Experimental study of the effect of various collision angles and critical conditions on marine engine’s twin-spray collision process

Abstract

To enhance the fuel-gas mixing and phase transition process, the fuel is injected by twin injectors in a large-bore low-speed two-stroke marine engine, while the cylinder condition has reached the transcritical and supercritical conditions. The twin-injector configuration has a great potential for further optimization, but the exploration on the outcome of collision and phase transition was still limited. Therefore, this work aims to study the effect of various collision angles (60°, 90°, 120°, 150°) and critical conditions (sub/trans/supercritical) on the twin-spray collision process using optical techniques. A wide range of experimental cases are conducted to provide an analysis and database for future modeling validation. The post-collisional spray structures, spatial distribution, and periphery features are analyzed to characterize the droplet’s collision. The results show that with the collision angle increasing, the higher collision velocity enhances the mass transfer while the minor vertical component results in a smaller axial dispersion. Because of the trade-off relationship between the vertical velocity component and pre-collision penetration, a higher reduction in droplet momentum results in a slighter collision behavior. At the collision angle of 150°, the subcritical condition tends to result in an off-axis collision. Under the transcritical (P) condition, the probability of head-on collision increases and presents a wider spatial distribution. But under the supercritical condition, because of the existence of the liquid collision, the thermal conversion among phases is accelerated, while the ambient resistance is reduced. Moreover, an exponential correlation of collision liquid length is formulated to predict the axial dispersion based on various critical conditions.