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Projects: Projects for Investigator
Reference Number EP/G01597X/1
Title How does primary liquid break-up determine the downstream spray characteristics of airblast atomisers?
Status Completed
Energy Categories Energy Efficiency(Transport) 25%;
Not Energy Related 75%;
Research Types Basic and strategic applied research 100%
Science and Technology Fields ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY (Mechanical, Aeronautical and Manufacturing Engineering) 100%
UKERC Cross Cutting Characterisation Not Cross-cutting 100%
Principal Investigator Dr I Hardalupas
No email address given
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Imperial College London
Award Type Standard
Funding Source EPSRC
Start Date 01 October 2009
End Date 30 September 2012
Duration 36 months
Total Grant Value £516,538
Industrial Sectors Energy
Region London
Programme Energy : Engineering
 
Investigators Principal Investigator Dr I Hardalupas , Department of Mechanical Engineering, Imperial College London (99.998%)
  Other Investigator Dr AD Gosman , Department of Mechanical Engineering, Imperial College London (0.001%)
Professor AMKP Taylor , Department of Mechanical Engineering, Imperial College London (0.001%)
  Industrial Collaborator Project Contact , Rolls-Royce PLC (0.000%)
Web Site
Objectives
Abstract Better fuel sprays {e.g. smaller drop sizes to improve evaporation, better 'patterns' - and low droplet 'clustering' in time - to avoid fuel rich zones for soot and NOx production, maintaining these qualities between idle to full power } are known to be a key to the design of "greener" aeroengines. Although fuel atomization is an old technology, remarkably little fundamental knowledge exists which would reliably answer the simple question: given this shape ofatomizer, what kind of fuel spray would I produce? The answer must be able to explain how and why modifications of the order of a fraction of a millimeter to the atomiser radically changes the spray. To formulate the answer, we need better and more extensive measurement of the 'fundamental' processes than hitherto: and we must advance our ability to calculate the flow (waves, instabilities, ligament formation, 'pinch-off', etc.) from first principles - and check the advanceagainst fundamental, simple yet representative sprays.The overall aim of the proposal is to generate new computational fluid dynamic (CFD) modelling strategies for the atomisation process of liquid jets in airblast atomisers with an emphasis to geometries used in combustion systems and aero-engines. Our approach will be to make novel time- and spatially- resolved measurements of the liquid, spray and gas motions in the primary breakup regions of co-flowing and cross-flow atomiser configurations using optical instrumentation. We will use these to evaluate the results of "Large eddy simulations" (LES) of two atomiser geometries, based on an open source CFD code, to predict the temporal development of the atomisation process, in terms of internal liquid flow and surrounding gas flow, liquid breakup and spray characteristics downstream of liquid jet intact length. We intend to establish the extent to which CFD can predict the three transitions - waves to ligaments to droplets- in primary atomization in these geometries, which is as yet completely untested and unknown. We will use the evaluated code to perform 'numerical experiments' with emphasis on the dense liquid core, where measurements are hard to make, to further elucidate the physics
Publications (none)
Final Report (none)
Added to Database 15/10/08