Experimental Investigations of Superheated and Supercritical Injections of Liquid Fuels

Single- and multi-component liquid fuels are injected in a jet-in-coflow configuration at elevated temperatures and pressures with both a custom plain orifice nozzle and a commercial pressure-swirl atomizer. The transitions in spray morphology from mechanical breakup to superheated/supercritical regimes are characterized qualitatively by laser shadowgraphy and evaluated based on quantitative measures of superheat. Although fuel preheating exhibits no discernible effect in the mechanical breakup regime, dramatic jet-to-plume transition as well as build up of fuel vapor in the spray chamber are observed with increasing level of superheat. The difference between two different atomizers in terms of spray behavior diminishes at high levels of superheat, suggesting the predominant role of thermal effect on spray morphology in superheated/supercritical regimes. For a mutli-component fuel such as Jet A-1, the transition into a fully flashing spray occurs at temperatures lower than expected values, which are calculated by treating Jet A-1 as a single-component fuel. In addition, when compared with estimations based on theoretical discharge coefficients, measured pressure drop is shown as a sensitive indicator of departure from mechanical breakup and the onset of thermal effect on the spray. Such comparisons also reveal the differences in susceptibility to thermal effects between the plain orifice and the pressure-swirl atomizers.