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The ability of certain induction systems to enhance turbulence levels at the time of ignition, through formation of long-lived tumbling vortices on the plane of the valve and cylinder axes, has been investigated in a two-valve spark-ignition engine by rotating the intake port at 90° and 45° to the orientation of production directed ports. Detailed measurements of the three velocity components, obtained by laser velocimetry, revealed that the 90° port generated a pure tumble motion, with a maximum tumbling vortex ratio of 1.5 at 295°CA, zero swirl, and 42% turbulence enhancement relative to the standard configuration, while the 45° port gave rise to a combined tumble/swirl structure with a maximum tumbling vortex ratio of 0.5 at 285°CA, swirl ratio of 1.0 at TDC, and turbulence enhancement of 24%. The implications of the two types of flow structures for combustion are discussed.

The spatial and temporal characteristics of a diesel spray injected into the atmosphere through a multi-hole nozzle used in small DI Diesel engines have been investigated by laser techniques as a function of pump speed and load. The results showed that spray tip penetration and velocity depend on injection frequency rather than injected volume and the spray is asymmetric during the early and main part of the injection period. In the time/space domain different structures have been identified within the injection period, with the early injection period characterized by a well atomized cloud of droplets, the main period by the spray head and a dense core and the late injection period by the disintegrating dense core and the spray tail. IN DIRECT-INJECTION DIESEL ENGINES for passenger cars, fuel is injected through multi-hole nozzles at high pressure to promote mixing with the rapidly swirling air inside the combustion chamber.

Ensemble-averaged and in-cycle axial and swirl velocities have been measured by laser Doppler anemometry in the three-dimensional flow field of a four-stroke model engine motored at 200 rpm with a compression ratio of 6.7 and various cylinder head and piston geometries. The inlet configurations comprised an axisymmetric port with a shrouded valve and an off-centre port with two valve and swirl generating vane geometries. The piston configurations comprised flat, cylindrical and re-entrant axisymmetric piston-bowls. The results indicate that with the off-centre port a complex vortical flow pattern is generated during induction, which later either collapses in the absence of induction swirl or is transformed into a single rotating vortex in the transverse plane when swirl is present. The axisymmetric port with the shrouded valve gives rise to a double vortex structure and higher turbulence levels at TDC of compression compared to the off-centre port.

The origin and development of swirl center precession in engine flows has been investigated in a steady flow rig, with and without a porous plate simulating a stationary piston, and in a model engine motored at 200rpm; swirl, in all cases, was generated by means of 60° vanes located in the axisymmetric inlet port. The swirl center performs a helical motion that originates as an instability in the forced-vortex core from its interaction with the axial flow at a free stagnation point and develops in the engine from the piston towards the cylinder head; an opposite trend has been observed in the steady flow case with the open-ended cylinder. In the ensemble-averaged measurements, swirl center precession has been identified by the increased tangential velocity fluctuations around the off-centre zero swirl velocity.

A new simulation approach to the modeling of the whole fuel injection process within a common-rail fuel injection system for direct-injection gasoline engines, including the pressure-swirl atomizer and the conical hollow-cone spray formed at the nozzle exit, is presented. The flow development in the common-rail fuel injection system is simulated using an 1-D model which accounts for the wave dynamics within the system and predicts the actual injection pressure and injection rate throughout the nozzle. The details of the flow inside its various flow passages and the discharge hole of the pressure-swirl atomizer are investigated using a two-phase CFD model which calculates the location of the liquid-gas interface using the VOF method and estimates the transient formation of the liquid film developing on the walls of the discharge hole due to the centrifugal forces acting on the swirling fluid.

A laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) system has been developed to obtain measurements of the instantaneous lubricant film thickness in the piston-cylinder assembly of a firing single-cylinder, direct-injection diesel engine. Measurements were made at top-dead-centre (TDC), mid-stroke and bottom-dead-centre (BDC) position by means of three fibre optic probes inserted into the cylinder liner and mounted flush with its surface. Following extensive repeatability tests, the cycle-averaged lubricant film thickness was estimated for different multi-grade oils as a function of engine speed, load and temperature. The results quantified the dependence of the film thickness ahead, under and behind the piston rings on oil chemistry and viscometric properties, thus confirming the important role of the LIF technique in the development and formulation of new engine oils.

The near nozzle exit flow and spray structure generated by an enlarged model of a second generation pintle type outwards opening injector have been investigated under steady flow conditions as a function of flow-rate and needle lift. A high resolution CCD camera and high-speed video camera have been employed in this study to obtain high-magnification images of the internal nozzle exit flow in order to identify the origin of string ligaments/droplets formation at the nozzle exit. The images of the flow around the nozzle seat area showed clearly that air was entrained from outside into the nozzle seat area under certain flow operating conditions (low cavitation number, CN); the formed air pockets inside the annular nozzle proved to be the main cause of the breaking of the fuel liquid film into strings as it emerged from the nozzle with a structure consisting of alternating thin and thick liquid filaments.

Two optical single-cylinder spark-ignition engines equipped with two- and four-valve cylinder heads were used to examine the flow and flame interaction under lean mixture conditions. Images of the developing flame under quiescent, swirl, low tumble and high tumble flow conditions corresponding to a wide range of mean velocity and turbulence levels around the time of ignition were obtained with an image-intensified CCD camera using the light radiated by the flame and the flow in the vicinity of the spark plug was quantified by laser Doppler velocimetry. In the case of the tumbling flow, the flame images were software-processed to allow estimation of the total flame area, the displacement of its centre as a function of crank angle and their correlation with the cylinder pressure.

The in-cylinder flow, mixture distribution, combustion and exhaust emissions in a research, five-valve purpose-built gasoline engine are discussed on the basis of measurements obtained using laser Doppler velocimetry (LDV), fast spark-plug hydrocarbon sampling, flame imaging and NOx/HC emissions using fast chemiluminescent and flame ionisation detectors/analysers. These measurements have been complemented by steady flow testing of various cylinder head configurations, involving single- and three-valve operation, in terms of flow capacity and in-cylinder tumble strength.

An investigation into the spray structure generated by two swirl pressure atomisers under various operating conditions in a constant-volume chamber and the in-cylinder flow pattern in an optical research direct-injection gasoline engine has been performed using CCD camera and laser Doppler velocimetry, respectively. The results provided detailed information about the effect of back pressure on the spray structure generated by the two injectors and the in-cylinder flow field which the sprays encounter following fuel injection into the cylinder during the induction and compression strokes.

Measurements of flow, spray, combustion and performance characteristics are reported for a Hydra direct-injection diesel, based on the Ford 2.5 L, engine and equipped with a variable-swirl port, a unit fuel injector and optical access through the liner and piston. The results provide links between the pre-combustion and combustion flow and, at the same time, between purpose-built single-cylinder optical engines and multi-cylinder production engines of nearly identical combustion chamber geometry. In particular, the spray penetration was found to depend on engine speed, rather than load, with velocities up to around 260 m/s at atmospheric pressure and temperature which are reduced by a factor of 2.5 under operating conditions and seem to be unaffected by swirl. The duration of combustion was reduced with increasing swirl and ignition delay increased linearly with engine speed.

The in-cylinder flow during induction and compression in the pentroof chamber of a four-valve, single-cylinder, spark-ignition optical engine was quantified by LDV and correlated with combustion development especially under lean mixture conditions. The tumble-generating capacity of the cylinder head was first characterised by a tumble adaptor under steady flow conditions and, subsequently, enhanced by two sleeves introduced into the intake ports which generated a stronger tumbling motion.

Direct flame imaging and pressure analysis were applied to the combustion of gasoline and compressed natural gas (CNG) in a single-cylinder, four-valve spark-ignition engine equipped with optical access via quartz windows in the cylinder liner and piston crown. Tests were performed at three engine speed/load conditions and at equivalence ratios of 1.0, 0.9 and 0.8. The four-valve head incorporated two different port geometries, with and without metal sleeves to deflect the intake air flow, in order to investigate the effect of tumble strength on combustion and engine-out emissions of unburned hydrocarbons and NOx. The results showed that sleeving of the intake ports produced a significant increase in IMEP and a reduction in CoV IMEP for both CNG and gasoline, due to the greatly reduced bum duration.

A diesel spray model has been developed and validated against experimental data obtained for different injection and surrounding gas conditions to allow investigation of the relative importance of the different physical processes occurring during the spray development. The model is based on the Eulerian-Lagrangian approximation and the Navier-Stokes equations, simulating the gas motion, are numerically solved on a collocated non-uniform curvilinear non-orthogonal grid, while the spray equation is solved numerically using a Lagrangian particle tracking method. The injection conditions are determined by another recently developed model calculating the flow in the fuel injection system, the sac volume and injection holes area which accounts for the details of the injection velocity, the fuel injection rate per injection hole and occurrence of hole cavitation. Thus, differences between the sprays from inclined multihole injectors can be simulated and analysed.

Local measurements of the mean and rms velocities have been obtained by laser Doppler velocimetry in the coolant passages of a transparent model of a Ford 2.5L diesel cylinder head and block at a steady flowrate of 6.83 × 10-4 M3/s. The simulation of the coolant fluid by a mixture of hydrocarbon fluids at a predetermined constant temperature allowed accurate matching of the refractive index to that of the acrylic model, thus providing optical access for LDV measurements of the internal flow in sensitive areas where cooling is essential to prevent metal-fatigue failure. The results were obtained in sufficient detail to allow further validation of CFD coolant flow models.

Laser induced fluorescence (LIF) was used in the cylinder liner of a firing single-cylinder direct-injection diesel engine to characterise the development of the lubricant film during the first 200 engine cycles under cold-start conditions. The results have provided information on the rate of oil film development which has proved to be a highly unsteady process due to the complicated oil transport processes through the ring-pack.