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Experimental investigation on droplet evaporation characteristics during combustion of future and current aviation fuels with range of properties

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 May 2023

L. Zheng
Affiliation:
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Nanjing Institute of Technology, Nanjing, Jiangsu, China
C. Wei
Affiliation:
Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL, USA
Y. Zhang
Affiliation:
Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK
B. Khandelwal*
Affiliation:
Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL, USA
*
Corresponding author: B. Khandelwal; Email: bhupendra.khandelwal@gmail.com
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Abstract

Currently there is lack of knowledge on how new types of alternative fuels and their storage conditions change the droplet evaporation characteristics. Liquid fuel is commonly stored in wide varieties of containers, where fuel characteristics may change because of the exposure to the material of the container. This study evaluates the impact of different storage containers on droplet evaporation characteristics of different fuels. It was found that there is a distinct phase transition between high volatility to low volatility phase in each fuel stored in steel drums verses fuel that is stored in plastic drums. The type of fuel contaminated by polymer additive has a high impact on fuel droplet burn rates. Polymer additives also have an impact on nucleate boiling, sub-droplets and soot particles. The burning rate constant, K, of selected pure aromatics, various fuel mixtures and Jet A with different cetane numbers have been evaluated. Research has shown that in the low volatility combustion phase a trend reduction of lowest boiling point pure aromatic burning rate to the highest boiling point pure aromatic burning rate is obvious. Irregular change in droplet diameter between the high volatility phase and low volatility phase during the combustion of aromatics blend was observed. This work has also evaluated the relationship between burning rates and cetane numbers.

Information

Type
Research Article
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Royal Aeronautical Society
Figure 0

Figure 1. (a) The original image of droplet and fibre with fixed size; (b) Morphological binary image of droplet.

Figure 1

Table 1. Camera setting and spatial resolution data

Figure 2

Figure 2. Binary fuel droplet phases throughout its lifetime during combustion process based on D2-law analysis.

Figure 3

Table 2. Description of combustion phases in the combustion process of binary fuel droplet

Figure 4

Figure 3. Experimental setup in high-speed imaging of fuel droplet combustion.

Figure 5

Table 3. Fuel stored in steel drum and fuel stored in plastic drum

Figure 6

Figure 4. Test fuel batches: plastic (left), steel (right).

Figure 7

Table 4. Aromatics fuel samples

Figure 8

Table 5. Various multicomponent fuels and Jet A with different cetane number

Figure 9

Figure 5. Evolution of diameter square of fuel stored in steel drum and fuel stored in plastic drum for (a) AR-1A, (b) AR-1B, (c) AR-1C and (d) A2.

Figure 10

Figure 6. Burning rate constant, K in high volatility combustion phase (P2) of fuel stored in steel drum and fuel stored in plastic drum. The error bars show standard deviation.

Figure 11

Figure 7. Burning rate constant, K in low volatility combustion phase (P4) of fuel stored in steel drum and fuel stored in plastic drum. The error bars show standard deviation.

Figure 12

Figure 8. Liquid phases of fuel stored in steel drum and fuel stored in plastic drum in low volatility combustion phase.

Figure 13

Figure 9. Evolution of diameter square of pure aromatics and bannersol.

Figure 14

Figure 10. Different aromatic species droplet phases throughout its lifetime during combustion process based on D2-law analysis.

Figure 15

Figure 11. Burning rate of pure aromatics and bannersol. Error bars show standard deviation.

Figure 16

Figure 12. Evolution of squared diameter of various multicomponent fuels and cetane number of Jet A.

Figure 17

Figure 13. Burning rate of various multicomponent and cetane number of Jet A. The error bars show standard deviation.