Influence of micron-sized aluminum particles on micro-explosion and combustion characteristics of ethanol-biodiesel droplets under co-heat flow

•The characteristics of droplets doped with micron-sized particles were studied.•Increasing the particle size will promote the micro-explosion phenomenon.•The droplet heating time will vary due to changes in particle content.•The particle content of the optimal micro-explosion intensity is about 20%. As a high-energy metal fuel, aluminum powder particles (AP) have long been used as fuel propellants and combustion-supporting additives in explosives to meet the design requirements of a new generation of high-energy–density fuels. In this experiment, the micro-explosion and combustion characteristics of ethanol-biodiesel mixed droplets with different aluminum powder particle contents and particle sizes were studied under high temperature and pure oxygen environment. In order to better control the experimental variables, a more accurate single-droplet suspension method was adopted in this experiment. The entire evaporation and combustion process of the mixed fuel was completely recorded and analyzed by using high-speed photography technology, binarization imaging technology and droplet optimization algorithms. The experimental results show that when the content of aluminum powder particles remains unchanged, increasing the particle size of aluminum powder in the mixed droplets will promote the micro-explosion phenomenon. When the particle size of the aluminum powder contained in the mixed fuel is different, the increase of the particle content will have a completely different effect on the heating time of the droplet. When the particle size of aluminum powder particles is small, the combustion duration of the mixed droplets increases with the increase of aluminum powder content, while the opposite results are shown when the aluminum powder particles are larger. Increasing the amount of aluminum powder also extends the full life of the droplets. In addition, this study introduces the microburst intensity (MI), which provides a new idea and method for laterally comparing the microburst phenomena of fuel droplets with different initial diameters. For mixed fuel containing micron-sized aluminum particles, the particle content that produces the best micro-explosion intensity is about 20%.