On-grid location-by-location variations of transmission electron microscope imaged in-flame soot particles in a small-bore diesel engine

Abstract

In a small-bore diesel engine, soot particles are sampled directly from the flames by placing a transmission electron microscope (TEM) grid inside the cylinder. The TEM images are taken from multiple on-grid locations to ensure enough number of soot particles are post-processed for statistically meaningful data of morphology parameters. This study presents variations in the soot TEM images and sizes of soot aggregates and primary particles from 30 different on-grid locations for each of jet-wall impingement and jet-jet interaction regions of the diesel flames. The TEM images show significant variations in soot aggregate size and structures for the two different sampling regions with overall larger and more complex soot for the jet-jet interaction region. The statistical results show that the difference in soot primary particle diameter is measurable after five images were processed. For soot aggregate radius of gyration, the two samples show no apparent variations until 25 images were processed, and the mean values levelled only when more than 27 images were processed. As the enough number of TEM images were processed, the larger sizes in both soot aggregates and primary particles were confirmed for the jet-jet interaction region.