Investigation of the cavitating flow in injector nozzles for diesel and biodiesel

Abstract

In diesel engines, the cavitating flow in nozzles greatly affects the fuel atomization characteristics and then the subsequent combustion and exhaust emissions. At present the biodiesel is a kind of prospective alternative fuel in diesel engines, the flow characteristics for the biodiesel fuel need to be investigated. In this paper, based on the third-generation synchrotrons of Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation facility (SSRF), a high-precision three-dimension structure of testing nozzle with detailed internal geometry information was obtained using X-ray radiography for a more accurate physical model. A flow visualization experiment system with a transparent scaled-up vertical multi-hole injector nozzle tip was setup. A high resolution and speed CCD camera equipped with a long distance microscope device was used to acquire flow images of diesel and biodiesel fuel, respectively. Then, the characteristics of cavitating flow and their effects on the fuel atomization characteristics were investigated. The experimental results show that the nozzle cavitating flow of both the diesel and biodiesel fuel could be divided into four regimes: turbulent flow, cavitation inception, development of cavitation and hydraulic flip. The critical pressures of both the cavitating flow and hydraulic flip of biodiesel are higher than those of diesel. The spray cone angle increases as the cavitation occurs, but it decreases when the hydraulic flip appears. Finally, it can be concluded that the Reynolds number decreases with the increase of cavitation number, and the discharge coefficient increases with the increase of cavitation number.