• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.26 no.10
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• pp.1355-1363
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• 2002

An experimental study was conducted to investigate the interaction phenomena of droplet array combustion in ambient environment. The droplet with 1 mm in diameter was supported from an optical fiber and ignited with a hot wire. Combustion lifetimes and burning rate constants were measured for fuel of nheptane according to parameters, which were junction and suspender spacings, and array configuration. Results show that the burning process considerably depends on the initial away configuration. The d$^2$-law is found to be correct when applied to both of the droplets in away and the single droplet. For separation distance of about 5mm, there exists a critical state. So the transition from a merged flame to separated flames occurs and burning velocity is much faster than before. Combustion lifetime of the lower droplet is shorter than that of the upper droplet in the two-dimensional arrays combustion. Burning rate constants of the droplets in arrays are smaller than that of the single droplet, while they become higher as separation distance increases. Combustion lifetimes of the droplets in arrays are longer than that of the single droplet and decrease as separation distance increase. It is concluded that the array configuration and the mergedness of the flame are the most important factors governing multi-droplet combustion.

• Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.851-860
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• 2002

In this study, it was attempted to obtain the fundamental data for the formation and oxidation of soot from a diesel engine. Combustion of spray injected into a cylinder is complex phenomenon having physical and chemical processes, and these processes affect each other. There are many factors in the mechanism of the formation and oxidization of soot and it is necessary to observe spray combustion microscopically. In order to observe with that view, free fuel droplet array was used as an experimental object and the droplet array was injected into an atmospheric combustion chamber with high temperature. Ambient temperature of the combustion chamber, interdroplet spacing, and droplet diameter were selected as parameters, which affect the formation and oxidation of soot. In this study, it was found that the parameters also affect ignition delay of droplet. The ambient temperature especially affected the ignition delay of droplet as well as the flame temperature after self-ignition. As the interdroplet spacing that means the local equivalence ratio in a combustion chamber was narrow, formation of soot was increased. As diameter of droplet was large, surface area of the droplet was also broad, and hence evaporation of the droplet was more active than that of a droplet with relative small diameter.

• 한국연소학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2001.11a
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• pp.63-71
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• 2001

The objective of this work is to elucidate the details of two key factors dominating the droplet buring behavior in sprays : droplet-droplet interaction and convective flow. The combustion of a one-dimensional linear droplet array with a convective flow has been studied. A one-step, second order model was employed to simulate the chemical reaction in the combustion process. Results for droplet arrays burning at two Reynolds numbers, 50 and 100, two horizontal droplet spacings, 5 and 11 radii, and two vertical droplet spacing, 2 and 4 radii, were obtained. The results indicate the droplet burning behavior is affected by Reynolds number, droplet-droplet spacing, and the relative location of droplets in the array. Droplet-droplet interaction was found to be strong for arrays with smaller droplet spacing.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.29 no.3 s.234
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• pp.418-424
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• 2005

We present the design, fabrication and experimental results of 4-bit digital microinjectors, whose ejected droplet volumes are adjusted by the digital operation of a 4-bit microheater array. We design the reference microinjectors as well as its comparative test structures. In the fabrication process, we use a five-mask micromachining process and the total chip size of the fabricated microinjector is $7,640{\mu}m{\times}5,260{\mu}m.$ We measure the ejected droplet volumes and velocities, which are adjusted from $12.1{\pm}1.0~55.6{\pm}14.7pl\;and\;2.3{\pm}0.1~15.7{\pm}0.8m/s.$ respectively, depending on the 15 possible combinations of 4-bit microheater array. We also experimentally characterize the effect of geometric variation including the microheater size, inter-microheater gap, microchannel width and sequential operation of microheater array on the ejected droplet volume and velocity. Among these parameters, we find that the microheater size is the most dominant parameter affected to the ejected droplet volumes and velocities. Thus, the present microinjector has a potential for application to the high-resolution inkjet printers with multiple gray levels or high-precision fluid injectors with variable volume control.

• Journal of Energy Engineering
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.113-119
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• 2007

The auto-ignition characteristics and combustion behaviors of one-dimensional array of water-in-fuel droplets suspended in a high temperature chamber have been investigated experimentally with various droplet spacing and number of droplets. The fuels used were pure n-decane and emulsified n-decane with water contents varied from 10% to 30%. All experiments have been performed at 920 K under the atmospheric pressure. The number of droplets in an array were fixed as 3 or 5 and its spacing was varied from 3 mm to 7 mm by 1mm interval. The imaging technique with a high-speed camera has been adopted to measure the ignition delay and flame life time. The micro-explosion behaviors were also observed. As the droplet array sparing increased, the ignition delay also increased regardless of water contents. However, the life time of droplet array decreased as the droplet spacing increased. The full combustion time in array of 3 droplets was found to be longer than that for 5 droplets case due to the longer ignition delay.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Combustion
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.17-26
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• 1999

Vaporization, ignition and combustion of fuel droplets in tandem array are theoretically investigated to understand the droplet interactions in combustors. Including the effects of density variation in gas-phase, internal circulation and transient liquid heating, a numerical studies are performed by changing parameters such as initial droplet temperatures, initial droplet spacings, initial Reynolds numbers, surrounding gas temperatures, and activation energies of fuel vapors. Combustion regime maps classify the droplet combustion phenomena according to the configuration and location of the flame with respect to injection Reynolds numbers and surrounding gas temperatures. In addition, it is shown that the dynamic histories of droplets and ignition delay times are dependent on droplet size ratios and initial spacings of tandem droplets.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Combustion
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.17-26
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• 2003

The objective of present study is to understand the interaction of burning droplets in air stream for various droplet arrangement. The unsteady combustion of linearly arranged droplets with a convective flow has been studied numerically. The droplets with spacing of $5R_0\;to\;40R_0$ horizontally and with spacing of $4R_0\;to\;16R_0$ vertically are studied. The effects of Reynolds number, horizontal spacing, and vertical spacing on the interaction of burning droplets are examined. The results indicate that the droplet burning behavior is influenced by Reynolds number and relative location of droplets in the array. The interaction of droplets is increased for arrays with smaller droplet spacing. The vaporization of droplets in the array is varied with both horizontal and vertical spacing exponentially.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Combustion
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.15-22
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• 2002

Flame spread experiments of a fuel droplet array were performed using a microgravity environment. N-decane, 1-octadecene, and the blends (50% : 50% vol.) of these fuels were used and the experiments were conducted at pressures up to 5.0 MPa, which are over the critical pressure of these fuels. Observations of the flame spread phenomenon were conducted for OH radical emission images recorded using a high-speed video camera. The flame spread rates were calculated based on the time history of the spreading forehead of the OH emission images. The flame spread rate of the n-decane droplet-array decreased with pressure and had its minimum at a pressure around half of the critical pressure and then increased again with pressure. It had its maximum at a pressure over the critical pressure and then decreased gradually. The pressure dependence of flame spread rate of 1-octadecene were similar to those of n-decan, but the magnitude of the spread rate was much smaller than that of n-decane. The variation of the flame spread for the blended fuel was similar to that of n-decane in the pressure range from atmospheric pressure to near the critical pressure of the blended fuel. When the pressure increased further, it approached to that of 1-octadecene. Numerically estimated gas-liquid equilibrium states proved that almost all the fuel gas which evaporated from the droplet at ordinary pressure consisted of n-decane whereas near and over the critical pressure, the composition of the fuel gas was almost the same as that of the liquid phase, so that the effects of 1-octadecene on the flame spread rate was significant.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Combustion
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.1-11
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• 1998

Experimental investigation on flame spread of blended fuel droplet arrays has been conducted for droplet diameters of 1.0mm and 0.75mm using high-speed chemiluminescence images of OH radical. The flame spread rate is measured with blended fuel composition, droplet diameter, and droplet spacing. Flame spread is categorized into two: a continuous mode and an intermittent one. There exist a limit droplet spacing, above which flame does not spread, and a droplet spacing of maximum flame spread, which is closely related to flame diameter. It is seen that flame spread rate is mainly dependent upon the relative position of flame zone within a droplet spacing. In case of large droplet, the increase of % volume of Heptane induces the shift of limit droplet spacing to a larger spacing since volatile Heptane plays a role of an enhancer of flame spread rate. In case of small droplet, the increase of % volume of Heptane leads to the shift of limit droplet spacing to a smaller droplet spacing. This is so because of the delayed chemical reaction time by the rapid increase of mass flux of fuel vapor for small droplet.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers
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• v.16 no.9
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• pp.1770-1779
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• 1992

The present study investigated dynamically and thermally interacting droplets in a closely spaced tandem array. By measuring the velocity and diameter of the droplet traveling along the isothermal vertical plate drag coefficients and vaporization rates of droplets at certain location were obtained. During the experiment initial droplet spacings were less than 5, and initial droplet diameters were ranged between 280 .mu.m and 700 .mu.m Drag coefficients on closely spaced droplets were placed far below the standard drag coefficient, for which it was caused turbulence induced from aforelocating droplets also narrow spaces among droplets restricted heat transfer to droplets from hot gas flow. In addition evaporated vapor entrapted between droplets was major factor in delaying droplet vaporization. With the experimental results the drag coefficient was correlated with respect to Reynolds number for the droplet as follows : $c_{D}$ =2.4/Red.$^{0.37}$