Liquid fuel combustion: Droplets formation, vaporization and combustion

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Spray/Droplets formation, vaporization and combustion are the processes controlling the efficiency and emissions of power generation systems such as gas turbine and diesel engine. In the combustion chamber of these systems, upon its injection, liquid fuel breaks up into droplets to increase the mixing between the oxidant and fuel but more importantly to ease and enhance the vaporization process of liquid fuel and hence the combustion performance. Therefore, understanding these processes is crucial for the design and development of these systems. Although the characteristics of a liquid jet injected into a gaseous flow have been studied extensively, there still remain many challenges. This is due mainly to a) the complex nature of this two-phase flow phenomenon and b) the fact that these processes depend on the engine load requirements as well as the injection system, and state and conditions of the surroundings fluid flow.***For instance, the features of a liquid jet injected into a gaseous environment vary significantly with liquid properties, operating/test conditions of the surroundings airflow and nozzle/injector internal geometry. Currently used computer codes employed by industry for modeling and designing spray combustion still rely on untested approximations of the effect of gas phase turbulence. This is mainly driven by the lack of knowledge on the effect of gas phase turbulence on droplets (or spray) vaporization especially under realistic test conditions. Additionally, although there exist several published computer studies on the burning characteristics of droplets under flow conditions simulating those encountered in real combustion chambers, experimental data reporting on the effect of gas phase turbulence at elevated pressure and temperature conditions on micron-sized (realistic) droplets is still unavailable.***The proposed research program will lead to significant scientific advances where new knowledge and comprehensive data at realistic test conditions will be generated. The findings of this research will greatly aid Canadian (e.g., aerospace and automobile) industry to construct more reliable computer codes/models for designing efficient and less pollutant power generation systems. In addition, several HQP (5 graduate and 4 undergraduate students), who will trained during the course of the proposed research, will acquire the knowledge and skills in demand for the Canadian aerospace and automotive industry as well as other energy sectors.