Abstract
This paper reports on breakup characteristics of fuel droplet which includes metal nanoparticles. In order to develop a new injection system for nanoparticle-coated layers overcoming the conventional flame spray system, fundamental experiments were conducted to examine the interaction between a fuel droplet with nanoparticles and the external energy induced by the laser. In the experiments, this study used nickel nanoparticles whose size was under 100 nm to mix with kerosene as the fuel, and utilized a syringe pump and a metal needle to inject a fuel droplet. In particular, the Nd-YAG laser was adopted to give additional energy to the nanoparticles for evaporation of a fuel droplet containing nanoparticles. When the laser energy as 96 mJ was irradiated during the injection, it was observed that such an explosive evaporation occurred to break up a fuel droplet including nanoparticles, making the rapid increase in the ratio surface area to liquid volume. From this work, we suggest the possibility that the laser energy can be used for rapid evaporation of a fuel droplet.