Laser induced-exciplex-fluorescence (EXCIPLEX) proposed by Melton is used to visualize fuel vapor in spray combustion. However, in the EXCIPLEX method based on TMPD/naphthalene system, the TMPD : naphthalene ratio is strictly restricted to 1 : 9. In addition, fluorescence intensity due to the vapor phase is extremely weak. To overcome these drawbacks, we propose a new laser-induced-excimer fluorescence (EXCIMER) method to visualize the liquid and vapor phases simultaneously. The spatial distributions of liquid and vapor in fuel spray suspended by ultrasonic waves are compared using the EXCIPLEX and EXCIMER methods. The correlation between fuel vapor concentration and fluorescence intensity is experimentally investigated by measuring the fluorescence intensity of saturated vapor formed over liquid fuel at a controlled temperature. These experimental results indicate that the EXCIMER method is effective for evaluating fuel vapor visualization in spray combustion. Furthermore, the quantitative distribution of fuel vapor concentration can be correctly estimated by the EXCIMER method.
The stoichiometric gas from an advanced alkaline electrolysis process as developed by Yull Brown is called as HHO gas or Brown gas. By this process, two moles of H2 and 1mole of O2 gases are generated stoichiometrically in a wellpremixed state. Due to the fact that very clean fuel can be obtained relatively easily by the simple equipment of electrolysis, the research of this gas has been continuously performed, even though the criticism has been made by many researcher of this area. The main controversial argument is in that the use of high quality electrical energy is used again for the generation of another combustible fuel with less than 100% efficiency in its energy transform. In fact, since Brown gas exists in the state of a completely mixed state only with oxygen molecule, there is no time delay due to turbulent mixing occurring in practical combustion process. Therefore, the high reaction rate is likely to have a high chance of backfire. Further, since there is no inert material like nitrogen as in air, the flame temperature rises unnecessarily high. In order to prevent the backfire phenomenon, the increase of injection velocity of fuel nozzle causes the formation of very unstable long flame with good chance of flame lift-off. One of practical application methods, the co-combustion of Brown gas with other fuel like gasoline and LNG, etc has been reported in open literature in order not only to increase the combustion efficiency but also for the reduction of pollutant emission such as NOx. In order to control the negative aspect of flame characteristics of Brown gas, in this study, an novel method is employed by premixing Brown gas with water vapor and the co-combustion performance and characteristics has been studied numerically for a combustor operated for kiln drying method. To this end, a commercial code(STAR-CCM+7.06) has been employed with the program verification against operational data of kiln drying combustor and a parametric numerical calculation has been made with the change of the amount of water vapor in the fuel mixture of Brown gas and water vapor. The calculation results show that the combustion feature looks quite stable without showing any unstable flame feature like long thin flame and backfire. Further temperature and streamline contours with the amount of water vapor content look consistent and physically acceptable. This result suggests that the addition of water vapor in the Brown gas looks one of promising method for the use of Brown gas as clean fuel.