Spray behaviour of hydrous ethanol fuel (E93) under cold condition

Hydrous ethanol fuels can be used to substitute gasoline inengine applications. The behaviour of such as fuel spray (E93, 93% ethanol and 7% water) was investigated under various ambient temperatures, including sub-zero conditions, by means of high-speed direct photography and laser light sheet illumination techniques (Mie scattering). The experimental results show that the spray patterns are not significantly changed. In the case of low ambient temperature, the spray tip penetration decreases and the spray angle keeps almost constant once the spray becomes fully developed. The results also show that scaling of the spray tip penetration rate previously proposed by the authors achieves reasonable collapse of the experimental results. Normalized droplet diameter was also obtained, and shows that larger droplets formed are at sub-zero temperature.