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The work focuses on studying ethanol spray behavior injected directly inside a spark ignited internal combustion engine in the compression stroke. An experimental procedure for measuring spray penetration and spray overall cone angle produced by a multi-hole direct injector was developed by means of computational codes written in Matlab environment for working with images of spray injections and to acquire calculated results in an automatic way. The shadowgraph technique with back continuous illumination associated with a high speed recording image process was used in a single cylinder optical research engine for acquiring images of Brazilian ethanol fuel injected at 120° before the top dead center of compression stroke. The process of spray injections occurred with engine speeds of 1000 rpm, 2000 rpm and 3000 rpm. The results showed that spray penetrations decrease and spray cone angle increase when the engine speed is raised.

This study involves the comparison of atomization characteristics of gasoline and ethanol produced by a single-hole gasoline direct injection (GDI) injector. Experiments were performed for the fuel spray characterization, such as: measuring the injected fuel mass flow rate, the droplet velocity and the droplet diameter of atomized fuel as a function of injection pressure. In the injected fuel mass flow rate measurements, an experimental apparatus was used consisting of a nitrogen cylinder, a source of generating pulses, a fuel tank as a pressure vessel and a precision weighing scale. To measure the fuel droplet velocity and droplet diameter, were used the known optical techniques: Laser Doppler Anemometry and Phase Doppler Anemometry (LDA/PDA), respectively. Thus, the performance of fuels can be compared. The average droplet velocity, droplet diameter and characteristic diameter, Sauter Mean Diameter (SMD), were evaluated and analyzed due to the injection pressure.

A CFD three-dimensional analysis of an internal combustion engine was carried out to evaluate the gasoline-ethanol E27 fuel spray and flow characteristics using variable valve timing (VVT) technology. In this study, the fuel injection has been made using port fuel injection (PFI) and the simulations modeled two conditions of valve timing: baseline and retarding the intake valve opening (IVO) 40°. The dynamic performance of this numerical model was validated comparing simulation results of cylinder pressure, mass burned fraction, cylinder temperature, and heat release with experimental data. The effects of in-cylinder fluid flow patterns, such as tumble and swirl, on combustion were numerically investigated for the two studied conditions and it was verified an extreme reduction of swirl when IVO is retarded, besides differences in tumble and cross-tumble.

In this paper, particle image velocimetry (PIV) and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) were employed to a qualitatively and quantitatively study in the behavior of the intake-generated steady flow in a four valve spark ignition single cylinder research engine. Steady flow experimental characterization was made for different intake valve lift values. PIV was used to investigate the flow pattern generated within the engine cylinder. The measurements were taken in the symmetry vertical plane between the inlet and outlet valves. These same conditions were modeled using Star-CCM+ commercial package. The CFD model was used as a less expensive alternative to make a deeper study of the flow field. Velocity fields and intake valves discharge coefficient were compared and analyzed, resulting in a good correlation in relation to the optical experiment.

The purpose of this work is to present an experimental methodology to characterize the in-cylinder tumbling flow generated by a motored four-valve spark ignition single cylinder optical research engine. High-speed two-dimensional particle image velocimetry measurements were made in the symmetry vertical plane between the inlet and outlet valves. The velocity flow fields were recorded during the intake and compression strokes for three different engine speeds (1000, 1500 and 2000 rpm) at several crank angles. Vorticity, tumble ratio and kinetic energy were calculated and compared. Also, an evolution analysis of the main vortex center was made. As result, the tumble ratio and kinetic energy showed a decrease at the end of intake stroke. Flow field cyclic variation could be noticed. The methodology contributes to a better understanding of flow motion behavior, and consequently, the mixture formation process in spark ignition engines.