Search Results

The three-dimensional KIVA code has been used to study the effects of injection pressure and split injections on diesel engine performance and soot and NOx emissions. The code has been updated with state-of-the-art submodels including: a wave breakup atomization model, drop drag with drop distortion, spray/wall interaction with sliding, rebounding, and breaking-up drops, multistep kinetics ignition and laminar-turbulent characteristic time combustion, wall heat transfer with unsteadiness and compressibility, Zeldovich NOx formation, and soot formation with Nagle Strickland-Constable oxidation. The computational results are compared with experimental data from a single-cylinder Caterpillar research engine equipped with a high-pressure, electronically-controlled fuel injection system, a full-dilution tunnel for soot measurements, and gaseous emissions instrumentation.

Characterization of high pressure diesel sprays has been performed both experimentally and numerically. The experimental study was conducted using a fuel injection system which has a capability of producing multiple injection sprays. The fuel sprays were injected from a multi-hole nozzle into a pressurized cylindrical chamber with optical windows. In order to investigate the effects of a multiple injection strategy on spray characteristics, a double injection spray with the mass evenly distributed between the first and second sprays, and a 1 millisecond dwell between sprays was compared with a single injection spray. Both single and double injection cases had nominally the same injection pressure, injection delivery, and ambient gas density. Transient spray tip penetration lengths and spray angles were obtained from high speed photographic spray images. The spray droplet sizes were derived from the images by using a light extinction method.