Time-Resolved Spray Characterization via Unified Optical Flow and Binarization Technique

Brien, Casey J.; Kang, Kyungrae; Wood, Eric J.; Yoon, Joshua; Mayhew, Eric J.; Kastengren, Alan; Kweon, Chol-Bum M.; Lee, Tonghun

doi:10.1016/j.fuel.2025.137433

i

Time-Resolved Spray Characterization via Unified Optical Flow and Binarization Technique

2026-03-01
By Brien, Casey J. ; Kang, Kyungrae ; Wood, Eric J. ; ...

File Language:

English

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Creators:

Brien, Casey J. ; Kang, Kyungrae ; Wood, Eric J. ; Yoon, Joshua ; Mayhew, Eric J. ; Kastengren, Alan ; Kweon, Chol-Bum M. ; Lee, Tonghun
Corporate Creators:

United States. Department of Transportation. Federal Aviation Administration. Center of Excellence for Alternative Jet Fuels and Environment ; University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Corporate Contributors:

United States. Department of Transportation. Federal Aviation Administration. Office of Environment and Energy
Subject/TRT Terms:

ASCENT Chemical Dispersions Chemical Sprays Flammability Image Processing Machine Learning
Publication/ Report Number:

j.fuel.2025.137433
DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fuel.2025.137433
Resource Type:

Journal Article
Right Statement:

Open Access; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Geographical Coverage:

United States
Corporate Publisher:

Elsevier
Abstract:

This work leverages an unsupervised machine learning and advanced image processing techniques to characterize the breakup of fuel sprays in a small-scale combustor under reacting conditions, providing valuable insights into near-nozzle flow phenomenology. The proposed methodology integrates an improved optical flow model on a convolutional neural network to extract flow vectors with a binarization technique to assess droplets’ size and shape across the region of interest. The velocimetry approach demonstrates superior performance compared to a state-of-the-art optical flow model when applied to high-speed X-ray phase contrast spray images, achieving more accurate and reliable flow predictions. Moreover, breakup processes are quantified by breakup length and sphericity in accordance with velocity estimations, allowing a more complete characterization of the flow. This study establishes a robust methodology for analyzing spray morphology and primary breakup in compact combustors, contributing valuable means of understanding and optimizing fuel spray behavior in advanced combustion systems.
Content Notes:

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. Please cite this article as: Casey J. O’Brien, Kyungrae Kang, Eric J. Wood, Joshua Yoon, Eric K. Mayhew, Alan Kastengren, Chol-Bum M. Kweon, Tonghun Lee, Time-resolved spray characterization via unified optical flow and binarization technique, Fuel, Volume 407, Part C, 2026, 137433, ISSN 0016-2361, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fuel.2025.137433.
Format:

PDF
Funding:

13-C-AJFE-UI-051
Collection(s):

Federal Highway Administration
Main Document Checksum:

urn:sha-512:5ad847b0b78faf9c3d9c5baa2b03be3a642921fe09bd9f15b4ff1b351e74479f678a4dda54452018874765df2a47a0d789829987b640aa3fd3d0c5845517d5fb
Download URL:

https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/89780/dot_89780_DS1.pdf
File Type:

[PDF - 5.71 MB ]

File Language:

English

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