CHARACTERIZATION OF DIESEL SPRAY IMAGES USING THE LOGARITHMIC IMAGE PROCESSING FRAMEWORK

The increasing levels of emission standards in Diesel Engines require a detailed understanding, combustion and after treatment. This paper focuses on the spray development as one key parameter in the mixture preparation. The presentation of a methodology to differentiate the internal symmetry of spray images taken under different environmental conditions is presented. In a first step, a preprocessing is performed, then an image re-centering is made using the logarithmic average, afterwards different symmetry axes based on grey levels or on the plume boundary are calculated and, finally, the logarithmic distance characterizing the spray plume internal symmetry is computed. This distance gives more importance to the high grey level pixels, so using our optical setup, it characterizes the liquid continuous core symmetry. The methodology relies on the logarithmic image processing framework, providing a set of specific algebraic and functional operations to analyze images. This paper is an application of the logarithmic image processing framework on Diesel spray characterization. This is a step further in the quantitative diesel spray characterization by means of image analysis. The presented method can be applied to Diesel sprays illuminated with polychromatic or monochromatic light, under atmospheric or pressurized conditions.