Influence of liquid bridge force on physical stability during fuel storage and transportation

Abstract

The physical stability of solid‒liquid fuel is a factor that needs to be considered for fuel product practicability for storage and transportation. To determine the Influence of liquid bridge force on physical stability, two detection devices were designed. The laws obtained from microscopic experiments are used to verify the physical stability of fuel under different component ratios. The liquid bridge force is found to increase with the droplet volume. Multiliquid bridges above one critical saturation can generate significant resultant forces compared to single-liquid bridges of the same volume. There exist four states of solid‒liquid mixed fuel with increasing liquid saturation rate. The liquid bridge force between the solid and liquid plays a dominant role in the physical stability of the first three states. There may be two stages involved in the stratification process for state 4 fuel, and the liquid viscosity is another factor that cannot be ignored. In the process of selecting a fuel ratio, a larger liquid bridge force between the components can be obtained by properly improving the wetting effect so that the fuel shows better physical stability.

Keywords

• Liquid bridge force
• Fuel physical stability
• Multiliquid bridge resultant forces
• Mixed fuel stratification