Comparison of diffraction-based and light extinction techniques for particle sizing

Studies of direct injection, compression ignition engines demand a particle sizing technique which can reliably retrieve droplet sizes in transient fuel sprays. Many of the existing sizing techniques cannot analyze the dense, transient fuel sprays or provide information which is awkward to interpret. This work compares the performances of a diffraction based particle sizing technique and a light extinction sizing technique on a series of Diesel sprays. Both techniques were effective in acquiring useful data from the sprays. Under equivalent conditions, the light extinction technique provides somewhat smaller sizes than the diffraction based method.