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Effect of Varying Internal Geometry on the Near-Field Spray Characteristics of a Swirl Burst Injector

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Abstract

Clean and efficient combustion of liquid fuels depends on spray fineness that aids fast fuel vaporization and better fuel–air mixing. Swirl-burst (SB) atomizers generate fine droplets at the injector exit rather than typical jet cores as seen in the conventional atomizers. It integrates the primary breakup by bubble bursting of the Flow Blurring (FB) atomization, and secondary atomization by Rayleigh–Taylor instabilities between the swirling atomizing air and liquid phase. Thus, SB atomization has achieved clean lean-premixed flames of fuels with distinct properties involving diesel and straight oils around fifteen times more viscous. This study gains insights into the effect of the varying internal geometry, H/D ratio, on the atomization process and quantitatively investigates these effects on the near-field spray characteristics of SB injectors using high-spatial-resolution Shadowgraph Imaging Technique (SIT) and particle image velocimetry (PIV) for water sprays. Results acquired by SIT show that the Sauter Mean Diameter (SMD) of the droplets decrease with the reducing H/D ratio. The PIV measurements quantitatively reveal that atomization completion length decreases as the H/D ratio is lowered. Weber number analysis signifies that mostly vibrational and occasionally bag breakup dominates the secondary atomization for all the three H/D ratios. Results also reveal the high scalability of SB concept and its doubled atomization efficiency compared to FB injection.

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Abbreviations

AEO:

Annual energy outlook

AB:

Air blast

PS:

Pressure swirl

EA:

Effervescent atomization

FB:

Flow blurring

SMD:

Sauter mean diameter

SB:

Swirl burst

RMS:

Root mean square

Oh:

Ohnesorge number

We:

Weber number

SN:

Swirl number

AA:

Atomizing air

ALR:

Air to liquid ratio

SIT:

Shadowgraph imaging technique

SSA:

Size shape analysis

PIV:

Particle image velocimetry

FOV:

Field of view

SNR:

Signal to noise ratio

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Acknowledgements

This research was funded by the Louisiana Board of Regents—NASA EPSCoR Research Award Program (RAP), Contract No. LEQSFEPS (2017)-RAP-24. The authors also appreciate Dr. Oladapo S. Akinyemi for his assistance during data collection for the experiments. Also, gratitude is towards Vu Danh for sharing his MATLAB code used in the SMD calculation. We are highly grateful to Drs. Alan Barhost, Peng Yin and Yonas Niguse at University of Louisiana at Lafayette for proof-reading the article.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Lafayette, LA, 70503, USA

    Md. Nayer Nasim, Imtiaz Qavi & Lulin Jiang

  2. Department of Industrial, Manufacturing and Systems Engineering, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX, 79409, USA

    Imtiaz Qavi

  3. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Baylor University, One Bear Place #97356, Waco, TX, 76798-7356, USA

    Lulin Jiang

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The corresponding author, LJ, conceived, designed, and supervised the experiment, discussed the results, and significantly participated in the manuscript writing and editing. LJ was also responsible for funding acquisition and resources. NN designed and carried out the experiment, analyzed the data, and wrote the manuscript. IQ conducted the simulation and participated in writing. All authors reviewed the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Lulin Jiang.

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Nasim, M.N., Qavi, I. & Jiang, L. Effect of Varying Internal Geometry on the Near-Field Spray Characteristics of a Swirl Burst Injector. Flow Turbulence Combust 111, 641–674 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10494-023-00441-2

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