Characteristics of Flash Boiling Fuel Sprays from Three Types of Injector for Spark Ignition Direct Injection (SIDI) Engines

Abstract

Spark ignition direct injection (SIDI) gasoline engines employ high fuel injection pressure to promote the liquid fuel atomization and vaporization in the combustion chamber. However, high fuel injection pressures normally lead the fuel spray over penetrating in engine cylinder, resulting in wall and/or piston wetting which cause high level of engine unburned hydrocarbon (UHC) and soot emissions. Recently, it has been found the fuel temperature could play important roles in spray atomization and vaporization processes. Especially, when the temperature of the fuel exceeds its local boiling point, the fuel is superheated and flash boiling occurs. Experiments of flash boiling sprays from a multi-hole DI injector show that the spray would undergo significant structural transformation under the superheated conditions. Both the atomization and vaporization are improved when the phenomenon of flash boiling occurs. Meanwhile, since various types of SIDI engine combustion systems utilize different fuel injector configurations to achieve desirable mixture formation and combustion, it is necessary to extend the existing knowledge of flash boiling spray from multi-hole injector to other types of injector, and characterize their flash boiling spray behaviour under the similar superheated conditions. In this paper, flash boiling sprays from three types of SIDI injectors, namely, multi-hole, swirl and outward opening injectors are investigated at a high pressure constant volume chamber. The primary focus is the spray from a multi-hole injector as it is most widely used in modern SIDI engines. The temperature of the injector body can be regulated by placing the injector in a fixture which can be thermally controlled. Various laser diagnostics are applied to investigate the spray geometry, flow field, vaporization and droplet size distributions. The results show that the characteristics of flash boiling spray are mainly dominated by superheat degree, i.e., the difference between the fuel temperature and its boiling point, not as sensitive to the injection pressure as the non-flash boiling spray. The structures of flash boiling spray from all three types of injector differ from those of non-flash boiling spray significantly. However, the effects of injector configuration on the structure of flash boiling spray are insignificant, compared to the non-flash boiling sprays. This study reveals that using fuel temperature can be an effective parameter for controlling the spray structure, spray atomization and evaporation.