Atomization characteristics of intermittent multi-hole diesel spray using time-resolved PDPA data

The intermittent spray characteristics of a multi-hole diesel nozzle with a 2-spring nozzle holder were investigated experimentally. Without changing the total orifice exit area, the hole number of the multi-hole nozzle varied from 3 (d_n=0.42 mm) to 5 (d_n=0.32mm). The time-resolved droplet diameters of the spray including the SMD (Sauter mean diameter) and the AMD (arithmetic mean diameter), injected intermittently from the multi-hole nozzles into still ambient air, were measured by using a 2-D PDPA (phase Doppler particle analyzer). The 5-hole nozzle spray shows the smaller spray cone angle, the decreased SMD distributions and the small difference between the SMD and the AMD, compared with that of the 3-hole nozzle spray. From the SMD distributions with the radial distance, the spray structure can be classified into the three regions : (a) the inner region showing the high SMD distribution; (b) the mixing flow region where the shear flow structure would be constructed; and (c) the outer region formed through the disintegration processes of the spray inner region and composed of fine droplets. Through the SMD distributions along the spray centerline, it reveals that the SMD decreases rapidly after showing the maximum value in the vicinity of the nozzle tip. The SMD remains the constant value near the Z/d_n=166 and 156.3 for the 3-hole and 5-hole nozzles, which illustrate that the disintegration processes of the 5-hole nozzle spray proceed more rapidly than that of the 3-hole nozzle spray.