This is the published version of the paper.This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. The cavitation structures formed inside enlarged transparent replicas of tapered Diesel valve covered orifice nozzles have been characterized using high speed imaging visualization. Cavitation images obtained at fixed needle lift and flow rate conditions have revealed that although the conical shape of the converging tapered holes suppresses the formation of geometric cavitation, forming at the entry to the cylindrical injection hole, string cavitation has been found to prevail, particularly at low needle lifts. Computational fluid dynamics simulations have shown that cavitation strings appear in areas where large-scale vortices develop. The vortical structures are mainly formed upstream of the injection holes due to the nonuniform flow distribution and persist also inside them. Cavitation strings have been frequently observed to link adjacent holes while inspection of identical real-size injectors has revealed cavitation erosion sites in the area of string cavitation development. Image postprocessing has allowed estimation of their frequency of appearance, lifetime, and size along the injection hole length, as function of cavitation and Reynolds numbers and needle lift. Permanent repository link

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The internal details of fuel injectors have a profound impact on the emissions from gasoline direct injection engines. However, the impact of injector design features is not currently understood, due to the difficulty in observing and modeling internal injector flows. Gasoline direct injection flows involve moving geometry, flash boiling, and high levels of turbulent two-phase mixing. In order to better simulate these injectors, five different modeling approaches have been employed to study the engine combustion network Spray G injector. These simulation results have been compared to experimental measurements obtained, among other techniques, with X-ray diagnostics, allowing the predictions to be evaluated and critiqued. The ability of the models to predict mass flow rate through the injector is confirmed, but other features of the predictions vary in their accuracy. The prediction of plume width and fuel mass distribution varies widely, with volume-of-fluid tending to overly concentrate the fuel. All the simulations, however, seem to struggle with predicting fuel dispersion and by inference, jet velocity. This shortcoming of the predictions suggests a need to improve Eulerian modeling of dense fuel jets.

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The onset and development of cavitation in the annular needle seat passage of piezo-driven outward-opening pintle injector nozzles used with spray-guided direct-injection gasoline engines are studied using a Eulerian-Lagrangian computational fluid dynamics cavitation model. Cavitation is formed because of the fluid acceleration taking place at the needle sealing area and it has been found to be affected by its geometric details. Various submodels for nucleation and bubble formation, further bubble growth and collapse, as well as bubble break-up and transport are incorporated into the model. Qualitative model validation is performed against experimental data reported elsewhere in large-scale nozzle replicas, showing similar cavitation patterns to be formed. These consist of vapour pockets rather than a continuous vapour film and develop transiently in a rather chaotic manner around the circumferential needle sealing area, even under stationary geometry and fixed-flowrate conditions. Further transient effects associated with the fast opening and closing of the piezo-controlled needle valve are also presented.

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