Comparison of Near-Nozzle Spray Performance of Gas-to-Liquid and Jet A-1 Fuels Using Shadowgraph and Phase Doppler Anemometry

2018 ◽  
Vol 140 (7) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kumaran Kannaiyan ◽  
Reza Sadr

The gas-to-liquid (GTL) fuel, a liquid fuel synthesized from natural gas through Fischer–Tropsch process, exhibits better combustion and, in turn, lower emission characteristics than the conventional jet fuels. However, the GTL fuel has different fuel properties than those of regular jet fuels, which could potentially affect its atomization and combustion aspects. The objective of the present work is to investigate the near-nozzle atomization characteristics of GTL fuel and compare them with those of the conventional Jet A-1 fuel. The spray experiments are conducted at different nozzle operating conditions under standard ambient conditions. The near-nozzle macroscopic spray characteristics are determined from the shadowgraph images. Near the nozzle exit, a thorough statistical analysis shows that the liquid sheet dynamics of GTL fuel is different from that of Jet A-1 fuel. However, further downstream, the microscopic spray characteristics of GTL fuel are comparable to those of the Jet A-1 fuel.

Author(s):  
Katharina Warncke ◽  
Amsini Sadiki ◽  
Max Staufer ◽  
Christian Hasse ◽  
Johannes Janicka

Abstract Predicting details of aircraft engine combustion by means of numerical simulations requires reliable information about spray characteristics from liquid fuel injection. However, details of liquid fuel injection are not well documented. Indeed, standard droplet distributions are usually utilized in Euler-Lagrange simulations of combustion. Typically, airblast injectors are employed to atomize the liquid fuel by feeding a thin liquid film in the shear zone between two swirled air flows. Unfortunately, droplet data for the wide range of operating conditions during a flight is not available. Focusing on numerical simulations, Direct Numerical simulations (DNS) of full nozzle designs are nowadays out of scope. Reducing numerical costs, but still considering the full nozzle flow, the embedded DNS methodology (eDNS) has been introduced within a Volume of Fluid framework (Sauer et al., Atomization and Sprays, vol. 26, pp. 187–215, 2016). Thereby, DNS domain is kept as small as possible by reducing it to the primary breakup zone. It is then embedded in a Large Eddy Simulation (LES) of the turbulent nozzle flow. This way, realistic turbulent scales of the nozzle flow are included, when simulating primary breakup. Previous studies of a generic atomizer configuration proved that turbulence in the gaseous flow has significant impact on liquid disintegration and should be included in primary breakup simulations (Warncke et al., ILASS Europe, Paris, 2019). In this contribution, an industrial airblast atomizer is numerically investigated for the first time using the eDNS approach. The complete nozzle geometry is simulated, considering all relevant features of the flow. Three steps are necessary: 1. LES of the gaseous nozzle flow until a statistically stationary flow is reached. 2. Position and refinement of the DNS domain. Due to the annular nozzle design the DNS domain is chosen as a ring. It comprises the atomizing edge, where the liquid is brought between inner and outer air flow, and the downstream primary breakup zone. 3. Start of liquid fuel injection and primary breakup simulation. Since the simulation of the two-phase DNS and the LES of the surrounding nozzle flow are conducted at the same time, turbulent scales of the gas flow are directly transferred to the DNS domain. The applicability of eDNS to full nozzle designs is demonstrated and details of primary breakup at the nozzle outlet are presented. In particular a discussion of the phenomenological breakup process and spray characteristics is provided.


Energies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (15) ◽  
pp. 2890 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sparacino ◽  
Berni ◽  
d’Adamo ◽  
Krastev ◽  
Cavicchi ◽  
...  

The scientific literature focusing on the numerical simulation of fuel sprays is rich in atomization and secondary break-up models. However, it is well known that the predictive capability of even the most diffused models is affected by the combination of injection parameters and operating conditions, especially backpressure. In this paper, an alternative atomization strategy is proposed for the 3D-Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation of Gasoline Direct Injection (GDI) sprays, aiming at extending simulation predictive capabilities over a wider range of operating conditions. In particular, attention is focused on the effects of back pressure, which has a remarkable impact on both the morphology and the sizing of GDI sprays. 3D-CFD Lagrangian simulations of two different multi-hole injectors are presented. The first injector is a 5-hole GDI prototype unit operated at ambient conditions. The second one is the well-known Spray G, characterized by a higher back pressure (up to 0.6 MPa). Numerical results are compared against experiments in terms of liquid penetration and Phase Doppler Anemometry (PDA) data of droplet sizing/velocity and imaging. CFD results are demonstrated to be highly sensitive to spray vessel pressure, mainly because of the atomization strategy. The proposed alternative approach proves to strongly reduce such dependency. Moreover, in order to further validate the alternative primary break-up strategy adopted for the initialization of the droplets, an internal nozzle flow simulation is carried out on the Spray G injector, able to provide information on the characteristic diameter of the liquid column exiting from the nozzle.


Author(s):  
Mohamed Soltan ◽  
Buthaina Al Abdulla ◽  
AlReem Al Dosari ◽  
Kumaran Kannaiyan ◽  
Reza Sadr

Dispersion of nanoparticles in pure fuels alters their key fuel physical properties, which could affect their atomization process, and in turn, their combustion and emission characteristics in a combustion chamber. Therefore, it is essential to have a thorough knowledge of the atomization characteristics of nanofuels (nanoparticles dispersed in pure fuels) to better understand their latter processes. This serves as the motivation for the present work, which attempts to gain a good understanding of the atomization process of the alternative, gas-to-liquid (GTL), jet fuel based nanofuels. The macroscopic spray characteristics such as spray cone angle, liquid sheet breakup, and liquid sheet velocity are determined by employing shadowgraph imaging technique. The effect of nanoparticles weight concentration and ambient pressures on the spray characteristics are investigated in a high pressure-high temperature constant volume spray rig. To this end, a pressure swirl nozzle with an exit diameter of 0.8 mm is used to atomize the fuels. The macroscopic spray results demonstrate that the nanoparticles dispersion at low concentrations affect the near nozzle region. The spray liquid sheet breakup distance is reduced by the presence of nanoparticle due to the early onset of disruption in the liquid sheet. Consequently, the liquid sheet velocity in that spray region is higher for nanofuels when compared to that of pure fuels. Also, the ambient pressure has a significant effect on the spray features as reported in the literature.


Author(s):  
Ramachandran Sakthikumar ◽  
Deivandren Sivakumar ◽  
B. N. Raghunandan ◽  
John T. C. Hu

Search for potential alternative jet fuels is intensified in recent years to meet stringent environmental regulations imposed to tackle degraded air quality caused by fossil fuel combustion. The present study describes atomization characteristics of blends of jatropha-derived biofuel with conventional aviation kerosene (Jet A-1) discharging into ambient atmospheric air from a dual-orifice atomizer used in aircraft engines. The biofuel blends are characterized in detail and meet current ASTM D7566 specifications. The experiments are conducted by discharging fuel spray into quiescent atmospheric air in a fuel spray booth to measure spray characteristics such as fuel discharge behavior, spray cone angle, drop size distribution and spray patternation at six different flow conditions. The characteristics of spray cone angle are obtained by capturing images of spray and the measurements of spray drop size distribution are obtained using laser diffraction particle analyzer (LDPA). A mechanical patternator system comprising 144 measurement cells is used to deduce spray patternation at different location from the injector exit. A systematic comparison on the atomization characteristics between the sprays of biofuel blends and the 100% Jet A-1 is presented. The measured spray characteristics of jatropha-derived alternative jet fuels follow the trends obtained for Jet A-1 sprays satisfactorily both in qualitative and quantitative terms.


Author(s):  
Kumaran Kannaiyan ◽  
Reza Sadr

Abstract In recent years, Gas-to-Liquid (GTL) jet fuel is considered as an alternative jet fuel because of its cleaner combustion characteristics. The chemical and physical properties of GTL fuels are different from those of the conventional jet fuels. The objective of the present work is to investigate the effect of ambient conditions and fuel volatilization characteristics on the macroscopic spray features. To this end, the macroscopic spray performance is visualized using the shadowgraph imaging technique at elevated ambient conditions. The near nozzle spray parameters like spray cone angle, sheet breakup length, and the sheet velocity, are determined from the shadowgraph images using an in-house program. The effect of ambient conditions on the near nozzle spray characteristics for conventional fuels has been reported in the literature. However, these effects have not been reported in detail for the alternative, GTL jet fuels. The results show that the ambient gas pressure has a significant effect on the spray performance when compared to that of the ambient gas temperature. At atmospheric conditions, the spray performance of GTL fuel is comparable to those of Jet A-1 fuel. However, with the increase in ambient conditions, the difference in spray performance of GTL and Jet A-1 is significant.


Author(s):  
Manish Kumar ◽  
Srinibas Karmakar ◽  
Sonu Kumar ◽  
Saptarshi Basu

Potential alternative fuels that can mitigate environmental pollution from gas turbine engines (due to steep growth in the aviation sector globally) are getting significant attention. Spray behavior plays a significant role in influencing the combustion performance of such alternative fuels. In the present study, spray characteristics of Kerosene-based fuel (Jet A-1) and alternative aviation fuels such as butyl butyrate, butanol, and their blends with Jet A-1 are investigated using an air-blast atomizer under different atomizing air-to-fuel ratios. Phase Doppler Interferometry has been employed to obtain the droplet size and velocity distribution of various fuels. A high-speed shadowgraphy technique has also been adopted to make a comparison of ligament breakup characteristics and droplet formation of these alternative biofuels with that of Jet A-1. An effort is made to understand how the variation in fuel properties (mainly viscosity) influences atomization. Due to the higher viscosity of butanol, the SMD is higher, and the droplet formation seems to be delayed compared to Jet A-1. In contrast, the lower viscosity of butyl butyrate promotes faster droplet formation. The effects of the blending of these biofuels with Jet A-1 on atomization characteristics are also compared with that of Jet A-1.


Author(s):  
Amirul A Ahmad ◽  
Mohammad N M Jaafar ◽  
Norazila B Othman ◽  
Anis A M Azli ◽  
Mazlan Said ◽  
...  

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