Rise of Air Bubbles in Aircraft Lubricating Oils
Abstract : Lubricating and antifoaming additives in aircraft lubricating oils may impede the escape of small bubbles from the oil by forming shells of liquid with a quasi-solid or gel structure around the bubbles. The rates of rise of small air bubbles, up to 2 millimeters in diameter, were measured at room temperature in an undoped oil, in the same oil containing foam inhibitors, and in an oil containing lubricating additives. The apparent diameter of the air bubbles was measured visually through an ocular micrometer on a traveling telescope. The bubbles in the undoped oil obeyed Stokes' Law, the rate of rise being proportional to the square of the apparent diameter and inversely proportional to the viscosity of the oil. The bubbles in the oils containing lubricating additives or foam inhibitors rose more slowly than the rate predicted by Stokes' Law from the apparent diameter, and the rate of rise decreased as the length of path the bubbles traveled increased. A method is derived to calculate the thickness of the liquid shell which would have to move with the bubbles in the doped oils to account for the abnormally slow velocity. The maximum thickness of this shell, calculated from the velocities observed, was equal to the bubble radius.
ANALYSIS OF SPARK-IGNITION ENGINE KNOCK AS SEEN IN PHOTOGRAPHS- TAKEN AT 200,000 FRAMES PER SECOND
A motion picture of the development of knock in a spark-ignition engine is presented, which consists of 20 photographs taken at intervals of 5 microseconds, or at a rate of 200,000 photographs per second, with an equivalent wide-open exposure time of 6.4 microseconds for each photograph. A motion picture of a complete combustion process, including the development of knock, taken at the rate of 40,000 photographs per second is also presented to assist the reader in orienting the photographs of the knock development taken at 200,000 frames per second.
A High-Speed Motion-Picture Study of Normal Combustion, Knock and Preignition in a Spark-Ignition Engines
Combustion in a spark-ignition engine was investigated by means of the NACA high-speed motion-picture cameras. This camera is operated at a speed of 40,000 photographs a second and therefore makes possible the study of changes that take place in the intervals as short as 0.000025 second. When the motion pictures are projected at the normal speed of 16 frames a second, any rate of movement shown is slowed down 2500 times. Photographs are presented of normal combustion, of combustion from preignitions, and of knock both with and without preignition. The photographs of combustion show that knock may be preceded by a period of exothermic reaction in the end zone that persists for a time interval of as much as 0.0006 second. The knock takes place in 0.00005 second or less.