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In this research, propane flash boiling sprays discharged from a five-hole gasoline direct injector were studied in a constant volume vessel. The fuel temperature (Tfuel) ranged from 30 °C to 90 °C, and the ambient pressure (Pamb) varied from 0.05 bar to 11.0 bar. Different flash boiling spray behavior compared to that under sub-atmospheric conditions was found at high Pamb. Specifically, at the sub-atmospheric pressures, the individual flashing jets merged into one single jet due to the strong spray collapse. In contrast, at Pamb above 3.0 bar and Tfuel above 50 °C, the spray collapse was mitigated and the flashing jets were separated from each other. Further analyses revealed that the mitigation of spray collapse at high Pamb was ascribed to the suppression of jet expansion. In addition, it was found that the spray structure was much different at similar Rp, indicating that Rp lacked the generality in describing the structure of flash boiling sprays.

Low-temperature heat release (LTHR) in spark-ignited internal combustion engines is a critical step toward the occurrence of auto-ignition, which can lead to an undesirable phenomenon known as engine knock. Hence, correct predictions of LTHR are of utmost importance to improve the understanding of knock and enable techniques aimed at controlling it. While LTHR is typically obscured by the deflagration following the spark ignition, extremely late ignition timings can lead to LTHR occurrence prior to the spark, i.e., pre-spark heat release (PSHR). In this research, PSHR in a boosted direct-injection SI engine was numerically investigated using three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD). A hybrid approach was used, based on the G-equation model for representing the turbulent flame front and the multi-zone well-stirred reactor model for tracking the chemical reactions within the unburnt region.

n-butanol has been recognized as a promising alternative fuel for gasoline and may potentially overcome the drawbacks of methanol and ethanol, e.g. higher energy density. In this paper, the spray characteristics of gasoline and n-butanol have been investigated using a high pressure direct injection injector. High speed imaging and Phase Doppler Particle Analyzer (PDPA) techniques were used to study the spray penetration and the droplet atomization process. The tests were carried out in a high pressure constant volume vessel over a range of injection pressure from 60 to 150 bar and ambient pressure from 1 to 5 bar. The results show that gasoline has a longer penetration length than that of n-butanol in most test conditions due to the relatively small density and viscosity of gasoline; n-butanol has larger SMD due to its higher viscosity. The increase in ambient pressure leads to the reduction in SMD by 42% for gasoline and by 37% for n-butanol.

The near-field diesel spray process in diesel engines is the intermediate one that connects the in-nozzle flow with far field spray process and high-speed imaging techniques with high-quality temporal and spatial resolution are required in order to record this short process (< 300 μs). In this study, a high-speed charge-coupled-device (CCD) camera with the speed of up to 1,000,000 fps was used to study the near-field spray process for a diesel injector with different nozzle diameters. The tests were carried out in a constant volume vessel over a range of injection pressure and ambient pressure in non-evaporating conditions. The observed zone of the spray was where penetration length is less than 18 mm. The development of spray penetration length against time after start of injection (ASOI) was used to evaluate the spray process. The significant difference on spray penetration length development is found when the nozzle diameter varied.

The large eddy simulation (LES) with Volume of Fluid (VOF) interface tracking method in Ansys-FLUENT has been used to study the effects of nozzle hole geometrical parameters on gasoline direct injection (GDI) fuel injectors, namely the effect of inner hole length/diameter (L/D) ratio and counter-bore diameters on near field spray characteristics. Using iso-octane as a model fuel at the fuel injection pressure of 200 bar, the results showed that the L/D ratio variation of the inner hole has a more significant influence on the spray characteristics than the counter-bore diameter variation. Reducing the L/D ratio effectively increases the mass flow rate, velocity, spray angle and reduces the droplet size and breakup length. The increased spray angle results in wall impingements inside the counter-bore cavity, particularly for L/D=1 which can potentially lead to increased deposit accumulation inside fuel injectors.

In this study, three-dimensional large eddy simulations were performed to study the internal nozzle flow of the ECN Spray C diesel injector. Realistic nozzle geometry, full needle motion, and internal flow imaging data obtained from X-ray measurements were employed to initialize and validate the CFD model. The influence of injection pressure and fuel properties were investigated, and the effect of mesh size was discussed. The results agreed well with the experimental data of mass flow rate and correctly captured the flow structures inside the orifice. Simulations showed that the pressure drop near the sharp orifice inlet triggered flow separation, resulting in the ingestion of ambient gas into the orifice via a phenomenon known as hydraulic flip. At higher injection pressure, the pressure drop was more significant as the liquid momentum increased and the stream inertia was less prone to change its direction.