Approaches for detailed investigations on transient flow and spray characteristics during high pressure fuel injection

High pressure injection systems have essential roles in realizing highly controllable fuel injections in internal combustion engines. The primary atomization processes in the near field of the spray, and even inside the injector, determine the subsequent spray development with a considerable impact on the combustion and pollutant formation. Therefore, the processes should be understood as much as possible; for instance, to develop mathematical and numerical models. However, the experimental difficulties are extremely high, especially near the injector nozzle or inside the nozzle, due to the very small geometrical scales, the highly concentrated optical dense spray processes and the high speed and drastic transient nature of the spray. In this study, several unique and partly recently developed techniques are applied for detailed measurements on the flow inside the nozzle and the spray development very near the nozzle. As far as possible, the same three-hole injector for high pressure diesel injection is used to utilize and compare different measurement approaches. In a comprehensive section, the approach is taken to discuss the measurement results in comparison. It is possible to combine the observations within and outside the injector and to discuss the entire spray development processes for high pressure diesel sprays. This allows one to confirm theories and to provide detailed and, in parts, even quantitative data for the validation of numerical models.