Measurement of spray characteristics using the background-oriented schlieren technique

The background-oriented schlieren (BOS) technique has not yet been used in the visualization of fuel spray in automotive research despite its great promise. To investigate the potential of this technique, the density distribution of a cross section of the spray was obtained by applying a filtered back projection (FBP) to the BOS results. Using the density distribution, the penetration lengths of the liquid and vapor phases of the fuel were measured and compared with the results of Mie scattering and shadowgraph images. The results show that the BOS technique is applicable for measuring the liquid and vapor penetration lengths simultaneously. Furthermore, the analysis of the back-projected density distribution revealed that the BOS technique is capable of visualizing the difference in the transient change in the density distribution due to changes in the injection pressure and the fuel volatility.