D. Jaramillo

Numerical simulation of primary atomization in diesel spray at low injection pressure

Atomization involves complex physical processes and gas-liquid interaction. Primary atomization on diesel spray is not well understood due to the difficulties to perform experimental measurements in the near nozzle field. Hence computational fluid dynamics (CFD) has been used as a key element to understand and improve diesel spray.A recent new code for incompressible multiphase flow with adaptive octree mesh refinement has been used to perform simulations of atomization at low injection pressure conditions. The multiphase flow strategy to manage different flows is the volume of fluid (VOF) method. The adaptive mesh allows to locally refine the mesh at each time step where a better resolution is needed to capture important gradients instead of using a static mesh with a fixed and high number of cells which, in turn, would lead to an unaffordable computational cost. Even with this approach, the cell number is very high to achieve a Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS) at reasonable computational cost. To reduce the computational cost, an idea has been explored, the possibility of setting a maximum number of cells of the domain. Following this idea, the code has been tested with different configurations to understand their effects on numerical stability, the change in different spray parameters and the benefits achieved in terms of execution time. The outcomes have been validated against a theoretical model.

Using a homogeneous equilibrium model for the study of the inner nozzle flow and cavitation pattern in convergent-divergent nozzles of diesel injectors

In this paper, the behaviour of the internal nozzle flow and cavitation phenomenon are numerically studied for non-conventional Diesel convergent-divergent nozzles in order to assess their potential in terms of flow characteristics. The used nozzles differ each other in the convergence-divergence level of the orifices but all of them keep the same diameter at the middle of the nozzle orifice. The calculations have been performed using a code previously validated and able to simulate cavitation phenomenon using a homogeneous equilibrium model for the biphasic fluid and using a RANS method (RNG k - e ) as a turbulence modelling approach. For the simulations, one injection pressure and different discharge pressures were used in order to assess the characteristics of nozzles for different Reynolds conditions involving cavitating and non-cavitating conditions.The comparison of the nozzles has been carried out in terms of flow characteristics such as mass flow, momentum flux, effective velocity and other important dimensionless parameters which help to describe the behaviour of the inner flow: discharge coefficient ( C d ), area coefficient ( C a ) and velocity coefficient ( C v ). Additionally, the nozzles have been compared in terms of cavitation inception conditions and cavitation development.The study has shown a high influence on the results of the level of convergence-divergence used in the nozzles. In these nozzles, the vapour originated from cavitation phenomenon came from the throttle of the orifice at the midpoint, and it extended along the whole wall of the divergent nozzle part towards the outlet of the orifice. The main results of the investigation have shown how the different geometries modify the cavitation conditions as well as the discharge coefficient and effective velocity. In particular, the nozzle with highest convergence-divergence level showed cavitation for all the tested conditions while for the nozzle with lowest convergence-divergence level, the cavitation phenomenon could be avoided for high discharge pressures. Additionally, the nozzle with highest convergence-divergence level showed the lowest discharge coefficient values but similar effective injection velocity than the nozzle with lowest level of convergence-divergence level despite of its higher orifice outlet area. Three non-conventional convergent-divergent diesel nozzles are compared.The nozzle with higher convergence-divergence level shows the higher mass flow and momentum flux.The nozzle with higher convergence-divergence level exhibits similar effective velocity than the nozzle with lower level.The nozzle with higher convergence-divergence level is more prone to cavitate.Better mixing process is expected for the nozzle with highest convergence-divergence level.

On the relation between the external structure and the internal characteristics in the near-nozzle field of diesel sprays

In this paper, a high-resolution visualization technique was used in combination with an extensively validated zero-dimensional model in order to relate the external structure of a diesel spray to the internal properties in the vicinity of the nozzle. For this purpose, three single-hole convergent nozzles with different diameters were tested for several pressure conditions. The analysis of the obtained images shows that the spray width significantly changes along the first few millimetres of the spray. From the high-resolution images obtained, two parameters were evaluated. The first is the external non-perturbed length, where droplet detachment was not observed. The second is a transitional length, which is defined as the axial position where the spray width increases linearly after transient behaviour, making it possible to establish a spray cone angle definition. Furthermore, the internal liquid core length was estimated for these nozzles using an extensively validated zero-dimensional model. The liquid core length proved to be correlated with both the transitional length and the non-perturbed length with a very high degree of reliability. In the case of the transitional length, a quadratic correlation was observed, whereas a linear relationship was confirmed between the liquid core length and the non-perturbed length. The results presented here may help to shed light on better understanding of such a complex process as atomization.

Numerical analysis of flow characteristics in diesel injector nozzles with convergent-divergent orifices

The geometry of diesel injector nozzles is known to significantly affect the characteristic spray behavior and emissions formation. In this paper, a novel nozzle concept, consisting of orifices with a convergent–divergent shape, is investigated through Computational Fluid Dynamics techniques. Three of these nozzles, characterized by different degrees of conicity, are compared to a nozzle with cylindrical orifices, which acts as a baseline. A homogeneous equilibrium model, validated against experimental data in previous works by the authors, is used to calculate the eventual cavitation formation inside these orifices. Additionally, the characteristics of the flow at the orifice outlet are analyzed for the four aforementioned nozzles in terms of their steady-state mass flow, effective outlet velocity and area coefficient. The results show that convergent-divergent nozzles exhibit a high cavitation intensity, located in the transition between the convergent and the divergent sections. This high cavitation intensity tends to compensate for the expected velocity decrease induced by the divergent shape, producing effective velocity values similar to those achieved by the cylindrical nozzle in many of the simulated conditions. The characteristics of the flow, together with the higher spray opening angles expected due to the divergent section of the nozzle, may improve atomization and fuel-air mixing processes.