The disintegration of turbulent liquid jets in gases, a process termed turbulent primary breakup, has many industrial applications, especially in liquid injection systems whose injector internal flow results in enhanced turbulence generation. An investigation was carried out by using X-ray diagnostics at the Advanced Photon Source (APS) facility of Argonne National Laboratory on two injectors with a smooth entry followed by round passage with different length-to-diameter ratios of 10 and 40, operating at the same injection speed. The test matrix was designed to eliminate cavitation and to isolate the effect of length/diameter ratio of the injector passage and to determine the importance of jet turbulence compared to aerodynamic forces. The X-ray diagnostics used allowed the surface and internal topography of liquid jets to be visualized and the spatial distribution of the surface ligaments to be revealed in the near-injector region. The present results show that the separation distance between a ligament and its neighbors depends on the ligament sizes, and the injector length/diameter ratio affects the rates of breakup. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.