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Two ways to attain low emission diesel combustion, which are capable of meeting future regulations, are the so-called two-stage “rich and lean” combustion and ‘lean” diesel combustion. To actually achieve these types of combustion, homogeneous lean air-fuel mixture formation is very important In this study, two methods of producing a desirable air-fuel mixture axe investigated experimentally by observing fuel sprays from several unique injection nozzles in a high-pressure vessel. One was a slit shaped hole nozzle, which might result in increased air entrainment into the spray because of the larger surface area. The other was impinging flow nozzle, which generated a more homogeneous mixture by its high turbulence. It was observed that with the slit shaped hole nozzle, the cross-sectional shape of the spray was unexpectedly circular, which was attributed to a greater dispersion of the spray perpendicular to the lengthwise slit axis.

The effects of a multi-hole nozzle with throttle construction (NTC) on combustion and emissions were investigated at high pressure fuel injection conditions. The throttle area was larger than the total injector hole area, therefore its fuel flow quantity was about the same as the standard nozzle under steady flow conditions. But the initial fuel injection rate was lower under unsteady flow conditions and smoke emissions were improved with the NTC. It is postulated that these effects were due to fuel flow turbulence inside the nozzle during the time of needle valve lift.

A conventional single cylinder direct injection diesel engine was fitted with three fuel injectors: one mounted vertically on the center, and the others mounted diagonally from the side direction. With this system, it was possible to control the fuel injection timing and injection quantity of each injector independently. It was also possible to independently control the fuel injection pressure of the center and side injectors. Using this system, it was possible to control the spatial and temporal distributions of the fuel injected into the combustion chamber, which are impossible to obtain with conventional injection equipment. In this study, an improvement in particulates and specific fuel consumption was obtained, while maintaining low NOx, by injecting a small amount of fuel from the two side injectors after the main fuel injection from the center injector.

The effects of fuel injection velocity and ambient gas pressure on the spray formation and atomization process for a non-evaporating diesel spray were observed and analyzed with greatly magnified photographs illuminated by a pulsed ruby laser light sheet. Individual fuel droplets were distinguishable at the peripheral regions of the spray in these photographs. The spray width became narrower with an increase in injection velocity, and the spray spread out further with increase in ambient gas pressure. The branch-like structure in the spray originated from local high and low fuel particle number density regions and the difference in number density between these two regions increased with higher injection velocity. The ruby laser was double-pulsed to enable fuel particle velocity vectors to be characterized at the peripheral regions of the fuel spray. The vorticity scale was smaller and vorticity magnitude grew higher with increase of injection velocity.

Typical DI diesel engines operate with fuel injection taking place within a range of about 30 crank angle degrees before top dead center, at the end of the compression stroke. When injection takes place far earlier, at the beginning of the compression stroke, another form of combustion occurs, which we termed PREmixed lean Diesel Combustion, or PREDIC. With PREDIC operation, self-ignition occurs near top dead center and NOx emissions are drastically lower. When ignition occurs, the fuel-air mixture is thought to be nearly homogeneous, with only slight heterogeneity. Appropriate fuel spray formation is very important for successful PREDIC operation. Using a single-zone NOx formation model, calculations showed that the mean excess air ratio in the PREDIC combustion zone was 1.87, which resulted in very low (20 ppm) NOx emissions. Conventional combustion at the same conditions resulted in a mean combustion zone excess air ratio of 0.88.