Investigation of the Behaviors of Methanol Spray Impingement and Wall Wetting

Abstract

Port fuel injection is an important technical route in methanol engines. To obtain a theoretical basis for injector arrangement and injection strategy development in methanol engines, an optimal experimental platform based on diffuse back-illumination and the refractive index matching method (RIM) was designed and built in this study. The experiments on the behavior of low-pressure methanol spray-wall impingement and wall film were carried out and the influence of the three boundary conditions of spray distance (Dimp), wall temperature (Twall), and injection pressure (Pinj) were analyzed comprehensively. Results showed that with the increase of Dimp, the overall shape of spray before impinging the wall changed from conical to cylindrical. The impinging spray height Hi and impinging spray width Wi increased with the decrease of Dimp and the increase of Pinj. Adhesive fuel film mass Mf increased with the increase of Dimp due to the decrease of kinetic energy during wall impact. In addition, the increase of the wall temperature Twall reduced Mf due to evaporation, but when Twall reached 423 K, Mf rebounded due to the Leidenfrost effect. The results of this study are helpful to improve the accuracy of the numerical methanol engine model.

Keywords

• methanol engines
• port fuel injection
• spray impingement
• wall wetting
• refractive index matching