100 µm. Cheap, no air supply. See misting-nozzles.
Air atomising: compressed air shears the liquid; drops of 10–80 µm, tightly controlled. See air-atomizing-nozzles.
What it’s for: humidification, cooling, dust control, coating where the drop is the product. The fine drop is the point.
The catch: fine drops drift. A mist in a breeze goes where the air goes, not where you aimed. That is why misting is an indoor or calm-air duty.

A mist is a cloud, not a shape. Use it when “wet the air” beats “wet the surface.”

How the Orifice Shapes the Pattern

The pattern is baked into the orifice long before the liquid leaves:

Slit orifice → flat fan. The slit’s width and length set the band’s angle and evenness.
Swirl chamber (axial feed) → full cone. Liquid swirls and exits as a filled cone.
Swirl chamber (tangential feed) → hollow cone. Liquid spins around the wall, exits as a ring.
Round orifice, no swirl → solid jet. Nothing disturbs the stream.
Very small orifice + air → mist. The shear makes drops, not a pattern.

This is why nozzle type is irreplaceable by pressure. You cannot make a fan into a cone by raising pressure. The orifice decides the pattern, pressure only scales the size and the droplet. Change the pattern, change the nozzle.

Pattern Geometry: Width, Overlap and Angle

Width follows angle and standoff: width = 2 × H × tan(angle / 2). A 65° fan at 500 mm covers about 640 mm; a 110° fan at the same standoff, about 1,400 mm. Doubling the standoff doubles the band and quarters the deposit per unit area.

Flow follows orifice area and pressure, not angle: Q = Cd × A × √(2P / ρ), with Cd around 0.6 to 0.8 for hydraulic nozzles. A 1.1 mm orifice at 3 bar with Cd 0.7 passes about 1.0 L/min of water, and about 1.6 L/min at 8 bar. Our flat-fan-nozzles tables give the same arithmetic at rated conditions.

Overlap removes striping: a tapered flat fan falls to about half the peak deposit at each edge, so tips need roughly 50% overlap, spaced at half the band width. An even flat fan holds a flat deposit, so full-width spacing works with a 10 to 25% margin. Hollow cones need 30 to 50% because the ring centre is dry.

Pressure changes flow and drop size, not the angle: a tip rated 110° at 3 bar holds that angle across its range. If the shape is wrong, the orifice is wrong.

Pattern vs Droplet: Two Different Decisions

A common error: treating “pattern” and “droplet size” as one thing. They are independent:

Pattern = the shape (fan / cone / jet / mist). Set by the orifice.
Droplet size = how fine the liquid is within that pattern. Set by pressure (hydraulic) or air (atomising).

You can have a hollow-cone pattern with coarse drops (a scrubber with a big orifice) or a flat-fan pattern with fine drops (a low-pressure wide fan). The pattern is the geometry; the droplet is the atomisation. Pick them on separate axes: pattern for the surface, droplet for the result.

Reference: Pattern by Nozzle Family

Family	Pattern	Typical use	Our line
Flat fan	Band	Surfaces, wash, coating, boom	Flat-fan 15–110°
Spiral (full)	Full cone	Cooling, dust, quenching	SP-1/8 to SP-1/2
Spiral (hollow)	Hollow cone	Scrubbing, ring duties	SP-3/4, SP-1
Air atomising	Cone / mist	Coating, humidification	BJ-AA series
Jet	Stream	Impact, cleaning, cutting	Jet series
Misting	Mist	Cooling, dust, humidity	Misting series
Agricultural	Fan / cone	Crop spraying	AG series
Sprinkler	Cone (rotor)	Irrigation	Sprinkler series
Oil burner	Hollow / solid cone	Combustion	OB series
Spray bottle	Stream / fan / mist	Manual dosing	SB series

The table is the map. Every nozzle on the site is one row.

How to Pick the Pattern for Your Job

What is the target? A flat surface → fan. A volume or round patch → cone. A point → jet. The air → mist.
Even or ring? Even round patch → full cone. Ring duty (scrubber, edge coat) → hollow cone.
What result? Impact → jet. Even film → fan. Fine drop → mist/atomiser. Even soak → full cone.
What’s the fluid? Clean water → any. Gritty → spiral (free passage). Viscous → air atomiser or large orifice. Chemistry → plastic or stainless per the fluid.

Answer those four and the pattern picks itself. The nozzle for that pattern is then a flow-and-pressure sizing, a separate step.

Verifying a Pattern in the Field

Two tools show whether a nozzle still lays down what the chart promised.

Patternation tray: graduated tubes or a divided collection tray under the nozzle for 30 to 60 seconds, compared across the band. A dry centre or a heavy edge shows at once.
Water-sensitive paper: cards clipped under a boom or header for one pass. Stain density shows the distribution, and a striped card is a failed pattern.

Pass or fail: calculate the coefficient of variation, standard deviation over mean, from the deposit across the collected width. Keep it under about 10% on a boom or conveyor header and under about 15% on a single nozzle’s band. Above that, the fix is the tip spacing, a cleaned orifice or a new tip, not more pressure.

Wear and blockage register in the pattern before the flow: a blocked slit thins one side while flow falls a few percent, and an eroded slit widens the band while flow creeps up. Check the pattern at every service interval, and replace tips as a set, because a worn tip beside a new one sprays a different band.

When the Pattern Is Wrong

Stripe down the middle of a wash: you used a jet where a fan was needed. Switch to a flat fan, overlap the bands.
Dry centre in a tank wash: a hollow cone where a full cone was needed, or a static ball where a rotary was. Full cone or rotary for even coverage.
Overspray on the floor from a gun: the pattern is too wide for the standoff, or the angle too open. Narrow the fan or pull back.
Mist drifting off-target: the drops are too fine for the air. Coarsen or shield; mist is a calm-air duty.

Symptom	Likely cause	Quick check	Fix
Stripe down the middle	Jet tip, not a fan	Tip type vs target	Fit a flat fan, overlap
Stripes between fans	Under 30% overlap	Band width vs spacing	Space for 50% overlap
Dry centre in a tank	Hollow cone or a blockage	Run the nozzle into a tray	Full cone or rotary
Band narrows, thins	Blockage, worn slit or drift	Tray coefficient of variation	Clean, re-space or replace
Cone becomes a stream	Pressure too low, worn chamber	Inlet pressure vs rating	Raise to rated or replace
Pattern off-centre	Debris on one side	Visual and tray check	Clean; replace if it returns

Every pattern complaint is the orifice being wrong for the target. Change the nozzle, not the pressure.

FAQ

Q: Can I change the pattern with pressure? A: No. Pressure scales the size and droplet, not the shape. A fan stays a fan, a cone stays a cone. Change the pattern by changing the nozzle.

Q: Full cone or hollow cone for dust suppression? A: Full cone. You want an even round patch of coarse drops. Hollow cone leaves the centre dry, which is wrong for a pile you’re wetting.

Q: Why does my “cone” look like a stream? A: Pressure too low for the orifice, or the swirl chamber is worn/blocked. The liquid exits without swirling → a jet. Raise pressure (within rating) or replace the tip.

Q: Flat fan or cone for a spray booth? A: Depends on the part. Flat fan for a flat panel, cone (full) for a 3D part you need to wrap. The surface geometry decides.

Q: Is mist a pattern? A: It’s a diffuse one, a cloud, not a shape. Use it when wetting the air (cooling, humidity) beats wetting a surface.

Pattern by Industry: What Each Sector Actually Buys

The pattern families sort themselves by sector:

Food & beverage (CIP, bottle rinse): full cone and rotary for tank and bottle cleaning; the even round patch is the hygiene. See tank-cleaning-nozzles.
Agriculture: flat fans on the boom for broadcast, hollow cones for canopy penetration; the pattern follows the crop. See agricultural-nozzles.
Metal & coating: flat fans for even film, air atomisers for fine drop control. See spray-gun-nozzles and air-atomizing-nozzles.
Dust & environment: wide-angle full cones at low pressure for piles; misting for airborne dust. See misting-nozzles.
Combustion: hollow and solid cones for burners; the pattern is the flame. See oil-burner-nozzles.
Irrigation: rotor cones for turf, micro for benches; the pattern is the precipitation rate. See sprinkler-nozzles.

Each sector is the same four patterns with a different favourite. The pattern language is universal; only the duty changes.

Worked Example: Picking a Pattern

A food plant needs to rinse the inside of a 2 m tank every cycle.

Target, the inside of a volume → a cone, and it must be even → full cone (not hollow, the centre must wet).
Coverage: a 2 m diameter needs either a static ball (fixed pattern) or a rotary (rotating full cone). For a CIP cycle with cleaning chemical, a rotary full-cone covers the whole wall as it turns.
Fluid: caustic CIP solution → 316L body, free passage large enough for the line.
Result: even wall wetting, validated by a riboflavin test.

The pattern decision (full cone, rotary) was made before any flow number. The nozzle for it is then sized by tank size and cycle time. Pattern first, numbers second.

The Physics: Why Pressure Can’t Change the Pattern

Pressure changes two things about a spray: the size of the pattern (a fan opens wider, a cone throws further) and the droplet (finer at higher pressure). It does not change the kind of pattern. A flat fan at 1 bar is still a flat fan at 5 bar, just wider and finer.

This is why a worn orifice is a pattern failure, not a pressure one: when the slit erodes, the band distorts and the edges thin, and only a new orifice brings the pattern back. The pattern lives in the metal, not the line.

Mistakes to Avoid

Raising pressure to “fix” a pattern: it only scales the size; a stripe stays a stripe. Change the nozzle.
Hollow cone where you need even cover: the dry centre shows up on the part. Full cone for even patches.
Jet on a broad surface: you get a line, not a wash. Fan or multi-jet.
Mist in moving air: it drifts off-target. Calm air or coarser drops.
Ignoring the orifice when sizing: the pattern is the orifice; pick the family first, then the flow.

Nozzle Shape and Pattern: The Geometry in Brief

The physical shape of the nozzle tip is a shorthand for the pattern:

A slotted tip → flat fan. The slot’s length is the band width axis.
A round tip with internal swirl → cone. The swirl direction sets full vs hollow.
A plain round tip → jet. Nothing inside disturbs the stream.
A tip with an air cap → atomised cone or mist. The air does the shearing.

You can often tell the pattern from the tip without running it. That is useful on a stripped-down line where the only label left is the shape.

Selection Checklist (Print This)

Target identified: surface / volume / point / air
Pattern chosen: fan / full cone / hollow cone / jet / mist
Even or ring decided (full vs hollow cone)
Droplet class set for the result (impact / film / fine drop)
Fluid checked: clean / gritty / viscous / chemistry
Nozzle sized for flow and pressure (after the pattern)
Internal links reviewed: pattern → matching product page

The Pattern Is the Decision, the Nozzle Is the Tool

Spray pattern is the first and most important choice in any nozzle job, because it is the only thing that decides what gets wet. Flow, pressure and droplet size all refine the result, but a fan cannot become a cone, and a jet cannot become a mist. Pick the pattern for the target, size the nozzle for the duty, and the coverage is right the first time.

See all pattern families on our products page, or send your duty conditions and we’ll specify the nozzle.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which spray pattern should I choose for a flat surface? Match the pattern to the target, not the fluid. A flat surface takes a flat fan, a volume takes a full cone, a point takes a solid jet, and open air takes a mist. Overlap tapered fans by about 50% for an even band; the flat fan header layout guide covers the spacing.

Does higher pressure make the droplets smaller? Pressure does make droplets finer, but it is a weak lever. Doubling tip pressure from 3 to 6 bar cuts mean droplet size by roughly 20 to 30%. Orifice geometry and air assist move droplet size further. See the droplet size calculation guide.

The Bottom Line

A spray pattern is the shape the liquid makes, flat fan, cone (full or hollow), jet, or mist, and it is set by the orifice, not the pressure. Pick the pattern for the target (surface, volume, point, air), then size the nozzle for flow and pressure. The pattern is the first decision in every nozzle job; get it right and everything else is arithmetic.

See the pattern families on our products page, or send your duty to the enquiry form and we’ll specify the nozzle. For the water-duty shortlist across those patterns, the industrial water spray nozzles guide compares the same families by coverage and flow.