ILIDS Measurements of the Evaporation of Fuel Droplets During the Intake and Compression Strokes in a Firing Lean Burn Engine 960830

The evaporation of fuel droplets is an important factor in determining the quality of mixture preparation in lean-burn engines, particularly when using open-valve injection timing, which results in large in-cylinder droplet populations. Interferometric Laser Imaging for Droplet Sizing (ILIDS) has been used to measure the in-cylinder droplet size distribution and fuel volume in the droplet phase as a function of crank angle for a typical full boiling range gasoline and three single component fuels with different boiling points: iso-pentane, iso-octane, and xylene, representing the volatilities of the light end, mid-range and heavy ends of a typical gasoline. The measurements were made under firing conditions, with both open and closed valve injection timing, and at two different coolant temperatures, representing simulated cold start and fully warmed up conditions. A specially built single cylinder research engine was used, equipped with a transparent sapphire cylinder to provide all-round sidewall optical access to the cylinder interior. The engine had a four-valve lean-burn head, swirl control valve and air-assisted injector. The experimental arrangements for ILIDS in a firing engine, and the optical access engine itself, are discussed in detail. The results showed significant differences in the rates of evaporation of the three fuel components: iso-pentane evaporated fully very early in the induction stroke, iso-octane droplets persisted longer, and xylene droplets persisted to the end of the compression stroke.