Atomization and Sprays Journal of the International Institutes for Liquid Atomization and Spray Systems

ISSN for PRINT: 1045-5110

For Online Access

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1999, Volume9

Issue 4

116 pages

Issue price - $75.00

Josette Bellan
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology

K. Harstad
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA

High-energy-density (HED) liquid fuels have high soot propensity and are expensive. The idea of mitigating these characteristics by adding a less expensive, low soot propensity liquid fuel to the HED is tested through numerical simulations. The model represents an axisymmetric, polydisperse, dense cluster of binary-fuel (solvent/solute) spherical drops embedded into a vortex. Since soot propensity depends on the partial density of the evaporated fuel, this partial density is compared for uncharged and electrostatically charged drops; charging is used here as an effective way to increase dispersion and reduce sooting propensity. Results from the simulations show that while the solvent soot propensity indeed decreases with drop charging, contrary to simplistic expectations, addition of HED as a solute increases sooting propensity of the solute with increased drop dispersion. This is due to the additional dispersion maintaining the slip velocity at the drop surface and preferentially evaporating the solute. These counterintuitive but correct physical effects are independent of the initial solvent/solute mass ratio, and the soot propensity decreases with decreasing solute volatility. Based on these results, blending strategies are suggested for minimizing sooting propensity and decreasing fuel costs.

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