Abstract
The spray and combustion characteristics of n-dodecane fuel were investigated in a CVCC (constant volume combustion chamber). The selection of ambient conditions for the spray followed ECN (engine combustion network) guidelines, which simulates the ambient condition of diesel engines at start of fuel injection. ECN is a collaboration network whose main objective is to establish an internet library of well-documented experiments that are appropriate for model validation and the advancement of scientific understanding of combustion at conditions specific to engines. Therefore repeatability of the experiments with high accuracy was important. The ambient temperature was varied from 750 to 930 K while the density was fixed at around $23kg/m^3$. The injection pressure of the fuel was varied from 500 to 1500 bar. The spray was injected in both non-reacting ($O_2$ concentration of 0%) and reacting conditions ($O_2$ concentration of 15%) to examine the spray and the combustion characteristics. Direct imaging with Mie Scattering was used to obtain the liquid penetration length. Shadowgraph was implemented to observe vapor length and lift-off length at non-reacting and reacting conditions, respectively. Pressure data was analyzed to determine the ignition delay with respect to the spray and ambient conditions.
