New insight into air/spray boundary interaction for diesel and biodiesel fuels under different fuel temperatures

Abstract

The liquid fuel breakup mechanism in spray injection with ambient air for diesel and biodiesel at different fuel temperatures is studied numerically. We find that biodiesel fuel type injection with low fuel temperature induces more air entrainment volume to the boundary of the spray than diesel fuel injection and higher fuel temperature. Meanwhile, the normalized parcel density for biodiesel is 12% larger than that of diesel and peaks at a shorter distance along the spray line from the injection point (42 vs. 46 mm). Biodiesel fuel demonstrates a maximum 0.395 mg/s of air mass flow while diesel max mass flow is 0.279 mg/s. As a result, the air entrainment volume of biodiesel to the moving spray area at 1.4 ms reaches 3723.98 mm³ while for diesel the amount is 3151.27 mm³. However, the absorbed y-direction air velocity into the spray core for diesel fuel is dominant. The results give new insights into air exchange to spray boundary in the near nozzle and spray tip area: towards the tip of spray the air pushout is remarkable. Higher fuel temperature leads to slightly lower air exchange flow and entrainment (5.2%), cone angle reduction from 300 to 325 K fuel temperature, and increased surface area:volume ratio for diesel.

Keywords:

• Air entrainment
• biodiesel spray
• fuel temperature
• mass flow rate
• spray–air interaction

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.