In the experiments presented here, a single diesel spray of n-tridecane was injected for a certain duration through a hole-type nozzle (ln/dn=1.1mm / 0.2mm) into a quiescent high pressure atmosphere at room temperature. We used the same amounts of fuel injection for each injection pressure and the same ambient gas density field for all injection experiments including tests of the effect of changing the ambient gas. The macroscopic spray structures were observed by instantaneous photography and using a high-speed video camera system. Furthermore, the microscopic structure was observed by means of laser light-scattering photography, fuel droplet distribution was measured using the laser light-sheet of a pulsed Nd-YAG laser, and the mean diameter of the drop was obtained through image processing by the laser extinction method. This study revealed that the diesel spray consisted of a number of large vortices, which was considered to be the coherent structure. With high ambient gas viscosity, the fuel droplet became smaller. It was also found that a large vortex existed at the tip of the spray.
