Patric Ouellette

Turbulent Transient Gas Injections

Compressible transient turbulent gaseous jets are formed when natural gas is injected directly into a diesel engine. Multi-dimensional simulations are used to analyze the penetration, mixing, and combustion of such gaseous fuel jets. The capability of multi-dimensional numerical simulations, based on the k-e turbulence model, to reproduce the experimentally verified penetration rate of free transient jets is evaluated. The model is found to reproduce the penetration rate dependencies on momentum, time, and density, but is more accurate when one of the k-e coefficients is modified. The paper discusses other factors affecting the accuracy of the calculations, in particular, the mesh density and underexpanded injection conditions. Simulations are then used to determine the impact of chamber turbulence, injection duration, and wall contact on transient jet penetration. The model also shows that gaseous jets and evaporating diesel sprays with small droplet size mix at much the same rate when injected with equivalent momentum injection rate.

Transient Turbulent Gaseous Fuel Jets for Diesel Engines

Existing data on transient turbulent jet injection in to large chambers demonstrates self-similar behavior under a wide range of conditions including compressibility, thermal and species diffusion, and nozzle under expansion. The Jet penetration distance well downstream of the virtual origin is proportional to the square root of the time and the fourth root of the ratio of nozzle exit momentum flow rate to chamber density. The constant of proportionality has been evaluated by invoking the concept of Turner that the flow can be modeled as a steady jet headed by a spherical vortex. Using incompressible transient jet observations to determine the asymptotically constant ratio of maximum jet width to penetration distance, and the steady jet entrainment results of Ricou and Spalding, it is shown that the penetration constant is 3 ± 0.1. This value is shown to hold for compressible flows also, with substantial thermal and species diffusion, and even with transient jets from highly under-expanded in which, as in diesel engine chambers with gaseous fuel injection, the jet is directed at a small angle to one wall of the chamber. In these tests, with under expanded nozzles. Observations of transient jet injection have been made in a chamber in which, as in diesel engine chambers with gaseous fuel injection, the jet is directed at a small angle to one wall of the chamber. In these tests, with under-expanded nozzles it was found that at high nozzle pressure ratios, depending on the jet injection angle, the jet penetration can be consistent with a penetration constant of 3. At low pressure ratios the presence of the wall noticeably retards the penetration of the jet.