Shock tube studies of thermal radiation of diesel-spray combustion under a range of spray conditions

A tailored interface shock tube and an over-tailored interface shock tube were used to measure the thermal energy radiated during diesel-spray combustion of light oil, α-methylnaphthalene and cetane by changing the injection pressure. The ignition delay of methanol and the thermal radiation were also measured. Experiments were performed in a steel shock tube with a 7 m low-pressure section filled with air and a 6 m high-pressure section. Pre-compressed fuel was injected through a throttle nozzle into air behind a reflected shock wave. Monochromatic emissive power and the power emitted across all infrared wavelengths were measured with IR-detectors set along the central axis of the tube. Time-dependent radii where soot particles radiated were also determined, and the results were as follows. For diesel spray combustion with high injection pressures (from 10 to 80 MPa), the thermal radiation energy of light oil per injection increased with injection pressure from 10 to 30 MPa. The energy was about 2% of the heat of combustion of light oil at P _inj = about 30 MPa. At injection pressure above 30 MPa the thermal radiation decreased with increasing injection pressure. This profile agreed well with the combustion duration, the flame length, the maximum amount of soot in the flame, the time-integrated soot volume and the time-integrated flame volume. The ignition delay of light oil was observed to decrease monotonically with increasing fuel injection pressure. For diesel spray combustion of methanol, the thermal radiation including that due to the gas phase was 1% of the combustion heat at maximum, and usually lower than 1%. The thermal radiation due to soot was lower than 0.05% of the combustion heat. The ignition delays were larger (about 50%) than those of light oil. However, these differences were within experimental error.

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An abridged version of this paper was presented at the 18th Int. Symposium on Shock Waves at Sendai, Japan during July 21 to 26, 1991 and at the 19th Int. Symposium on Shock Waves at Marseille, France during July 26 to 30, 1993.