Characterization of the evaporation of interacting droplets using combined optical techniques

Abstract

A monodisperse droplet stream is injected into a high-temperature enclosure supplied with air heated up to 540 °C. The two-color laser-induced fluorescence (2cLIF) is used for measuring the droplet temperature. The liquid fuel is seeded by pyrromethene 597-C8, which is a temperature-sensitive fluorescent dye. Calibration tests are performed for different types of fuels including ethanol and several alkanes and some of their mixtures. Morphology-dependent resonances (MDRs) are identified as a possible adverse effect for temperature measurements. Due to MDRs, lasing of pyrromethene 597-C8 may occur within fluorescent droplets and affect drastically the fluorescence signal upon which temperature measurement relies. The determination of the droplet size and velocity is achieved by means of quantitative shadow imaging. A double cavity PIV laser is focused on a piece of PMMA doped with a fluorescent dye to produce the background illumination of the droplets. A PIV camera is used to capture the drop motion between the pulses of the laser cavities. A large range of initial distance parameters (the ratio between the inter-droplet distance and the droplet diameter) is explored for different liquid fuels (ethanol, isohexane, n-heptane, n-decane, n-dodecane) and their mixtures. To put forward the effects of the interactions between the droplets, size and temperature measurements are compared to the isolated droplet whose evolution can be predicted with the use of classical models. Comparisons reveal that the inter-droplet spacing and also the fuel volatility play an important role in the reduction of the heat and mass transfers for these interacting droplets. Finally, the ability of the 2cLIF techniques to address the case of multicomponent droplet is also demonstrated.