Novel method for the measurement of liquid film thickness during fuel spray impingement on surfaces

This paper describes the development and application of a novel optical technique for the measurement of liquid film thickness formed on surfaces during the impingement of automotive fuel sprays. The technique makes use of the change of the light scattering characteristics of a metal surface with known roughness, when liquid is deposited. Important advantages of the technique over previously established methods are the ability to measure the time-dependent spatial distribution of the liquid film without a need to add a fluorescent tracer to the liquid, while the measurement principle is not influenced by changes of the pressure and temperature of the liquid or the surrounding gas phase. Also, there is no need for non-fluorescing surrogate fuels. However, an in situ calibration of the dependence of signal intensity on liquid film thickness is required. The developed method can be applied to measure the time-dependent and two-dimensional distribution of the liquid fuel film thickness on the piston or the liner of gasoline direct injection (GDI) engines. The applicability of this technique was evaluated with impinging sprays of several linear alkanes and alcohols with different thermo-physical properties. The surface temperature of the impingement plate was controlled to simulate the range of piston surface temperatures inside a GDI engine. Two sets of liquid film thickness measurements were obtained. During the first set, the surface temperature of the plate was kept constant, while the spray of different fuels interacted with the surface. In the second set, the plate temperature was adjusted to match the boiling temperature of each fuel. In this way, the influence of the surface temperature on the liquid film created by the spray of different fuels and their evaporation characteristics could be demonstrated

Comparative flame structure investigation of normal and inverse turbulent non-premixed oxy-fuel flames using experimentally recorded and numerically predicted Rayleigh and OH-PLIF signals

The structure and characteristics of a turbulent inverse and normal oxy-fuel diffusion flame are investigated. Previous investigations reported in the literature looked at flame characteristics of laminar inverse diffusion flames and their differences to normal diffusion flames. Only few investigations are reported for turbulent inverse diffusion flames and they did not compare the results to the corresponding normal configuration. The present study uses a combined experimental and numerical approach to compare and analyze a turbulent non-premixed inverse oxy-fuel and a corresponding normal flame, both are non-piloted. Measurements were conducted using simultaneously recorded planar Rayleigh scattering and OH-LIF signals. Due to the significant variation of the effective Rayleigh cross section in mixture fraction space and the unknown OH quenching contributions, a comparison of derived quantities such as temperature and OH mole fraction is not possible. Therefore, the Rayleigh and OH-LIF signals were incorporated in the LES flamelet/progress variable approach used here. This allows for a direct comparison of experimentally recorded and numerically predicted Rayleigh and OH-PLIF signals for the flame structure analysis, which includes the joint PDF of both quantities. The two flames are compared in terms of the local flame structure. In addition, differences in the mixing field and especially in the location of turbulent/non-turbulent interface are investigated

Planar measurements of spray-induced wall cooling using phosphor thermometry

The wall cooling induced by spray impingement is investigated using phosphor thermometry. Thin coatings of zinc oxide (ZnO) phosphor were applied with a transparent chemical binder onto a steel surface. Instantaneous spatially resolved temperatures were determined using the spectral intensity ratio method directly after the injection of UV-grade hexane onto the surface using a commercial gasoline injector. The investigations showed that 2D temperature measurements with high spatial and shot-to-shot precision of, respectively, 0.5 and 0.6 K can be achieved, allowing the accurate resolution of the cooling induced by the spray. The presence of a liquid film over the phosphor coating during measurements showed no noticeable influence on the measured temperatures. However, in some cases a change in the intensity ratio at the spray impingement area, in the form of a permanent “stain”, could be observed after multiple injections. The formation of this stain was less likely with increasing annealing time of the coating as well as lower plate operating temperatures during the injection experiments. Finally, the experimental results indicate a noticeable influence of the thickness of the phosphor coating on the measured spray-induced wall cooling history. Hence, for quantitative analysis, a compromise between coating thickness and measurement accuracy needs to be considered for similar applications where the heat transfer rates are very high

Simultaneous kHz-rate temperature and velocity field measurements in the flow emanating from angled and trenched film cooling holes

AbstractTo design more efficient film cooling geometries for gas turbines, non-intrusive measurements of the flow temperature, velocity and derived quantities like the turbulent heat flux are needed in well-defined, generic flow configurations. With this aim we have applied thermographic particle image velocimetry (thermographic PIV) to investigate the flow emanating from angled and trenched cooling holes in a closed-loop optically-accessible wind tunnel facility. BAM:Eu2+ thermographic phosphor particles were seeded into the flow as a tracer. A pulsed high-speed UV laser was used to excite the particles and the luminescence was detected using two high-speed cameras to determine the temperature field by a two-colour ratiometric approach. The velocity field was measured using ordinary high-speed PIV. The simultaneously measured fields were sampled at a rate of 6kHz in a vertical plane through the centreline of the symmetrical single-row cooling holes. The flowrate and temperature of the cooling air and heated main flow were chosen to achieve density and momentum flux ratios of 1.6 and 8 respectively. For these conditions the average and RMS temperature fields show that for ordinary angled holes the jet is detached from the surface. In contrast, the trenched geometry leads to a cooling film attached to the surface. However, time-resolved image sequences show instances where hot air breaks through the cooling film and almost reaches the surface. Similar image sequences for the angled holes show that the detached coolant jet becomes unstable downstream and pockets of cold air are ejected into the main flow. This intermittency may in part explain the observation that the measured turbulent heat flux is oriented towards the cold core, but deviates from the direction of the mean temperature gradient, thereby contradicting the simple gradient diffusion hypothesis commonly used in RANS simulations

Thermographic laser Doppler velocimetry using the phase-shifted luminescence of BAM:Eu2+ phosphor particles for thermometry

Simultaneous point measurements of gas velocity and temperature were recently demonstrated using thermographic phosphors as tracer particles. There, continuous wave (CW) excitation was used and the spectral shift of the luminescence was detected with a two-colour intensity ratio method to determine the gas temperature. The conventional laser Doppler velocimetry (LDV) technique was employed for velocimetry. In this paper, an alternative approach to the gas temperature measurements is presented, which is instead based on the temperature-dependence of the luminescence lifetime. The phase-shift between the luminescence signal and time-modulated excitation light is evaluated for single BaMgAl10O17:Eu2+ phosphor particles as they cross the probe volume. Luminescence lifetimes evaluated in the time domain and frequency domain indicate that in these experiments, interferences from in-phase signals such as stray excitation laser light are negligible. The dependence of the phase-shift on flow temperature is characterised. In the temperature sensitive range above 700 K, precise gas temperature measurements can be obtained (8.6 K at 840 K) with this approach

Characterization of a Combined CARS and Interferometric Rayleigh Scattering System

This paper describes the characterization of a combined Coherent anti-Stokes Raman Spectroscopy and Interferometric Rayleigh Scattering (CARS-IRS) system by reporting the accuracy and precision of the measurements of temperature, species mole fraction of N2, O2, and H2, and two-components of velocity. A near-adiabatic H2-air Hencken burner flame was used to provide known properties for measurements made with the system. The measurement system is also demonstrated in a small-scale Mach 1.6 H2-air combustion-heated supersonic jet with a co-flow of H2. The system is found to have a precision that is sufficient to resolve fluctuations of flow properties in the mixing layer of the jet

Erratum to: Soft tissue phantoms for realistic needle insertion: a comparative study

Phantoms are common substitutes for soft tissues in biomechanical research and are usually tuned to match tissue properties using standard testing protocols at small strains. However, the response due to complex tool-tissue interactions can differ depending on the phantom and no comprehensive comparative study has been published to date, which could aid researchers to select suitable materials. In this work, gelatin, a common phantom in literature, and a composite hydrogel developed at Imperial College, were matched for mechanical stiffness to porcine brain, and the interactions during needle insertions within them were analyzed. Specifically, we examined insertion forces for brain and the phantoms; we also measured displacements and strains within the phantoms via a laser-based image correlation technique in combination with fluorescent beads. It is shown that the insertion forces for gelatin and brain agree closely, but that the composite hydrogel better mimics the viscous nature of soft tissue. Both materials match different characteristics of brain, but neither of them is a perfect substitute. Thus, when selecting a phantom material, both the soft tissue properties and the complex tool-tissue interactions arising during tissue manipulation should be taken into consideration. These conclusions are presented in tabular form to aid future selection