Development of a low-cost pseudo-fuel spray combustion chamber for gas injection analysis of two-stroke dual-fuel engines

The present work is aimed to model, design, build and experimentally characterize a low-cost pseudo-fuel spray combustion chamber (SCC) for gas injection analysis of two-stroke dual fuel engines. The novel SCC, operating at low pressure and with a pseudo-fuel, was capable to reproduce, under equivalent fluid-dynamic conditions, the operating behavior of a full-scale engine combustion chamber. A mathematical model, based on AVL Boost®, was developed to simulate pressure, mass flow rate, velocity and momentum rate within the system. Then, according to these numerical results, the SCC was built and experimentally characterized. Its main element was a velocimetric chamber provided with four optical accesses to perform imaging analysis (PIV and LIF) on pseudo-fuel sprays. In conclusion, this article may be a useful guide to build a new type of low-cost pseudo-fuel spray combustion chamber for gas injection analysis of two-stroke dual-fuel engines, avoiding dangerous (because of high pressures and temperatures involved) and expensive full-scale studies.