An experimental liquid fuel LDI combustor, developed to study thermoacoustic instability processes and to test active combustion control systems, was found to demonstrate three distinct stability regimes, with system characteristics not reported in earlier literature. These observations led to a series of further investigations, both in reactive and non-reactive conditions, to gain an insight into effects of combustor acoustics on fuel spray dynamics. This paper presents only the non-reacting flow results, from both experimental and modeling investigations. The experimental setup and construction details of an isothermal acoustic rig are presented. Phase-locked PDA measurements of droplet velocities and diameters from a simplex atomizer spray were acquired, with and without combustor swirl co-airflow, under varying acoustic forcing conditions and spray feed pressures. Measurements made at four locations in the spray are related, in the paper, to these variations in mean and unsteady inputs. The dynamic behavior of the spray is then presented in terms of frequency response characteristics related to acoustic fields imposed on the spray. Finally, results from non-reacting spray modeling, predicting droplet trajectories, are reported. The modeling was done using the deterministic separated flow approach. These trajectories are compared to the reported experimental results to support preliminary explanations for the unique experimental observations of the swirl-stabilized kerosene flame in a single can combustor geometry.Copyright © 2004 by ASME