THERMAL SCIENCE

International Scientific Journal

Xiaoxiao Chen

,

Yu Qiu

,

Chunying Zhang

,

Deli Zhang

STUDY ON THE ATOMISATION PERFORMANCE OF FUEL ATOMISING SPRAY NOZZLE WITH NON-EQUILIBRIUM PLASMA EXCITATION

ABSTRACT
The atomisation performance of fuel nozzles is a key factor affecting combustion efficiency. In this study, an experimental investigation was conducted on the atomisation performance of a plasma-excited fuel atomising nozzle. The effects of air flow rate and discharge voltage on the spray angle and Sauter Mean Diameter were systematically examined. The results demonstrated that increasing the air flow rate and discharge voltage improved the fuel atomisation performance. Compared with the case without plasma excitation, the spray angle was increased by up to 29.24%, and the SMD was decreased by up to 11.95% with plasma excitation. The plasma excitation effect was observed only when the discharge voltage exceeded a certain threshold. Furthermore, the improvement in fuel atomisation performance due to plasma excitation exhibited a limit; beyond a certain level, the atomisation performance remained unchanged with further increase in plasma excitation intensity.
KEYWORDS
Non-equilibrium Plasma, spray angle, Sauter Mean Diameter, Atomisation
PAPER SUBMITTED: 2025-11-27
PAPER REVISED: 2026-03-04
PAPER ACCEPTED: 2026-03-13
PUBLISHED ONLINE: 2026-04-12
DOI REFERENCE: https://doi.org/10.2298/TSCI251127035C
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Study on the atomisation performance of fuel atomising spray nozzle with non-equilibrium plasma excitation

© 2026 Society of Thermal Engineers of Serbia. Published by the Vinča Institute of Nuclear Sciences, National Institute of the Republic of Serbia, Belgrade, Serbia. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International licence