Effect of Bioethanol−Biodiesel Blending Ratio on Fuel Spray Behavior and Atomization Characteristics

Abstract

The aim of this work is to investigate the effect of the bioethanol addition on the spray behavior and atomization characteristics of biodiesel fuel. Spray behavior characteristics were studied by analyzing the spray tip penetration, spray centroid, and spray cone angle. In addition, the spray tip penetrations estimated by theoretical and empirical equations were compared with the experimental results. Droplet size and axial velocity were investigated for analyzing the fuel atomization characteristics. Bioethanol fuel was blended with biodiesel fuel derived from soybean oil in a volumetric ratio from 10 to 30% in 10% intervals. It was revealed that the blending ratio of bioethanol fuel had little effect on the spray tip penetration. The spray cone angle of blended fuels was increased by adding the bioethanol fuel. When the ambient gas temperature increased, the spray tip penetration of an undiluted biodiesel fuel increased due to the decrease in ambient gas density. However, the spray tip penetration of b...