N-decane Droplets Research Articles

Experiments and Theory on Droplet Ignition with Spark Discharges

ABSTRACT Ignition experiments were performed with individual n-decane droplets, initially, about 1 mm in diameter, which were suspended in quartz fibers and subjected to electrical discharges (sparks) of controlled power and duration. Experiments were performed with glow and arc discharges in air at 1 atm and approximately 300 K . Theory is developed to predict the probability of ignition of a fuel droplet as a function of time when it is exposed to an ignition spark. The theory considers the effect of random spark-to-spark fluctuations in the heat flux into the liquid on the time for the droplet surface temperature to be high enough to enable ignition. A Bayesian analysis is also performed to evaluate confidence intervals for parameters related to droplet ignition. Reasonable agreement between theory and experiment is demonstrated, suggesting that spark-to-spark fluctuations of the heat flux into a droplet may lead to a sigmoidal variation of the probability of ignition with respect to time.

Three approaches to modelling heating and evaporation of monocomponent droplets

Three approaches to modelling the heating and evaporation of monocomponent droplets are compared. Firstly, the heat rate supplied to the droplets to raise their internal energy is calculated based on the observation that steady-state equations for heat and mass balance in the gas phase should lead to the same droplet evaporation rates. The direct calculation of the above-mentioned heat rate is used in the second approach; the value of this rate is then used for the estimation of the droplet evaporation rate using the Spalding heat transfer number. In the third approach, the same algorithm as in the second approach is used to calculate the heat rate but the mass evaporation rate in this approach is inferred from the coupled solution to the momentum, mass and energy conservation equations in the gas phase; the gas mixture density in this approach depends on temperature. The predictions of the numerical algorithms for these approaches are compared with experimentally observed time dependencies of the rates of change of radii and average temperatures of n-decane droplets at initial temperatures and radii equal to 300 K and 0.85 mm, respectively, placed in a gas at temperatures 500 K and 760 K. It is shown that the algorithm for the third approach predicts values which are close to the experimental data.

Research on nonequilibrium plasma-assisted evaporation and ignition of n-decane droplet

To evaluate the nanosecond pulsed discharge plasma-assisted evaporation and ignition attributes of hydrocarbon fuel droplets, numerical models are established. The influences of nonequilibrium plasma on the characteristics of n-decane droplet evaporation and ignition are numerically studied through a loosely coupled method employing a one-dimensional (1D) fully transient model of droplet evaporation and ignition and a model of nanosecond pulse plasma discharge. The results show that the reaction rate of the initial phase of n-decane droplet ignition is increased by nonequilibrium plasma. In addition, both the evaporation and ignition of the droplet are accelerated. Increasing the reduced electric field of the discharge leads to decreases in the droplet ignition delay time, survival time, and shortening amplitude. The evaporative cooling effect, which occurs at the initial phase of droplet ignition and typically decreases the local temperature surrounding a droplet surface, is weakened by the plasma. As the reduced electric field increases, the time to generate a high-temperature zone (>1800 K) decreases, while its duration increases. The initial phase of n-decane droplet ignition, in which the flame temperature increases while the flame radius decreases, is strongly affected by the plasma during the initial ignition phase. However, the plasma has little impact on the peak flame temperature and the flame radius during the stable combustion phase of the droplet. According to reaction kinetics analysis, the plasma directly interferes with the elementary reactions R330 (nC10H22 + O = 3-C10H21 + OH) and R331 (nC10H22 + O = 2-C10H21 + OH) of n-decane/air combustion. Moreover, the dissociation and oxidation processes of intermediate products are accelerated. Then, the important reaction rates, which determine the ignition delay time, increase indirectly. Thus, the overall ignition delay time of the n-decane droplet is shortened.

High-efficiency mechanism of enhancement of spreading performance of oil involving surfactant-laden oil droplet spreading over water surface

This study clarified the high-efficiency mechanism of enhancement of the spreading performance of oil by allowing a droplet of an organic solvent to spread over the surface of water with the addition of oil-soluble surfactants. Firstly, the effect of Span 85, Span 80, Span 20, octylphenol polyoxyethylene (4) ether (OP-4), and sodium dioctyl sulfosuccinate (AOT) on the interfacial parameters of an n-decane droplet was evaluated by measuring the surface tension and interfacial tension. Then the spreading coefficient was calculated to determine whether the surfactant-laden oil droplets could spread at the air–water interface. Moreover, the law governing the spreading of the surfactant-laden oil droplets over water was systematically studied. Furthermore, the characteristics of the dynamic behavior of the surfactants were investigated by molecular dynamics simulations to elucidate the spreading mechanism. The results of the experiments and simulations explained how the oil-soluble surfactants Span 85, Span 80, Span 20, OP-4, and AOT significantly improved the spreading performance of oil droplets over the water surface.

The Interfacial Dilational Rheology Properties of Betaine Solutions: Effect of Anionic Surfactant and Polymer.

Interfacial dilational rheology is one of the important means to explore the interfacial properties of adsorption films. In this paper, the interfacial rheological properties of the mixed system of sulfobetaine ASB with a linear alkyl group and two anionic surfactants, petroleum sulfonate (PS) and alkyl polyoxyethylene carboxylate (AEC), were investigated by interfacial dilational rheology. The effect of the introduction of polymer hydrophobically modified polyacrylamide (HMPAM) on the interfacial properties of the mixed system was analyzed. In this experiment, the surfactant solution was used as the external phase and n-decane was used as the internal phase. A periodic sinusoidal disturbance of 0.1 Hz was applied to the n-decane droplets, and the changes of parameters such as droplet interfacial tension and interfacial area were monitored in real time with the help of a computer. The results show that the betaine ASB molecule responds to the dilation and compression of the interface through the change of ion head orientation, while the feedback behavior of petroleum sulfonate PS and AEC molecules embedded with oxygen vinyl groups in the molecule is diffusion and exchange between the interface and the bulk phase. Therefore, the interface film formed by ASB alone is higher, and the film formed by PS and AEC molecules alone is relatively lower. After adding two kinds of anionic surfactants to the betaine system, the ionic head of PS or AEC molecules will be attached to the positive center of the hydrophilic group of ASB molecules by electrostatic attraction and no longer adsorb and desorb with the interface deformation. The interfacial rheological properties of the compound system are still dominated by betaine, with higher dilational modulus and lower phase angle. When a small amount of HMPAM is added, or the content of hydrophobic monomer AMPS in the bulk phase is low, the intermolecular interaction at the interface is enhanced, the slow relaxation process is intensified, and the interfacial film strength is increased. As the content of AMPS further increases, hydrophobic blocks and surfactant molecules will form interfacial aggregates similar to mixed micelles at the oil-water interface, which will regulate the properties of the film by affecting the adsorption of surfactants at the interface. As long as the interfacial tension is the same, the properties of the interfacial film are the same. Based on the colloid interface science and the background of enhanced oil recovery, this study provides a reference for the field application of chemical flooding formulations.

Effects of inlet total pressure on the formation and propagation characteristics of n-decane two-phase rotating detonation waves

In this paper, three-dimensional numerical simulations are carried out to study the influence of inlet total pressure (such as 1 MPa, 1.5 MPa and 2 MPa) on the two-phase rotating detonation wave behavior. The flow field characteristics, the formation mechanism and propagation parameters of two-phase rotating detonation wave are discussed in detail. The simulation results show that the inlet total pressure has a significant impact on the two-phase rotating detonation wave in the scope of our study. Specifically, it is found that n-decane droplets are not completely consumed around the detonation wave, the escaping droplets are still evaporated and deflagrated behind the detonation wave. The increasing total pressure contributes to droplets evaporation. In addition, the generation of hot spots is a crucial factor in the detonation formation process. The shock wave induction and pressure wave accumulation are two mechanisms for it. As the total pressure increases, chaotic instability is observed before the stable stage, including the quenching, re-ignition and re-orientation, which is responsible for the variation of the propagation mode and direction of the rotating detonation waves. Moreover, in our study, with the increasing of total pressure, the intensity and stability of the detonation waves both increase, while the variation of detonation velocity is not sensitive. Our results can provide useful guidance for the research of two-phase rotating detonation engines.

Experiments and Numerical Simulation of N-decane/Ethanol Bi-Component Droplet Evaporation

The evaporation characteristics of n-decane-based bi-component or multi-component droplets have been veiled for application in advanced combustion. This paper proposes to experimentally investigate the evaporation of n-decane/ethanol bi-component droplets settled in the convective hot air, and numerically simulate the key parameters affecting the evaporation charactersitics. It was found that the evaporation behavior was interactively affected by the mass fraction of ethanol and the ambient temperature. For mono-component n-decane droplets, the evaporation process included the transient heating (non-isothermal) and steady evaporation (isothermal) stages. In the isothermal stage, the evaporation rate followed d2-law. The evaporation rate constant linearly increased as the ambient temperature enhanced (573~873 K). For n-decane/ethanol bi-component droplets, at low mass fractions (≤0.2), the isothermal evaporation processes were steady due to the good miscibility between n-decane and ethanol, like mono-component n-decane, whereas at high mass fractions (≥0.4), the evaporation process experienced ultrashort heating and fluctuating evaporation stages. During the fluctuating evaporation, the bubbles formed inside the bi-component droplets and expanded, resulting in the occurrence of the microspray (secondary atomization) and the microexplosion. The evaporation rate constant of bi-component droplets increased as the ambient temperature enhanced, and showed a "V-shaped" trend with the increase of the mass fraction, and the evaporation rate constant was the smallest at 0.4. The evaporation rate constants based on the numerical simulation by using the multiphase flow model and Lee model showed reasonable agreement with the experimental ones, suggesting a potential of application in practical engineering.

Numerical study of drop spread and rebound on heated surfaces with consideration of high pressure

The impact of a drop on a solid surface has been studied for many years. However, most of the previous numerical simulations were focused on the drop impact on a surface at room temperature and standard atmospheric pressure. This paper presents a numerical study of n-heptane and n-decane drops impacting solid surfaces with the consideration of high temperature and high pressure using smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH). The SPH method is validated against experiments from our work and literature. This work is focused on two typical drop-impact regimes, namely, spread and rebound. Different drop impact sequences were simulated at the wall temperature in the range of 27–400 °C and the ambient pressure between 1–20 bars. The difference between the inception of film boiling and liquid saturation temperature was found to decrease with elevating ambient pressure. The spread factor and apex height are investigated for the regime of spread. The results indicate that the lower viscosity fluid has a smaller spread factor as compared to the fluid with higher viscosity. The variation of Leidenfrost temperature with ambient pressure for both n-heptane and n-decane droplets is established numerically and compared with the trend observed in the experiment. The simulation outcomes of drop rebound for high boiling point liquid (n-decane) in the film boiling regime at atmospheric pressure show that with the increasing wall temperature, the drop rebound height and vapor layer height increase. Finally, the effect of ambient pressure on drop rebound height and velocity is investigated. The numerical results indicate that the increase in ambient pressure reduces the droplet rebound velocity and rebound height.

Extinction characteristics of isolated n-alkane fuel droplets during low temperature cool flame burning in air

Large carbon number n-alkanes are a notable component in all real transportation fuels, and their chemical structure fosters substantial low temperature kinetic reactivity. Normal alkanes have been studied in various canonical configurations but rarely in systems with strong coupling between low temperature chemistry and transport for pure as well as for multi-component n-alkane mixtures. The Flame Extinguishment (FLEX) experiments onboard the International Space Station provided a unique platform for investigating low temperature multi-phase n-alkane and iso-alkane combustion. Among the many interesting phenomena experimentally observed, cool flame extinction can occur, accompanied by the concurrent formation of a surrounding cloud of condensed vapor. In this work we conduct numerical simulations of high and low temperature combustion of large, initially single-component n-heptane, n-decane and n-dodecane droplets. The role of initial droplet diameter, operating pressure, and n-alkyl carbon number on the extinction of hot and low temperature flames is investigated and compared against the available experimental data. While all three fuels exhibit similar hot flame behavior, cool flame activity increases with the carbon number, resulting in an increased cool flame temperature and decreased extinction diameter. Multi-cyclic “hot/cool flame transitions” are found in air as pressure is slightly increased above one atmosphere. The cyclic behaviors correspond to continuously varying hot and cool flame transitions across the high, low, and negative temperature coefficient (NTC) kinetic regimes. Further increase in pressure results in a second stage steady “Warm flame” transition. The extinction of hot and cool flame has a strong non-linear dependence on ambient pressure but as the hot flame extinction diameter increases with pressure the extinction diameter of the cool flame decreases. The computational results are compared with a recent asymptotic analysis of FLEX n-alkane cool flames.

Surface temperature measurement of cooling and heating droplets by rainbow refractometry.

Rainbow refractometry was used to measure the temperature and size of transparent spherical particles. In practice, however, there are limitations to the application of heating and cooling droplets, as the temperature measured is neither the average nor the surface or core temperature of the droplet. Reported here is an exploitation of this technique for droplet surface temperature determination. Droplet surface tension was measured by detecting the evolution of interference fringes of oscillating droplets. The dependence of surface tension on temperature facilitated the study of surface temperature of an evaporating droplet with time. Moving ethanol, n-heptane, and n-decane droplets were investigated under heating and cooling conditions. The capabilities and limitations of rainbow refractometry were verified by comparing the droplet temperature values measured directly by rainbow refractometry with the surface temperature.

Appearance of cool flame in flame spread over fuel droplets in microgravity

This research conducted microgravity experiments to investigate phenomena appearing around a droplet existing outside the flame-spread limit. n-Decane droplets are tethered at intersections of SiC fibers. The flame spreads to two- or three-interactive droplets to heat a droplet placed outside the flame-spread limit of the interactive droplets. The cool-flame appearance during the flame spread over droplets was detected using different methods. The droplet diameter was measured with a back illumination to evaluate the vaporization-rate constant and to judge whether the cool flame appears or not. The temperature around the droplet was measured by the thin-filament pyrometry using a near-infrared camera to detect the temperature rise due to cool-flame appearance. The infrared radiation distribution from the combustion products was measured using a mid-wave infrared camera to judge the cool-flame appearance. The results show that a cool flame appears around the droplet existing outside the hot-flame-spread limit and the vaporization completes with the cool flame if the heat input from the hot flame is sufficiently large. This type of flame spread is called hot-to-cool flame spread. The definition of flame spread should be extended considering the cool flame.

Erratum: “Numerical investigations on the deformation and breakup of an n-decane droplet induced by a shock wave” [Phys. Fluids 34, 063306 (2022)

First Page

Numerical investigations on the deformation and breakup of an n-decane droplet induced by a shock wave

This paper adopts the coupled level-set and volume-of-fluid and the large eddy simulation methods to simulate the deformation and breakup of an n-decane droplet under the action of a shock wave. We aim to investigate the effects of the shock Mach number and droplet diameter on temporary deformation and breakup characteristics at high Weber numbers from 5813 to 22 380. Additionally, special attention is paid to subsequent sub-droplet size distributions, which many researchers generally ignore. The results indicate that the evolution of droplet deformation and breakup in the shear breakup regime generally agrees with the obtained experimental data. Based on the present methods, the physical mechanisms for variations of multiple recirculation zones and the development of Kelvin–Helmholtz instability in wave formation are discussed. Larger shock Mach number and smaller droplet diameter can significantly increase the cross-stream and stream-wise deformations. Moreover, both relaxation and breakup times are directly proportional to the initial droplet diameters but inversely proportional to the shock Mach numbers. Eventually, as the shock Mach number increases, the superficial area and mass ratios of sub-droplets to parent droplets all increase from 5.596 to 8.278 and from 23.38% to 38.38%, while the ratios increase from 2.652 to 18.523 and from 4.63% to 92.7%, respectively, as the droplet diameter decreases.

Effects of wall temperature and temperature-dependent viscosity on maximum spreading of water-in-oil emulsion droplet

The study is focused on the spreading dynamics of the droplets of n-decane and water-in-oil emulsions based on n-decane and isoparaffinic oil stabilized by different nonionic surfactants. The droplets fall on a solid glass surface heated up to 70–390 °C at Weber numbers of 100–500 and Ohnesorge numbers of 0.001–0.008. Five hydrodynamic outcomes of the droplet impact on a heated surface are experimentally identified, including deposition, bouncing, contact splashing, film splashing, and rebound. The maximum spreading of droplets of the liquids is quantified given their temperature-dependent dynamic viscosity. As a result, a universal empirical model for maximum droplet spreading diameter, βmax=(T*WeOhT–1)1/8 + 0.15, is proposed, taking into account the overall effects of temperature-dependent dynamic viscosity, surface tension, and explicit impact surface temperature term. The model has been successfully tested using the experimental data on the maximum droplet spreading diameters for pure hydrocarbons, commercial hydrocarbon liquid fuels, and biofuel at Weber numbers of 60–900, Ohnesorge numbers of 0.002–0.015, and impact surface temperature of 25–210 °C. The values of the maximum droplet spreading diameter predicted by the model are compared with those determined by the empirical expression by Bhat et al. (2019) for single- and multi-component liquid fuels, also involving an explicit surface temperature term. The model by Bhat et al. (2019) is modified by introducing the temperature-dependent viscosity leading to the significant decrease in the relative mean error between the experimental and predicted values of the maximum droplet spreading diameter. The findings related to the no-slip condition for the viscous liquids are critically important in modeling the conjugate problems of fluid mechanics and heat mass transfer used in the fuel-air mixture formation in combustion chambers.

Study on two-stage ignition of two interactive droplets in flame spread over n-decane droplets in microgravity

Study on two-stage ignition of two interactive droplets in flame spread over n-decane droplets in microgravity

Effects of properties of atmosphere diluents on cool-flame combustion of normal-alkane droplets

Droplet combustion experiments carried out in the International Space Station using n-alkane fuels have shown that large droplets, when ignited, first burn with visible hot flames and then extinguish, only to be followed later by quasi-steady cool-flame combustion. In a few of these experiments, some of the nitrogen in the nitrogen-oxygen ambient-gas mixture was replaced by helium, carbon dioxide, or xenon, for n-heptane, n-octane, n-decane, or n-dodecane droplets. Different diluents were observed to exert remarkably different influences on the cool-flame combustion. These initially unexpected differences are summarized here, with explanations offered for their causes. In particular, a simplified theoretical description of cool-flame-supported droplet combustion is employed to predict burning-rate constants and droplet diameters at cool-flame extinction, resulting in good agreement with much of the experimental data but disagreement with certain measurements, for reasons that are explained. The comparisons underscore the important influence of the diluent, especially on the Lewis numbers of cool-flame intermediate species derived from the fuel vapor.

Effects of Flow Compressibility on Two-Phase Mixing in Supersonic Droplet-Laden Flows

This research addresses a numerical analysis on the effects of flow compressibility on the characteristics of droplet dispersion, evaporation, and mixing of fuel and air according to the simulation of the spatially developing supersonic shear flows laden with evaporating n-decane droplets. A sixth-order hybrid WENO numerical scheme is employed for capturing the unsteady wave structures. The influence of inflow convective Mach number ( M c ), representing the high-speed flow compressibility, on the two-phase mixing is analyzed, in which M c is specified from 0.4 to 1.0. It is found that the shearing vortex is compressed spatially as M c increases, associated with the alternate distributions of compression and expansion regimes in the flow field. The flow compressibility changes not only the vortex structures but also the aerothermal parameters of the shear flows, and further influences the dispersion and evaporation of droplets. The two-phase mixing efficiency is observed to decrease as M c increases.

Space-based microgravity experiments on flame spread over randomly distributed n-decane-droplet clouds: Anomalous behavior in flame spread

The first combustion experiments aboard the Japanese Experiment Module “Kibo” on the International Space Station, titled “Elucidation of Flame Spread and Group Combustion Excitation Mechanism of Randomly Distributed Droplet Clouds (Group Combustion)” were conducted in 2017 in order to bridge the gap between droplet combustion and spray combustion through flame spread over droplet arrays, droplet-cloud elements and randomly distributed droplet clouds. n-Decane droplets were distributed randomly on a SiC-fiber lattice, and the flame spread and group-combustion excitation were observed. During the flame spread near the group-combustion-excitation limit, two types of anomalous behavior appeared: large-scale ignition and re-burning by a slow flame propagation in a burned area. We successfully simulated similar phenomena by a flame-spread experiment using droplet-cluster arrays. The large-scale ignition phenomenon is caused by the ignition of a flammable mixture generated by heating multiple droplets existing outside the local flame-spread limit. The re-burning phenomenon by the slow flame propagation in a burned area is caused by the ignition of a flammable mixture diluted by the combustion products after the radiative extinction of the group flame. There is the possibility of a cool-flame appearance in both phenomena.

Spontaneous ignition of droplet pairs of n-Decane and n-Tetradecane in microgravity

The induction times of pairs of droplets of n-decane and n-tetradecane have been investigated experimentally in microgravity. The results were compared to the induction times of single droplets. N-decane is a well matching model fuel for synthetic kerosene while n-tetradecane is well matching the ignition behavior of synthetic diesel fuel. All droplets had a diameter of 0.8 mm. The experiments were carried out at pressures of 0.3 and 0.5 MPa and in the temperature range of 650 to 850 K. The spacing of the droplet pairs was 1, 2, 4 and 6 mm (center distance). The LIF on formaldehyde was applied. Formaldehyde is the stable product of the cool flame reaction and is formed parallel to the OH-radical whose concentration in the cool flame is too low for detection. As formaldehyde is immediately decomposed at hot ignition, the whole ignition process is displayed by applying this technique. The results show that for both fuels the induction times of a pair of 1 mm distance are slightly longer than for a single droplet. Beyond 1 mm the induction times drop below that of a single droplet. The 6 mm spacing showed the shortest induction times. With widening gap between the droplets, the instant of hot ignition moves from near the droplets interspace to in between the droplets and moves back to an arbitrary outside location at 6 mm gap.

Spreading and bouncing of liquid alkane droplets upon impacting on a heated surface

This paper reports an experimental investigation on the impact dynamics of liquid normal alkane (n-heptane, n-decane and n-tetradecane) droplets on a stainless steel surface using high speed photography and long distance microscopic techniques. Particular interest is paid to comprehensively explore the effects of liquid viscosity and surface roughness on droplet spreading and bouncing dynamics at different thermal hydrodynamic impact regions. Specifically, firstly, high speed images identified four regimes (evaporation, nucleate boiling, transition boiling and film boiling regime) of physical phenomena that couple the droplet spreading hydrodynamics, heat transfer and phase change. Bubbles generation due to the heating of the surface with compression of air disk under the droplet was observed and this phenomenon is firstly promoted and then inhibited with the increase of the wall temperature until finally no bubbles were observed when wall temperature is beyond the Leidenfrost point (TL). Rim disturbances during spreading were observed at relatively high Weber number with wall temperature higher than TL. Increasing wall temperature reduces the rim disturbance. Secondly, the measured non-dimensional maximum spreading diameter βmax decreases with the increase of surface temperature until it becomes a constant when temperature is beyond TL. Rough surface was found to have a lower TL because of larger vapor pressure provided by more nucleation sites. Finally, for wall temperature beyond TL, droplet bounces up after a certain period of residence time (τr). It takes more time for droplet to rebound at larger We because of larger βmax takes longer time to retract and rebound. Both surface roughness and liquid viscosity showed no influence on time to reach βmax (τmax), but significantly increases τr by slowing the retracting process, which both should be considered in future model of τr.