One-dimensional model on fuel penetration in diesel sprays with gas flow

In diesel engine, spray penetration is usually changed by in-cylinder gas flow. Accurate prediction on diesel spray with gas flow is important to the optimal design of diesel fuel injection system. This paper presents a theory investigation focusing on the penetration of diesel spray with gas flow. In order to understand the effect of gas flow on the penetration of diesel spray, a one-dimensional spray model is developed from an idealized diesel spray, which is able to predict the spray behavior under different gas flow conditions. The ambient gas flow is simplified as ideal flow that has only constant flow velocity along x-axial and y-axial directions of spray. The x-axial and y-axial directions are respectively defined as along and vertical spray directions. The main assumption is that the y-axial direction gas flow has no effect on the penetration of spray along x-axial direction. The principles of conservation of mass and momentum are used in the derivation. Momentum of in-cylinder air flow is also taken into consideration. Validation of the model at stable condition is achieved by comparing model predictions with experimental measurements of diesel spray without gas flow from Naber's experiments. Furthermore, CFD simulations on penetration of diesel spray with gas flow were performed with the commercial code AVL-fire. The onedimensional model is validated by the penetration results with gas flow from CFD calculation. Results show that a reasonable estimation of the spray evolution can be obtained for both with and without ambient gas flow conditions.