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Engine noise pollution is as harmful as other forms of pollution to human health. Apart from the health effects, noise also has an adverse effect on the engine structure, thus requiring a sturdier construction to maintain long engine life. In a conventional direct injection diesel engine the fuel ignites spontaneously shortly after the beginning of injection. The Combustion process causes fluctuations in heat release and therefore, fluctuations in combustion chamber pressure. Combustion generated noise can be lowered by lowering the fluctuations in heat release or pressure. Which can be achieved by separating the fuel evaporation and fuel-air mixing from start of ignition in space and in time. The noise is mainly affected by the early part of the combustion process due to higher rates of heat release. Combustion noise generation in the early stage of combustion is not yet entirely understood.

In a conventional Diesel engine, air is gradually drawn into the fuel spray from the surrounding area. The ignition delay period is short, so combustion starts before the fuel has thoroughly mixed with the air. Consequently, the center of the spray is overly rich, resulting in smoke, while a stoichiometric mixture is formed in the surrounding area, resulting in a high NOx concentration. Based on the Diesel concept it is practically impossible to totally avoid fuel rich and stoichiometric pockets, but the formation of soot and NOx are also time dependent. If the mixing time is sufficiently small both pollutants could be reduced simultaneously without getting into the well known soot-NOx tradeoff. In order to develop a low emission engine, research is necessary to come up with a new combustion strategy for Diesel engines, which includes the use of cluster nozzles.