Liquid film thickness inside the high pressure swirl injectors: Real scale measurement and evaluation of analytical equations

Liquid film thickness inside two swirl injectors for direct injection (DI) gasoline engines was measured at different injection pressure conditions ranging from 2.0 to 7.0 MPa and then previous analytical and empirical equations were examined from the experimental results. Based on the evaluation, a new equation for the liquid film thickness inside the swirl injectors was introduced. A direct photography using two real scale transparent nozzles and a pulsed light source was employed to measure the liquid film thickness inside the swirl injectors. The error in the liquid film thickness measurement, generated from different refractive indices among transparent nozzle, fuel and air, was estimated and corrected based on the geometric optics. Two injectors which have different nozzle diameter and nozzle length were applied to introduce a more general empirical equation for the liquid film thickness inside the pressure swirl injectors. The results showed that the liquid film thickness remains constant at the injection pressures for direct injection gasoline engines while the ratio of nozzle length to nozzle diameter (L/D) shows significant effect on the liquid film thickness. The previously introduced analytical and empirical equations for relatively low injection pressure swirl injectors overestimated the effect of injection pressure at the operating range of high pressure swirl injectors and, in addition, the effect of L/D ratio and swirler geometry was rarely considered. A new empirical equation was suggested based on the experimental results by taking into account the effects of fuel properties, nozzle diameter, nozzle length and swirler geometry.