Flash boiling effect on swirled injector spray angle

Abstract A swirled injector for gasoline direct injection was used to investigate the effect of fuel flash boiling on the initial angle of the spray. The hollow cone spray was injected into a constant pressure bomb filled with quiescent air. The fuel was fed at 7 MPa constant pressure to the injector. Three parameters were changed to study the effect of the injection conditions on the spray angle: fuel composition, fuel temperature and air pressure in the test bomb. The injector tip was heated up to 150°C to keep the fuel to be injected at the desired temperature. Different blends of iso-octane and n-pentane were used to obtain fuels with different bubble temperature at the same air pressure. In a reduced set of experiments, only with pure fuels, the ambient pressure was varied to change the bubble temperature independently from the fuel temperature. It was observed that, when the fuel conditions exceed the bubble point, the spray angle, measured close to the injector, becomes wider. This angle was chosen as an indicator of the flash boiling intensity. The experimental results show that the angle value is well fitted by a unique correlation if it is expressed as a function of the ratio P=Pb/ Pair between the fuel bubble pressure and the bomb pressure