Experimetal investigation of the evaporation and combustion of fuel droplet arrays

Abstract

Experimental investigation was conducted on stati.onary fuel droplets in order to study" the e~aporation rate and combustion rate of fuel droplets at different temperature levels and the influence of neighbouring drops on the evaporation and combustion rate of fuel droplets, the distance between the droplets being 0.15 to 0.3 cm. The experimental set up consisted mainly of an electri.c tube furnace , electronic stroboscope used in conjunction with a stationary film camera and quartz fibres for holding the fuel droplets. Fuel droplets were suspended from quartz fibres and introduced into the hot electric furneee ( ambient gas being quies cent air), and the rate of decrease of droplet diameter is recorded on the photographic film. From the silhouete of the droplet diameter the necessary calculation were made to determine the evaporation and combustion rates. From the experimental investigations it has been found that for each of the droplets in single,double and triple droplet arrays the square of the droplet diameter varies linearly with time both during evpporation and combustion.Again for similar experimental conditions, the evaporation constant for each of the droplets in double and triple arrays has been found to be lower than that of the single droplet thus showing the influence of droplet interaction on the evaporation rate.It has also been observed that the droplet interaction modifies the burning rate of fuel droplets. In this investigation only single,double and triple droplet arrays have been studied. Further extensive work is necessary with a variety of droplet arrangement in order to write ,,",sa,blel formula' for evaporating and burning fuel droplets.