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Cross-sectional distributions of the liquid phase temperatures in fuel sprays were measured using a laser-induced fluorescence technique. The liquid fuel (n-hexadecane or squalane) was doped with pyrene(C16H10). The fluorescence intensity ratios of the pyrene monomer and excimer emissions has temperature dependence, and were used to determine the liquid phase temperatures in the fuel sprays. The measurements were performed on two kinds of sprays. One was performed on pre-heated fuel sprays injected into surrounding gas at atmospheric conditions. The other was performed on fuel sprays exposed to hot gas flow. The spray was excited by laser radiation at 266nm, and the resulting fluorescence was imaged by an intensified CCD camera. The cross-sectional distribution of the liquid phase temperature was estimated from the fluorescence image by the temperature dependence of the intensity ratio.

A high-speed photographic study is presented illustrating the influence of engine variables such as an introduced air swirl, the number of nozzle holes and the piston cavity diameter, on the combustion process in a small direct-injection (D.I.) diesel engine. The engine was modified for optical access from the under and lateral sides of the combustion chamber. This modification enabled a three-dimensional analysis of the flame motion in the engine. The swirling velocity of a flame in a combustion chamber was highest in the piston cavity, and outside the piston cavity it became lower at the piston top and at the cylinder head in that order. The swirl ratio of the flame inside the cavity radius attenuated gradually with piston descent and approached the swirl ratio outside the cavity radius, which remained approximately constant during the expansion stroke. Engine performance was improved by retarding the attenuation of the swirl motion inside the cavity radius.

In the previous study of the authors, it was found that some benefits for the mixture preparation of DI gasoline engines can be offered by splitting the fuel injection, such as the phenomenon of high density liquid phase fuel piling up at the leading edge of the spray can be circumvented. In a further analysis, the vapor quantity in the “stable operating” range (equivalence ratio of vapor ϕv in a range of 0.7≤ϕv≤1.3) was significantly increased by the split injection compared to the single injection. In this work, the mechanism of the effect of the split injection on the mixture formation process was studied by combining the laser-sheet imaging, LIF-PIV and the LAS (Laser Absorption Scattering) technique. As a result, it is found that the spray-induced ambient air motion can help the formation of the more combustible mixture of the split injection whereas it played a minus role of diluting the spray by the single injection.

A phenomenological spray-combustion model of a D.I. Diesel engine was applied to study the engine parameters with potential for reducing NOx and smoke emissions. The spray-combustion model, first developed at the University of Hiroshima in 1976, has been sophisticated by incorporating new knowledge of diesel combustion. The model was verified using data from an experimental, single cylinder, D.I. diesel engine with a bore of 135mm and a stroke of 130mm. After the verification process, calculations were made under a wide range of the engine parameters, such as intake air temperature, intake air pressure, intake swirl ratio, nozzle hole diameter, injection pressure, air entrainment rate into the spray, and injection rate profile. These calculations estimated the effects of the engine parameters on NOx, smoke and specific fuel consumption. As a result of the calculations, an approach for the low NOx and smoke emission engine was found.

The combustion processes in the prechamber and the main chamber of a small indirect injection (I.D.I.) diesel engine were observed simultaneously by high-speed photography. These observations made it possible to characterize the behavior of flames in both chambers, that is, ignition of fuel, developing and rotating flames in the prechamber, and a flame jet spouting into the main chamber. The effect of engine variables, such as fuel injection timing, cross-sectional area of a throat, fuel injector location, and a recess in a piston top, on the combustion process as well as the engine performance were considered. A flame jet spouting into the main chamber separated into two directions and induced two vortexes. Brown sooty flames appeared along the prechamber wall and inside the flame jet which struck on the piston top. The higher-velocity flame jet and the two Intense vortexes induced by the flame jet realized superior fuel consumption and lower smoke emission.

Mixture formation processes play a vital role on the performance of a D.I. Gasoline engine. Quantitative measurement of liquid and vapor phase concentration distribution in a D.I. gasoline spray is very important in understanding the mixture formation processes. In this paper, an unique laser absorption scattering (LAS) technique was employed to investigate the mixture formation processes of a fuel spray injected by a D.I. gasoline injector into a high pressure and temperature constant volume vessel. P-xylene, which is quite suitable for the application of the LAS technique, was selected as the test fuel. The temporal variations of the concentration distribution of both the liquid and vapor phases in the spray were quantitatively clarified. Then the effects of injection pressure and quantity on the concentration distributions of both the liquid and vapor phases in the spray were analyzed.

A new optical measuring technique of tip penetration of a diesel fuel spray was developed by detecting the arrival times of the spray tip at several light sheets which were preset at various axial locations downstream. Verified by the instantaneous photographic technique, it was confirmed that this technique is effective, with sufficient accuracy, for measuring the spray tip penetration much more easily than the conventional photographic technique. The tip penetrations of diesel sprays injected through single-hole nozzles with various orifice lengths and diameters has been investigated over a wide range of the operating conditions by this technique. The spray injected through two multihole nozzles, either with or without a sac volume, has also been characterized. The results showed that the spray tip penetration is affected somewhat by the operating conditions. Eventually it is affected by the injected fuel momentum flowrate, nozzle geometry and ambient gas density.

Effects of fumigated fuel on the initial combustion stage of a diesel spray were studied by measuring an ignition delay period and rate of heat release, clarifying a self-ignition limit of a fumigated fuel. Combustion experiments on both fumigated diesel fuel and methanol in a direct injection diesel engine gave the following results; a rapid combustion occurs with the methanol fumigation, while, the diesel fuel fumigation slightly changes the combustion of the main spray of diesel fuel injected directly into the combustion chamber. Regarding the rate of heat release, the maximum rate in the initial combustion stage increases rapidly with an increase in methanol fumigation, while for the fumigated diesel fuel, the maximum rate changes only slightly. The ignition delay period affected by fumigated diesel fuel is shorter than that affected by methanol at the same fumigation equivalence ratio and intake temperature.

Although mixture formation is considered important in actual spark ignition engines, A full understanding of the combustion characteristics of a heterogeneous mixture has not yet been achieved. In this study, in order to clarify the effects of a heterogeneous concentration distribution of the fuel-air mixture on the flame propagation process, different degrees of heterogeneously distributed mixtures were created by the motion of a pair of perforated plates in a constant volume combustion chamber. The laser Rayleigh scattering method was applied for quantitative visualizations of these mixture distributions. To control the distribution of the mixture concentration and the turbulence intensity independently, the flow in the chamber and its turbulence intensity were also measured by a laser sheet method and the LDV technique.

Distributions of non-evaporating diesel sprays impinging on a simulated combustion chamber wall were observed from various directions while changing some of the experimental parameters, such as nozzle projection and top-clearance. High-speed photography was used in this study to examine the effects of these parameters on the spray distributions. Moreover, the spray distributions were predicted by using a spray model based on a multi-package model. The calculated distributions were displayed three-dimensionally using a volume rendering application developed by the authors. The predicted spray distributions were compared with the experimental results observed from various directions in order to evaluate the spray model.

An experimental study was conducted to investigate the flame propagation characteristics in the presence of a heterogeneous concentration distribution of a fuel-air mixture in order to provide fundamental knowledge of the effects of gaseous mixture concentration heterogeneity on the combustion process. Different propane-air mixture distributions were produced by the reciprocating movements of a pair of perforated plates in a constant volume combustion chamber. The mean equivalence ratio of the fuel-air mixture was varied from 0.7 on the lean side to 1.6 on the rich side, the turbulence intensity in the combustion chamber was also varied at levels of 0.185 m/s, 0.130 m/s, 0.100 m/s, and 0.0 m/s. By an independent control of the mixture distribution and the turbulence intensity in the combustion chamber, the flame structure and flame propagation speed at various heterogeneous levels of the mixture distribution were investigated in detail.

Experiments and modeling of the fuel spray trajectory and dispersion influenced by both a swirling gas flow and wall impingement were performed under simulated direct injection (D.I.) diesel engine conditions at a high pressure and high temperature. A spray was injected into the steady swirling gas flow and impinged on the simulated piston cavity wall in a constant-volume bomb. High-speed Schlieren photographs provided the informative data on the behavior of the spray vaporizing in such diesel-like circumstances. A simplified computational model was developed to describe the spray trajectory and the fuel vapor dispersion in the D.I. diesel combustion chamber. The model includes the effects of the breakup on the trajectory and the vaporization of the spray, and the effects of the swirling gas flow and the wall impingement on the dispersion of the fuel vapor.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of residual gas fraction and compositions on the ignition delay of a diesel spray. The air residual gas mixture was produced by injecting diesel sprays into a constant volume combustion bomb with no scavenging burned gas in it. The air initially contained in the bomb was enough to completely burn the fuel supplied by more than 20 injections. The spray injected in the bomb was ignited by the self-ignition process affected by the residual gas. Repetitions of the fuel injection raised the fraction of residual gas in the bomb. The ignition delay in each injection was measured by a photo-transistor. The ignition delay was a minimum when the ambient mixture contained about 4 % residual gas. The effect of residual gas compositions was investigated by adding small amount of CO, CO2 and THC into the bomb. The CO and CO2 compositions in the burned gas produced an elongation of the ignition delay, while the THC shortened the delay period.

Among the alternative fuels, dimethyl ether (DME), one of the oxygenated fuels, attracts attention as an alternative fuel for the Diesel engine since the properties of the DME are fitted to the Diesel engine combustion and the know-how development has been made of the mass production of the DME from a natural gas. In this study, experiments were performed of ignition characteristics of the DME and Diesel fuel sprays injected by a D.I. Diesel injector into a high-pressure, high-temperature vessel. The fuel injection was made by a Bosch type injection system. A schlieren optical system was adopted for visualizing the ignition process as well as the vaporization process of the DME and Diesel fuel sprays. The ignition delay was measured by using a photo-sensor which had a sensitivity in the wavelength range from visible to ultraviolet. Pressure and temperature of the ambient air and the oxygen concentration of the ambient air were changed as experimental parameters.

A pancake-type constant-volume combustion chamber was used to investigate the combustion and NOx emission characteristics of propane-air and hydrogen-air mixtures under various charge stratification patterns, which were obtained by variations of the initial charge and injected mixture concentrations and the ignition spark timing. A planar laser-induced fluorescence from nitrogen dioxide as gas fuel tracer was applied to measure the mixture distribution in the test chamber. The second harmonic output of pulsed Nd; YAG laser was used as a light source for fluorescence excitation. The fluorescence images were corrected by a gated image-intensified CCD camera. The quantitative analysis of fuel concentration was made possible by the application of linearity between fluorescence intensity and NO2 concentration at low trace level.

This paper presents the experimental analysis for the turbulence in the combustion chamber of a direct injection (D.I.) diesel engine. A dual beam mode, forward-scattering laser doppler velocimeter was applied to the flow measurement in a four-stroke, single-cylinder direct injection diesel engine of 110 mm bore and 125 mm stroke. The turbulence component was separated from instantaneous velocity using a high-pass filter. As a result, the difference in turbulent intensity between the intake and compression processes was discussed. Also, the effect of intake port and piston cavity shapes, the compression ratio and the engine speed on the turbulent intensity were clarified. In addition, the empirical equation for the decay of turbulent intensity in the compression process was expressed by a function of the Reynolds number based on the mean swirling flow.

Evaporating diesel spray distributions in the combustion chamber of a direct injection diesel engine were calculated using a phenomenological simulation model, and the calculated results were described three dimensionally using a 3-D volume rendering application which has been developed by the authors. The evaporating diesel spray distributions in the combustion chamber were measured using a technique based on the extinction of ultraviolet (wavelength of 280nm) and visible (wavelength of 560nm) laser lights. The measured results were compared with the predicted spray distributions in order to verify the simulation model. The calculated results show reasonably good agreement with the experimental results, and the validity of this spray model as a practical computational tool for estimating diesel spray behavior is confirmed by this comparison.

The fuel injection characteristics of Dimethyl Ether(DME) were calculated and compared with the calculated results of diesel fuel using a simulation model of an in-line diesel injection system in order to clarify the differences between the injection characteristics of the two fuels. Moreover, numerical analyses for the DME injection were performed while changing the fuel parameters and the injection system parameters in order to estimate the effects of these parameters on the fuel injection characteristics. The effects of some of these parameters were evaluated by experimental results conducted in a constant volume vessel. Furthermore, the spray tip penetration was calculated using the computed results of the injection pressure. As a result of this study, the injection characteristics of the DME fuel are basically confirmed. By the macroscopic analyses of these spray characteristics, the DME spray behavior in a combustion chamber can be estimated.

The effects of engine parameters, such as spray characteristics and combustion chamber geometry on performance and exhaust emissions in a small D.I. diesel engine were investigated to find out the optimum way of improving the engine. Diesel spray injected into a high-pressure vessel was photographically analyzed to guess the spray behavior in a firing diesel engine. The ratio of hole length to the diameter of a nozzle (L/D) was varied from 3 to 7 as the main parameter of the nozzle. Piston cavity diameter and intake swirl were chosen as the other parameters. The effect of the above parameters was investigated in terms of brake specific fuel consumption (BSFC), exhaust smoke, nitric oxides (NOx) and total hydrocarbon (THC). The L/D of the nozzle is concluded to be of major importance in terms of BSFC and THC emission. Smaller piston cavity diameters lead to lower exhaust smoke, but to a higher level of NOx emission.

Planar laser-induced fluorescence (PLIF) technique was employed to perform the quantitative measurements of the cyclic variation of mixture concentration in the combustion chamber of a spark ignition (SI) engine. Nitrogen dioxide was used as the fluorescence tracer to simulate the fuel vapor. A Nd:YAG laser operated at its second harmonic wavelength was employed as the light source. The original engine was modified to introduce laser sheet light into the combustion chamber and the induced fluorescence was captured by a CCD camera fitted with a gated image intensifier. The measurements were done at the engine crank angles of 180° ∼ 300° ATDC with the engine speeds of 200 ∼ 400 rpm and the injection timings of -70 °, 50° and 100° ATDC. A theoretical analysis was made to describe the cyclically varying characteristics of the mixture concentration.