Evaporation of thin liquid film of single and multi-component hydrocarbon fuel from a hot plate

Abstract

Evaporation of liquid film is of great importance, especially to the automotive industry, owing to its prevalence in automotive wet components. Thin liquid films usually deposit/spread in the inlet ports of engines using port fuel injection (PFI), at the nozzle tip of gasoline direct injection (GDI) engines, on the piston head of GDI and diesel engines, etc. It is important to predict the evaporation rate of these liquid films which have the thickness of the order of micrometers and may potentially lead to carbon deposits and consequent emissions. In this work, results of extensive experimental and numerical investigations of the evaporation of single and multi-component hydrocarbon film are presented. Liquid films are created by spraying the fuel on a smooth aluminum plate, and its evaporation pattern is studied at various temperatures of the plate. The film thickness reduction was monitored over time using a confocal point probe until the liquid film is completely evaporated. A one-dimensional numerical model is developed to predict the reduction of film thickness due to evaporation for single and multi-component fuels. The numerical results compared well with the measurements.