Open Access

ARTICLE

INVESTIGATION ON THE EFFECT OF INJECTION PRESSURES ON THE SPRAY CHARACTERISTICS FOR DIETHYL ETHER AND DIESEL FUEL AT DIFFERENT CHAMBER TEMPERATURES

Vijayakumar Thulasi, R. Thundil Karuppa Raj^*

School of Mechanical Engineering, VIT, Vellore, 632014, India

* Corresponding Author: Email:

Frontiers in Heat and Mass Transfer 2018, 10, 1-9. https://doi.org/10.5098/hmt.10.33

Abstract

Diethyl ether is one of the potential alternative fuels for the high speed compression ignition engines that can replace the existing neat diesel fuel. It is well known that the combustion characteristic of a compression ignition engine is highly influenced by the fuel spray structure formed during the injection process. In this paper the spray structure formation for the diethyl ether fuel is studied numerically, using the discrete phase model and it is compared with the neat diesel fuel. The spray is investigated in a constant volume chamber maintained at 30 bar pressure. The fuel is injected into the chamber at an injection pressure of 200 bar and 400 bar. The chamber temperatures are maintained at 500 K and 800 K to simulate the vaporizing and non-vaporizing conditions for the spray. The injection duration is for 3 milliseconds. The depth of penetration, the liquid length formed, the Sauter Mean Diameter of the droplets and the distribution of droplets across the spray are studied and compared for the diethyl ether and diesel fuels. The simulated results have shown that the spray penetration and liquid length for the diethyl ether fuel is reduced when compared to diesel fuel at all injection pressures and chamber temperatures. The Sauter Mean Diameter of the ether fuel is found to be decreasing as the injection pressure is increased which is in the similar trend as that of the diesel fuel.

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Keywords

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