Schlieren and mie-scattering visualization of an evaporating spray under marine diesel engine conditions

Abstract

Due to the critical influence on combustion, extensive research has been carried out to deepen the understanding of diesel spray evolution. However, for the greater share of land-based diesel engines, most of the studies have focused on the injectors with small nozzle diameter and rare studies can be found on marine diesel engines, which has a larger mass flow rate and longer injection duration with large nozzle diameter. In this study, the influence of injection pressure, ambient temperature, ambient density and nozzle diameter on spray morphology for medium speed marine diesel engine injectors (with nozzle diameter up to 0.53 mm) were investigated under various non-reacting but evaporative conditions. The experiments were performed via a highly enhanced constant volume chamber (highest temperature of 900 K and highest pressure of 8 MPa) with an optical window diameter of 205 mm. Liquid and vapor penetration of sprays were recorded by Mie-scattering and schlieren optical configurations respectively. Results show that the vapor penetration velocity is mainly affected by injection pressure. Ambient temperature has the most significant effect on liquid penetration length, but less effect can be found on the vapor penetration velocity. Given the obvious deviation from heavy duty engine sprays, the empirical correlations for liquid penetration length and vapor spray evolution are updated to fit the spray characteristics of medium speed marine diesel engine injectors, which is helpful to understand the spray behavior for large nozzle diameter injector under marine diesel engine conditions.