Improvement of diesel combustion with suppression of mutual fuel spray flame interactions with staggered nozzle hole arrangement and a spatially divided combustion chamber

A combination of a fuel injector with staggered nozzle hole arrangement with a combustion chamber divided into upper and lower layers by placing a lip at the middle of the side wall is proposed to improve diesel combustion with suppression of interactions among fuel spray flames. The fuel injector has twelve alternately arranged spray holes (& phi;0.09 mm), staggered at two injection angles, 79 & DEG; and 55 & DEG; from the central axis of the injector. Two ordinary injectors with eight (& phi;0.113 mm) and twelve (& phi;0.092 mm) holes with an injection angle of 78 & DEG; from the central axis with a conventional re-entrant combustion chamber were also examined as references. The experimental results showed that the improvements in thermal efficiencies and the reduction in smoke emissions can be established over a wide IMEP range with the proposed combination of the staggered nozzle hole injector and the divided combustion chamber. The exhaust loss is reduced with the combination of the injector and the combustion chamber while the cooling loss increases slightly. The rate of heat release from the combination of the injector and the combustion chamber has a more active main combustion and smaller afterburning than conventional systems. The three-dimensional CFD simulations showed that the combination of the injector and the combustion chamber can efficiently suppress the interactions among fuel spray flames at the combustion chamber wall after the impingement of fuel spray flames and also suitably distribute the fuel mixture, resulting in reductions in the afterburning and the smoke emissions. The slight increase in cooling loss with the proposed combination may be due to the increase in contact area of hot burned gas on the cylinder head; further improvements in thermal efficiency can be expected with optimization of the design factors related to the fuel injection and the combustion chamber configuration.