The Spray Structure of Air-Shrouded Dual-Stream Port Fuel Injectors With Different Air-Mixing Mechanisms

Abstract

An experimental study of the spray structure from air-shrouded dual-stream injectors with different air mixing mechanisms was carried out extensively to understand the spray characteristics of dual-stream port injectors for applications to four-valve gasoline engines. The injectors were tested under both steady and transient conditions at different injection pressures and air shrouding pressure differentials. The global spray structure was visualized using the planar laser Mie scattering technique and spray atomization processes were characterized by the phase-Doppler anemometry method. The experimental results showed that spray atomization characteristics are improved markedly by the air-shrouding technique and also strongly dominated by the air-mixing mechanisms. When the air flows into the injector tip mainly from the radial direction, two streams of the spray are forced to merge together and as a result a single-stream spray is formed. When the radial velocity component of the air is reduced and the air is made to mix well with the fuel inside the injector tip, however, the two streams of the spray are well separated over different injection conditions. Moreover, other spray parameters are also modified by the air shrouded into the injector, which must be optimized in order to achieve the best performance of the air-shrouded injector.