Ambient Tracer-LIF for 2-D quantitative measurement of fuel concentration in gas jets

Abstract

A novel ambient tracer LIF technique with addition of tracer into ambient gas is proposed in this study to quantitatively measure the two dimensional (2-D) fuel concentration distribution in high-pressure gas jets. Firstly, the fundamental principle of the ambient tracer-LIF technique is described, and the equation of fuel concentration in a jet is deduced from the ambient fluorescence intensity. In the ambient tracer-LIF technique, the on-site calibration can be performed, and much more degrees of freedom in selection of tracers or target fuels can be achieved in principle. Then, the experiments are carried out with the high pressure gas injected into the environment doped with acetone in an optical accessible constant volume vessel. The fluorescence in the ambient is induced by using the 266 nm laser, and is recorded by the ICCD camera. The dedicated image processing is implemented to reduce the uncertainty and obtain the quantitative fuel concentration distribution in the jet. The uncertainties of the measurement results are evaluated, including both the systematic and random errors. The uncertainty propagation analysis shows that the measurement uncertainty increases with the local fuel concentration decreasing, and at the boundary regions of the jet, where the mixture is over lean, the relative uncertainty goes up to 26%. Finally, the temporal variations of the fuel concentration distribution in the gas jet are presented, and the effects of injection pressure are discussed. These results are believed to be valuable for development of numerical models and combustion system designs.