DROPLET SIZE MEASUREMENT OF BIODIESEL AND ITS BLENDS USING DISPERSION TECHNIQUE AND IMAGE PROCESSING

Abstract

In present investigation a twin-fluid external mixing atomizer was designed and developed for fuel atomization which is used in liquid fuel burner. The droplet sizes (SMD) in the spray which was produced through the atomizer was measured experimentally. The experiments have been performed for different liquid fuel types, as well as for air to liquid mass flow rates (ALR), to study the effects of these parameters on droplet size (SMD).The liquid fuels used during the tests are biodiesel and its blends (biodiesel-diesel Bx and biodiesel-kerosene Bkx) with three values of ALR (0.6, 0.8 and 1.0).The droplets sizes were investigated for the region near-nozzle by using imaging setup and using dispersion technique. The images viewing regions 366.6 mm2, to determine the droplet size (SMD). Matlab cod software has been used for a number of image processing techniques to identify and improve the detection of small droplets.The results showed that the increasing of biodiesel ratio in blending with diesel and kerosene increases the (SMD), and the increasing of ALR reduces the (SMD) for all experiments fuels. Also the results showed that the agreement is good of this method of SMD measurement and calculations with published studies.