Liquid Atomizing Fuel Injector for Heavy Fuel Internal Combustion Engine

Rapid fuel droplet evaporation and near-homogeneous mixing with air can be obtained with small monodisperse droplets, bringing benefits to the performance of combustion chambers, and reduced pollutant emissions. Additionally, the greater homogeneity of the mixture produced by fine atomization permits operation at higher equivalence ratios, improving stability. Current fuel injector technology utilizes a high pressure (thousands of pounds per square inch) feed system driven through orifices to generate polydisperse fuel droplets. The quest for droplet size reduction has led to common rail systems operating at as high as 29,000psi. Such systems do not scale well to small engine applications due to their size, weight, and complexity. Busek proposes to investigate a novel approach for creating monodisperse micron-sized droplets at the mass flowrates required for a small heavy fuel internal combustion engine (ICE). Busek will accomplish this without the need for excessively high fuel feedsystem pressures currently used available injector systems. Busek has already achieved the desired droplet sizes and performed successful combustion testing of unmodified JP-8 at low mass flowrates. The goal of the Phase 1 effort shall be to test an augmentation technique for increasing mass flowrates, culminating in a proof-of-concept functional and characterized fuel injector.