Characteristics of the ignition and combustion of biodiesel fuel spray injected by a common-rail injection system for a direct-injection diesel engine

The effect of injection pressures at 100 MPa and 200 MPa respectively on the ignition and combustion characteristics of biodiesel fuel spray injected by a common-rail injection system for a direct-injection diesel engine was investigated. Two biodiesel fuels (namely biodiesel fuel from palm oil (BDFp) and biodiesel fuel from cooking oil (BDFc)) and JIS#2 diesel fuel were utilized in this research. The Mie scattering technique was used to characterize both the non-evaporating and the evaporating spray formation processes. The OH chemiluminescence technique was used to determine the ignition and the lift-off length of the combusting flame. Two-colour pyrometry was applied for the soot formation processes. At all injection pressures, the biodiesel fuels (especially BDFp) gave a longer spray tip penetration and a smaller spray angle under the non-evaporating conditions while the liquid-phase penetration length was longer for the biodiesel fuels than for diesel under the evaporating conditions. From estimation using a simplified model for air entrainment by the sprays, the BDFp and BDFc exhibited lower mass ratios of air to fuel than diesel did. The ignition delay was longest for the BDFc while it was shortest for the BDFp. Both the experimental and the predicted flame lift-off lengths for the BDFp were the shortest, indicating the least percentage of entrained stoichiometric air upstream. There was no significant difference between the integrated and averaged KL factors at 100 MPa injection pressure for the BDFc and diesel fuels. At 200 MPa, the BDFc presented much lower integrated and averaged KL factors than diesel did. The averaged flame temperatures of the BDFc were found to be lower than that of diesel. The oxygen content in the BDFc played a significant role in the soot formation in comparison with the oxygen from the percentage of stoichiometric air entrained upstream of the lift-off length.