Modeling and detailed numerical simulation of the primary breakup of a gasoline surrogate jet under non-evaporative operating conditions

Abstract

The injection and atomization of gasoline fuels are critical to the performance of gasoline direct injection engines. Due to the complex nature of the primary breakup of the liquid jet in the near field, high-level details are often difficult to measure in experiments. In the present study, detailed numerical simulations are performed to investigate the primary breakup of a gasoline surrogate jet under non-evaporative “Spray G” operating conditions. The Spray G injector and operating conditions, developed by the Engine Combustion Network (ECN), represent the early phase of spray-guided gasoline injection. To focus the computational resources on resolving the primary breakup, simplifications have been made on the injector geometry. The effect of the internal flow on the primary breakup is modeled by specifying a nonzero injection angle at the inlet. The nonzero injection angle results in an increase of the jet penetration speed and also a deflection of the liquid jet. A parametric study on the injection angle is performed, and the numerical results are compared to the experimental data to identify the injection angle that best represents the Spray G conditions. The nonzero injection angle introduces an azimuthally non-uniform velocity in the liquid jet, which in turn influences the instability development on the jet surfaces and also the deformation and breakup of the jet head. The asymmetric primary breakup dynamics eventually lead to an azimuthal variation of droplet size distributions. The number of droplets varies significantly with the azimuthal angle, but interestingly, the probability density functions (PDF) of droplet size for different azimuthal angles collapse to a self-similar profile. The self-similar PDF is fitted with both lognormal and gamma distribution functions. Analysis has also been conducted to estimate the percentage and statistics of the tiny droplets that are under resolved in the present simulation. The PDF of the azimuthal angle is also presented, which is also shown to exhibit a self-similar form that varies little over time. The PDF of the azimuthal angle is well represented by a hyperbolic tangent function. Finally, a model is developed to predict the droplet number as a function of droplet diameter, azimuthal angle where a droplet is located, and time.