Investigation of the Influence of Injection Rate Shaping on the Spray Characteristics in a Diesel Common Rail System Equipped with a Piston Amplifier

The quality of the mixing process of fuel and air in a direct injection diesel engine relies heavily on the way the spray develops when injected into the combustion chamber. Among other factors, the spray development depends on the injection rate of the fuel delivered by the injector. The paper presents a study, at both a macroscopic and microscopic level, of a Diesel spray generated by a common-rail injection system featuring a piston pressure amplifier. By modifying the timing and the duration of the injector and amplifier piston actuation, it is possible to obtain high injection pressures up to $180MPa$⁠, and different shapes for the injection rate, which would not be achievable with a regular common rail injection system. The spray evolution produced by three different injection rate shapes (square, ramp, and boot) has been investigated in an injection test rig, by means of visualization and PDPA techniques, at different injection conditions. The main conclusions are the important effect on spray penetration of the initial injection rate evolution and the small influence of the maximum injection pressure attained at the end of the injection event. Smaller or even negligible effects have been found on the spray cone angle and on the droplet Sauter mean diameter.