Planar droplet sizing (PDS) is a technique relying on the assumption that laserinduced fluorescence (LIF) and Mie scattering optical signals from spherical droplets depend on their volume and surface area, respectively. In this article, we verify the validity of this assumption by experimentally analyzing the light intensity of the LIF and Mie optical signals from micrometric droplets as a function of their diameter. The size of the droplets is controlled using a new flow-focusing monodisperse droplet generator capable of producing droplets of the desired size in the range of 21 µm to 60 µm. Ethanol droplets doped with eosin dye and excited at 532 nm are considered in this study, and the individual droplets were imaged simultaneously at microscopic and macroscopic scale. The effects of laser power, dye concentration, and temperature variation are systematically studied as a function of LIF/Mie ratio in the whole range of droplet sizes. Finally, a calibration curve at tracer concentration of 0.5 vol% is deduced and used to extract the droplet Sauter mean diameter (SMD) from instantaneous images of a transient ethanol spray. This droplet size mapping is done using structured laser illumination planar imaging (SLIPI), in order to suppress the artifacts induced by multiple light scattering.

This paper reports on the spray structure of the biofuels, ethanol, and butanol generated by a multihole direct-injection spark-ignition injector, which is studied in a constant volume chamber. The spray shape and structure are analyzed using two-phase structured laser illumination planar imaging where both laser-induced fluorescence and Mie-scattering light are recorded simultaneously for the extraction of instantaneous laser-induced fluorescence/Mie-scattering ratio images. Quantitative planar measurements of the droplet Sauter mean diameter are conducted, using calibration data from phase-Doppler anemometry. The resulting Sauter mean diameters are presented for ethanol and butanol at various fuel temperatures at different times after the start of injection. It is found that an increase in fuel temperature results in a faster atomization and higher evaporation rate, which leads to reduced spray tip penetration and smaller droplet Sauter mean diameter. At equivalent conditions, butanol consistently showed larger spray tip penetration in comparison to ethanol. This behavior is due to the higher surface tension and viscosity of butanol resulting in the formation of larger droplets and larger Sauter mean diameters in the whole spray region. Finally, the butanol injection also shows larger cyclic variations in the spray shape from injection to injection which is explained by the internal nozzle flow that is influenced by larger fuel viscosity as well. The Sauter mean diameter distribution is also compared to phase-Doppler anemometry data showing good agreement and an uncertainty analysis of the structured laser illumination planar imaging-laser-induced fluorescence/Mie-scattering technique for planar droplet sizing in direct-injection spark-ignition sprays is presented.

We report in this Letter a two-phase structured laser illumination planar imaging [two-pulse SLIPI (2p-SLIPI)] optical setup where the "lines structure" is spatially shifted by exploiting the birefringence property of a calcite crystal. By using this optical component and two cross-polarized laser pulses, the shift of the modulated pattern is not "time-limited" anymore. Consequently, two sub-images with spatially mismatched phases can be recorded within a few hundred of nanoseconds only, freezing the motion of the illuminated transient flow. In comparison with previous setups for instantaneous imaging based on structured illumination, the current optical design presents the advantage of having a single optical path, greatly simplifying its complexity. Due to its virtue of suppressing the effects from multiple light scattering, the 2p-SLIPI technique is applied here in an optically dense multi-jet direct-injection spark-ignition (DISI) ethanol spray. The fast formation of polydispersed droplets and appearance of voids after fuel injection are investigated by simultaneous detection of Mie scattering and liquid laser-induced fluorescence. The results allow for significantly improved analysis of the spray structure.

images with an intensity profile close to the corresponding single scattering case. Experimentally, this suppression renders both an improvement in image contrast and the removal of undesired stray light components that could be interpreted as signal. However, while 2p-SLIPI preserves most of the initial spatial resolution, 1p-SLIPI results in a loss of spatial resolution, where high-frequency image information is not visible anymore. Thus, there is a tradeoff between preserving the most detailed information of the spray structure-with 2p-SLIPI-and being able to record an SLIPI image from a single modulated image only-with 1p-SLIPI. The comparison and technical overview of these two methods presented in this paper can facilitate in selecting which approach is the most suitable for a given application for spray visualization.

Suitable fluorescence tracers (“dyes”) are needed for the planar measurement of droplet sizes by using a combination of laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) and Mie scattering. Currently, no suitable tracers have been characterized for application in planar droplet sizing in gasoline and kerosene fuels, as well as biofuel blends. One promising tracer is nile red, which belongs to the fluorophore group. For its utilization for droplet size measurements, preliminary characterization of the fluorescence of the respective fuel tracer mixtures are mandatory. For this purpose, the fluorescence and absorption behavior of nile red dissolved in the surrogate fuels Toliso and Jet A-1 as well as in biofuel blends was investigated. The fluorescence signal for nile red that was dissolved in the two base fuels Toliso and Jet A-1 showed a linear behavior as a function of dye concentration. The temperature effect on spectral absorption and emission of nile red was investigated in a specially designed test cell. An ethanol admixture to Toliso led to a spectral shift towards higher wavelengths. The absorption and emission bands were shifted towards lower wavelengths with increasing temperature for all fuels. Both absorption and fluorescence decreased with increasing temperature for all fuels, except for E20, which showed an increased fluorescence signal with increasing temperature. Jet A-1 and its blends with hydroprocessed esters and fatty acids (HEFA) and farnesane did not exhibit explicit variations in spectral absorption or emission, but these blends showed a more distinct temperature dependence compared to the Toliso-ethanol-blends. The effect of photo-dissociation of the LIF signal of the fuel tracer mixtures was studied, and all fuel mixtures besides Toliso showed a more or less distinct decay in the fluorescence signal with time. In summary, all investigated fuel-tracer mixtures are suitable for LIF/Mie ratio droplet sizing in combination with nile red at moderate temperatures and low evaporation cooling rates.

In this study, we report on the 3D (three-dimensional) characterization of a spray in terms of its droplet SMD (Sauter Mean Diameter) using the LIF (Laser-Induced Fluorescence)/Mie ratio technique. The spray structure is analyzed for a multi-hole DISI (Direct-Injection Spark Ignition) injector. A calibration curve to convert LIF/Mie ratio to droplet diameter is deduced using LIF/Mie imaging and analysis of single droplets generated by a droplet generator. The DISI spray investigated here is optically sectioned by means of two-phase SLIPI (Structured Laser Illumination Planar Imaging) to suppress the intensity of multiple light scattering from LIF and Mie images prior to their ratio. A series of calibrated LIF/Mie ratio images of spray is then recorded at several depths along the Z-direction following the light sheet scanning of the spray. The droplet SMD is ranging from less than 5 µm up to a maximum of 50 µm in single-shot images. The averaged SMD results (1-30 µm) obtained by using the calibration curve from the droplet generator are compared with measurement results from Phase-Doppler Anemometry (PDA). Finally, a 3D map is reconstructed from the successive 2D layers generated from spray scanning. The resulting 3D representation of the droplet SMD shows a non-symmetric spray structure produced by the studied multi-hole injector, which cannot be resolved by analyzing only one central plane.

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In this work, the possibility of using planar droplet sizing (PDS) based on laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) and Mie scattering was investigated within the framework of measuring the droplet Sauter mean diameter (SMD) of direct-injection spark-ignition (DISI) spray systems. For this purpose, LIF and Mie signals of monodisperse fuel droplets produced by a droplet generator were studied at engine relevant diameters (20–50 µm). The surrogate gasoline fuel Toliso (consisting of 65 vol. % isooctane, 35 vol. % toluene) and the biofuel blend E20 (consisting of 80 vol. % Toliso, 20 vol. % ethanol) were used and which were doped with the fluorescence dye “nile red”. The effects of ethanol admixture, dye concentration, laser power, and temperature variation on the LIF/Mie ratio were studied simultaneously at both macroscopic and microscopic scale. The deduced calibration curves of the LIF and Mie signals of both fuels showed volumetric and surface dependent behaviors, respectively, in accordance with the assumptions in the literature. The existence of glare points and morphology-dependent resonances (MDRs) lead to slightly higher LIF and Mie exponents of E20 in comparison to Toliso. In principle, these calibration curves enable the determination of the SMD from LIF/Mie ratio images of transient fuel sprays.