Large-Eddy Simulation of Gasoline Fuel Spray Injection at Ultra-High Injection Pressures

Doctoral thesis, 2021

Gasoline direct injection is a state-of-the-art technique that reduces hydrocarbon and particulate emissions. However, further improvement is needed to meet current as well as future emission regulations. A prominent solution is to increase the fuel injection pressure which allows faster fuel droplet atomization, quick evaporation and improves fuel-air mixture formation under realistic engine conditions. In this work, the gasoline fuel injection process at ultra-high injection pressures ranging from 200 to 1500 bar was analyzed using numerical models. In particular, the Large-Eddy Simulation (LES) method, with the standard Smagorinsky turbulence model, was utilized using the Eulerian formulation  for the continuous phase. The discrete droplet phase was treated using a Lagrangian formulation together with spray sub-models. In the first part of study, spray was injected into an initially quiescent constant volume chamber using two different nozzle hole shape geometries: divergent and convergent. The numerical results were calibrated by reproducing experimentally observed liquid penetration length and efforts were made to understand the influence of ultra-high injection pressures on spray development. The calibrated models were then used to investigate the impact of ultra-high injection pressures on mean droplet sizes, droplet size distribution, spray-induced large-scale eddies and entrainment rate. The results showed that, at ultra-high injection pressures, the mean droplet sizes were significantly reduced and the droplets achieving very high  velocities. Integral length scales of spray-induced turbulence and air entrainment rate were better for the divergent-shaped injector, and considerably larger at higher injection pressures compared to lower ones.

In the second part of the study, four consecutive full-cycle cold flow LES simulations were carried out to generate realistic turbulence inside the engine cylinder. The first three cycles were ignored, with the fourth cycle being used to model the injection of the fuel using the divergent-shaped injector only (which was found to be better in the previous part of this study) at different injection pressures. In addition to the continuous gas phase (Eulerian) and the dispersed liquid (Lagrangian), the liquid film feature (Finite-Area) was used to model the impingement of fuel spray on the engine walls and subsequent liquid film formation. The simulation results were used to evaluate spray-induced turbulence, fuel-air mixing efficiency and the amount of liquid mass deposited on the walls. The limitation of the high-pressure injection technique with respect to liquid film formation was optimized using a start of injection (SOI) sweep. Overall results showed that the mixing efficiency increased at high injection pressure and that SOI should occur between early injection and late injection to optimize the amount of mass being deposited on the engine walls.