Studies of Jet A1 Fuel Atomisation Through Non-Circular Orifices

Abstract

The performance of the liquid rocket engine depends on the atomization behavior of the fluid being injected into the combustion chamber. Generally, a plain injector with a circular orifice has been used in the injector, but it has the disadvantage of having a low spray cone angle. The breakup length, mean droplet diameter, and Sauter mean diameter is also higher. Thus, to overcome these drawbacks, non-circular orifices have been utilized in the present study. The shapes used for non-circular orifices are semi-circular and plus. The results obtained with the non-circular orifice is compared with the circular orifices of the same area ratio. The working fluid used for the studies is Jet A1 fuel. Studies were also conducted with different L/D ratios by choosing an effective orifice length to reduce the upstream losses. The axis-switching phenomena were observed with the semi-circular as well as with the plus jets. The mean droplet size of the circular jets was more prominent compared to non-circular jets, and the Sauter mean diameter of non-circular jets droplets was smaller than that of the circular jet droplet. The spray cone angle has increased by 290% for plus jets and 30% for semi-circular jets compared to circular jets.


Experimental setup for atomisation studies.
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Description