The implementation of high-pressure oxy-fired systems presents unique challenges to burner and combustor design. For the same throughput as an atmospheric or low-pressure system, high-pressure reactors have a much smaller footprint, and consequently the injectors, mixers, and combustion chambers are reduced in size. Adequate burner performance, heat dissipation, and solids handling are therefore challenging, especially at the pilot scale. CanmetENERGY-Ottawa has developed an 80-barg pilot test facility for the development of a range of applications, including high-pressure gasification and combustion. As part of this endeavor, an optically accessible cold-flow rig was designed and built to replicate the geometry of the pilot-scale combustor. This article presents the layout of this 80-barg optically accessible vessel and results of a test program that examined sprays produced by three effervescent atomizers. Techniques applied to the near-injector region of the spray included laser sheet imaging (LSI), particle image velocimetry (PIV), and phase Doppler anemometry (PDA). The effect of spray configuration, water flow, nozzle diameter, and ambient pressure were studied. Cone angle, successfully measured with LSI, varied between approximate to 4 degrees and 16 degrees. Both PIV and PDA successfully provided velocity measurements throughout the flow field. Relationships between droplet velocity and location were recorded. Droplet size at a fixed measurement plane was affected most by the velocity of the bulk mixture at the orifice exit. Results of this study provide insight into the robustness of the injectors and the potential effect of deviations from target operating conditions on burner performance for the pilot-scale system. The results provide necessary input data for computational fluid dynamics models of the system in both cold and hot cases.