Quantitative high-speed burned gas temperature measurements in internal combustion engines using sodium and potassium fluorescence

When sodium- and potassium-containing fuel additives are used in internal combustion engines, the bright fluorescence that sodium and potassium atoms emit in the burned gas zone offers a large potential for spectroscopic combustion analysis. To utilize this potential quantitatively, it is crucial to fully understand all physical and chemical processes involved. This includes (1) the temperature dependence of the fluorescence intensity due to gas-phase collisions, (2) the pressure, temperature and equivalence ratio effects on thermodynamic equilibria in the burned gas zone and (3) pressure and temperature-dependent line shapes for quantitative correction of fluorescence reabsorption. High-speed imaging of sodium and potassium fluorescence in a spark-ignited, direct injection, single-cylinder research engine was conducted under well-controlled homogeneous operating conditions at equivalence ratios ranging from 0.71 to 1.43, cylinder pressure from 3 to 15 bar and burned gas temperatures from 1,700 to 2,600 K. This study demonstrates that the influence of pressure, temperature and equivalence ratio on the fluorescence signals of sodium and potassium is understood quantitatively and establishes the potentials and limitations of this tool for burned gas temperature measurements with high temporal and two-dimensional spatial resolution in a homogeneously operated internal combustion engine.