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Spray penetration for Diesel injectors, where injection pressure varies with time during the injection period, was calculated. In order to carry out this calculation, the discharge coefficients of the needle-seat opening passage and discharge hole in orifice-type Diesel nozzles were investigated separately. Simple empirical correlations were obtained between these coefficients and needle lift. Then, by introducing these correlations, the injection pressure, which is defined as the pressure in the sac chamber just upstream of the discharge hole, was either derived from measured fuel supply line pressure, or predicted by means of an injection system simulation. Finally, based on the transient injection pressure, spray tip penetration was calculated by taking the overall line which covers the trajectories of all fuel elements ejected during the injection period.

Effects of split injection, with a relatively short time interval between the two sprays, on the spray development process, and the air entrainment into the spray, were investigated by using laser induced fluorescence and particle image velocimetry (LIF-PIV) techniques. The velocities of the spray and the ambient air were measured. The cumulative mass of the ambient air entrained into the spray was calculated by using the entrainment velocity normal to the spray boundary. The vortex structure of the spray, formed around the leading edge of the spray, showed a true rotating flow motion at low ambient pressures of 0.1 MPa, whereas at 0.4 MPa, it was not a true rotating flow, but a phenomenon of the small droplets separating from the leading edge of the spray and falling behind, due to air resistance. The development processes of the 2nd spray were considerably different from that of the 1st spray because the 2nd spray was injected into the flow fields formed by the 1st spray.

In this paper, the Diesel spray characteristics were studied by HS video camera and the Laser Absorbing Scattering (LAS) technique means of the combustion deterioration problem caused by the engine downsizing based on the geometrical similarity was investigated. In the experiments, three Diesel injectors with the hole diameters of 0.07mm, 0.101mm and 0.133mm were used. The injection pressures of the injectors with three different diameters were 45MPa, 93MPa and 160MPa, respectively. The Diffused Background Illumination (DBI) method was employed for the nonevaporating spray experiment to obtain spray tip penetration and spray angle at room temperature. The LAS technique was employed for the evaporating spray experiment to obtain the equivalence ratio distributions, evaporation rate, and vapor phase tip penetration. Moreover, the Wakuri Momentum Theory was applied to analyze the data obtained by both the non-evaporating and the evaporating spray experiments.

Increasing injection pressure and decreasing nozzle hole diameter have been proved to be two effective approaches to reduce the exhaust emissions and to improve the fuel economy. Recently, the micro-hole nozzles and ultra-high injection pressures are applicable in commercial Diesel engines. But the mechanism of these two latest technologies is still unclear. The current research aims at providing information on the spray and mixture formation processes of the micro-hole nozzle (d=0.08mm) under the ultra-high injection pressure (Pinj=300MPa). The flat wall impinging sprays were focused on and the laser absorption-scattering (LAS) technique was employed to obtain the qualitative and quantitative information at both atmospheric and elevated conditions. The spray parameters were collected, the mixing rate was discussed, and the effects of various parameters on mixture formation were clarified.

Fuel spray impingement on the combustion chamber wall cannot be avoid in direct injection gasoline engines, resulting in insufficient combustion and unburned hydrocarbon/soot emissions from the engines. And the microscopic characteristics of the impinging spray have a close relation with the fuel film formation, which has a direct effect on the engine performance and emissions. Therefore, figuring out the droplet behaviors of the impinging spray is significantly important for improving the engine performance and reducing emissions. However, the microscopic characteristics of the impinging spray have not been deeply understood and the differences between the impinging and free spray are seldom mentioned in previous study. Therefore, particle image analysis (PIA) technique was applied to detect the microscopic characteristics at the capture location in order to track the droplet behaviors of the spray tip during the propagation process.

The breakup and atomization processes of the pre-swirl spray, which is produced before the hollow-cone spray from a high-pressure swirl-type D.I. gasoline injector, were investigated under different ambient pressure conditions. The injector has a press-fitted swirl tip, in which six tangential slots giving the injecting fuel an angular momentum are perforated at an equal space interval. A microscopic imaging technique was applied to get the spatially high-resolution LIF tomograms of the pre-swirl spray. The sprays were illuminated by an Nd:YAG laser light sheet and imaged using a high resolution CCD camera, fixed with a micro lens and coupled with an optical low-pass filter. The droplet size and the individual droplet's velocity were obtained by applying the image processing and the particle tracking techniques, respectively.

The combustion process, emission formation and the resulting engine performance in a diesel engine are well known to be governed mainly by spray behaviors and the consequent mixture formation quality. One of the most important factors that affect the spray development is the nozzle configuration. Originally, single-hole diesel injector is usually applied in fundamental research to provide insights into the spray characteristics. However, the spray emerging from a realistic multi-hole injector approaches the practical engine operation situation better. Meanwhile, previous research has shown that the reduced nozzle hole diameter is effective for preparing more uniform mixture. In the current paper, a study about the effects of nozzle configuration and hole diameter on the internal flow and spray properties was conducted in conjunction with a series of experimental and computational methods.

The internal flow of a diesel injection nozzle was studied by using transparent model nozzles to clarify the effects of the flows in the sac chamber and the discharge hole on the spray behaviors. The geometry of the model nozzle was scaled up 10 times the actual nozzle and the injection pressure for the model nozzle was adjusted so as to achieve a Reynolds number at the discharge hole which was the same as an actual nozzle. Aluminium oxide (Al2O3) tracers were used to visualize the flow patterns in the sac chamber. Sequential photographs of the internal flow and the issuing spray plume during the opening process of the needle valve were taken by a high-speed video camera. By locating the discharge hole on the upper side of the sac chamber, the turbulence intensity in the sac chamber increases and the spread angle of the spray plume becomes large.

The tiny and normal injection quantity instances usually happen under the multi-injection strategy condition to restrain the uncontrollability of the ignition timing of the homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) combustion concept. Meanwhile, instead of the traditional and fundamental single-hole diesel injector, the axisymmetric multi-hole injectors are usually applied to couple with the combustion chamber under most practical operating conditions. In the current paper, the internal flow and spray characteristics generated by single-hole and multi-hole (10 holes) nozzles under normal (2 mm3/hole) and tiny (0.3 mm3/hole) injection quantity conditions were investigated in conjunction with a series of experimental and computational methods. High-speed video observation was conducted at 10000 and 100000 fps under the condition of 120 MPa rail pressure, 1.5 MPa ambient pressure, room temperature, and nitrogen environment to visualize different spray properties.

Experimental results of a diesel engine have shown that using split-injection can reduce the NOx and particulate emissions. For understanding the mechanism of emissions reduction, mixture formation in split-injection diesel sprays was characterized in the present paper. A dual-wavelength laser absorption-scattering (LAS) technique was developed by use of the second harmonic (532nm) and the fourth harmonic (266nm) of a pulsed Nd:YAG laser as the incident light and dimethylnaphthalene (DMN) as the test fuel. By applying this technique, imaging was made of DMN sprays injected into a high-temperature and high-pressure constant volume vessel by a single-hole nozzle incorporated in a common rail injection system for D.I. diesel engine. The line-of-sight optical thickness of both fuel vapor and droplets in the sprays was yielded from the sprays images.

The effect of temporally-splitting high pressure injection on Diesel spray combustion and soot formation processes was studied by using the high-speed video camera. The spray was injected by the single-hole nozzle with a hole diameter of 0.11mm into the high-pressure and high-temperature constant volume vessel. The free spray and the spray impingement on the two dimensional (2D) piston cavity wall were examined. Injection pressures of 100 and 160 MPa for the single injection and 160 MPa for the split injection were selected. The flame structure and soot formation process were examined by using the two-color pyrometry. The soot generated in the flame under the split injection under 160 MPa becomes higher than that of the single injection under 160 MPa.

Spray characteristics are of great importance to achieve fuel economy and low emissions for a D.I. gasoline engine. In this study, the characteristics of the fuel spray as well as its interaction with a cross-flow were investigated. The fuel was injected by a VCO injector into an optically accessible rectangular wind tunnel under the normal temperature and pressure, in which the direction of the injection was perpendicular to the direction of the cross-flow. The velocity of the cross-flow varied from 0 to 10 m/s while the injection pressure was 5 and 10 MPa. With using the high speed video camera and the PIV system, the spray profile, velocity distribution and the penetration distance were measured. The lower penetration distance can be obtained with the lower injection pressure and the increased velocity of the cross-flow, however the injected fuel expands along the direction of the cross-flow, which indicates that spray atomization and mixing of fuel and air are enhanced.

Owing to the small size of engines and high injection pressures, it is difficult to avoid the fuel spray impingement on the combustion cylinder wall and piston head in Direct Injection Spark Ignition (DISI) engine, which is a possible source of hydrocarbons and soot emission. As a result, the droplets size and distribution are significantly important to evaluate the atomization and predict the impingement behaviors, such as stick, spread or splash. However, the microscopic behaviors of droplets are seldom reported due to the high density of small droplets, especially under high pressure conditions. In order to solve this problem, a “spray slicer” was designed to cut the spray before impingement as a sheet one to observe the droplets clearly. The experiment was performed in a constant volume chamber under non-evaporation condition, and a mini-sac injector with single hole was used.

The effects of spray/wall interaction on diesel combustion and soot formation in a two-dimensional piston cavity were studied with a high speed color video camera in a constant volume combustion vessel. The two-dimensional piston cavity was applied to generate the impinging spray flame. In the cavity, the flat surface which plays a role as the cylinder head has a 13.5 degree angle with the injector axis and the impinging point was located 30 mm away from the nozzle tip. Three injection pressures of 100, 150, and 200 MPa and a single hole diesel injector (hole diameter: 0.133mm) were selected. The flame structure and combustion process were examined by using the color luminosity images. Two-color pyrometry was used to measure the line-of sight soot temperature and concentration by using the R and B channels of the color images. The soot mass generated by impinging spray flame is higher than that of the free spray flame.

The group-hole nozzle concept is regarded as a promising approach to facilitate better fuel atomization and evaporation for direct injection diesel engine applications. In the present work, the spray and mixture properties of group-hole nozzle with close, parallel or a small included angle orifices were investigated experimentally by means of the ultraviolet-visible laser absorption-scattering (LAS) imaging technique, in comparison with the conventional single-hole nozzle. Three series of group-hole nozzles were designed to investigate the effect of group-hole nozzle specification while varying the included angle and interval between the orifices. The results suggested that: 1) Group-hole nozzle with very close, parallel orifices presents the similar spray characteristics with those of the single-hole nozzle.

The performance of a diesel engine largely depends on the spray behavior and mixture formation. Nozzle configurations and operating conditions are important factors that influence spray development. Using numerical and experimental methods, this study focused on the spray development of multi-hole nozzles under non-evaporating and evaporating conditions to compare the influence of nozzle hole diameter and injection pressure on spray characteristics. High-speed video observation was employed to study the properties of spray development under the non-evaporating condition, while the Laser Absorption Scattering technique was used in the observation and quantitative analysis of evaporating spray characteristics in the evaporating condition. In addition, computational fluid dynamics study results published previously [1] were correlated with the current experimental results to provide more detailed explanations about the mechanism of the characteristics of spray behavior.

Experimental study has been carried out on the effects of the micro-hole nozzle injector and ultra-high injection pressure on the mixture properties of D.I. Diesel engine. A manually operated piston screw pump, High Pressure Generator, was used to obtain ultra-high injection pressures. Three kinds of injection pressures, 100MPa, 200MPa, and 300MPa, were applied to a specially designed injector. Four kinds of nozzle hole diameters, 0.16mm, 0.14mm, 0.10mm, and 0.08mm, were adopted in this study. The laser absorption-scattering (LAS) technique was used to analyze the equivalence ratio distributions, Sauter mean diameter, spray tip penetration length, and other spray characteristics. The analyses of the experimental results show that the micro-hole nozzle and ultra-high injection pressure are effective to increase the turbulent mixing rate and to form the uniform and lean fuel-air mixture.

Previous research has shown that the reduced nozzle hole diameter and elevated injection pressure are effective for preparing a uniform fuel-air mixture in a direct injection (D.I.) Diesel engine. A micro-hole nozzle with a hole diameter of 0.08 mm and an ultra-high injection pressure of 300 MPa have been employed to investigate the mixture formation process under various conditions. The aim of the current work is to clarify the effect of nozzle hole diameter and injection pressure on flame lift-off and soot formation processes. The free sprays from the micro-hole and conventional nozzles were investigated at a high-temperature, high-pressure constant volume vessel. A high-speed video camera system was employed to record the non-vaporizing sprays and combustion. The direct photography of OH chemiluminescence was used to provide information about the high temperature combustion process and to measure the flame lift-off length.

In direct injection spark ignition (DISI) engine, it is difficult to avoid the spray impingement of fuel on the cylinder wall and piston head, which is a possible source of hydrocarbons and soot emission. The injector nozzle geometry and injection pressure are essential components for the spray atomization and mixture formation. For better understanding the effects of injector hole diameters and injection pressure, the fuel spray and adhesion on a flat wall by different mini-sac injectors with a single hole was examined in this study. A flat-wall made of quartz glass was used as the impingement plate. Refractive Index Matching (RIM) method was applied to measure the thickness of fuel adhesion on the wall. All the cases performed in constant high-pressure chamber were under high temperature condition considering the real gasoline engine condition. Time-resolved behaviors of the fuel adhesion as well as adhesion mass, area and thickness were discussed.

An investigation on the effect of dwell time of split injection on a diesel spray evolution and mixture formation process was carried out. A commercial 7-hole injector were used in the experiment to eliminate the possible discrepancies on the spray with single-hole research injector. Laser absorption scattering (LAS) technique was implemented for the measurement of the temporal evolution of fuel evaporation and mixture concentration. The diesel surrogate fuel consists of n-tridecane and 2.5% of 1-methylnaphthalene in volume basis was used. The total amount of fuel injected was initially fixed to 5.0 mg/hole. A split ratio of 9: 1 in mass basis was selected according to the results obtained from a previous study. The dwell time was varied from 120 µs to a negative value of −50 µs. The effects of negative dwell time was not ideal for lean mixture formation when compared to zero or positive dwell time conditions.