Fuel 238 (2019) 354–362

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Fuel
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Full Length Article

The effect of cavitation on the estimation of fuel injection rates based on T

momentum flux measurements
Chengjun Du , Sven Andersson, Mats Andersson
⁎

Combustion Division, Department of Mechanics and Maritime Sciences, Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Keywords: A study was conducted to determine how geometry-induced cavitation affects the reliability of injection rate
Nozzle geometry estimates based on momentum flux measurements. Experiments were performed with two hydro-grinding diesel
Cavitation injector nozzles (Do = 190 µm), one having a cylindrical nozzle orifice that has a strong tendency to induce
Momentum flux cavitation, and the other having a convergent nozzle orifice that tends to suppress cavitation. In addition, near-
Injection rate
field microscopic images were captured to investigate the influence of cavitation on the liquid jet at the nozzle
Near-field jets
exit. The momentum flux measurements and near-field imaging were conducted at ambient pressure, using
injection pressures of up to 2500 bar. When estimating the injection rate based on momentum flux measure-
ments, failure to account for cavitation caused the integrated injection rate to be overestimated around 9% for
the cavitating (cylindrical) nozzle but not for the non-cavitating (convergent) nozzle. We therefore recommend
that cavitation should be accounted for when estimating injection rates for cavitating nozzles but not for non-
cavitating nozzles. Further, we show that the tendency of a given nozzle orifice to induce cavitation can be
evaluated by measuring the nozzle’s momentum flux under the assumption of zero cavitation and then com-
paring the estimated mass of injected fuel to the weighed mass.

1. Introduction
Internal combustion (IC) engines are likely to remain the dominant
means of vehicular propulsion for the foreseeable future [1]. The
combustion process in conventional diesel engines is controlled by the
quality of fuel-air mixing, which strongly affects both engine-out
emissions and engine efficiency. Evaluation of injector performance by
measuring the fuel mass flow rate or the momentum flux of the jet
provides useful information that can be used to better control the in-
jection process, and thus fuel-air mixing quality. There are various
methods for measuring the fuel injection rate, such as the Bosch method
[2], the Zeuch method [3] and a method based on momentum flux
measurements [4]. The latter method has the advantage of simplicity
and has therefore been adopted by several research groups [5–10].
However, there are two different approaches to measure the fuel in-
jection rate based on momentum flux measurements. The approach
based on momentum flux measurements that do not account for the
occurrence of cavitation in the nozzle orifice have been used [5,7–10],
despite the possibility that they may yield inaccurate results in cases
where cavitation occurs and has significant effects on the mass flow. It
has been reported that cavitation generates foams that adhere to the
nozzle orifice and choke the mass flow through the nozzle [11]. A
similar choking of the mass flow through a cavitating nozzle under
diesel engine-like conditions was observed by Payri et al. [12]. Sangiah
et al. [8] and Emberson et al. [10] used hydro-grinding (or positive
radius of inlet) nozzles with positive K-factor (K = (Di Do)/10 µm
where Di and Do are the inlet and outlet diameter of the nozzle orifice).
The measurement of fuel injection rate may be appropriate with such
nozzles, because positive K-factors or hydro-grinding inlets are known
to suppress cavitation. Ganippa et al. [7] and Luo et al. [9] did not
provide the K-factor and hydro-grinding of nozzle orifices, and they
applied the approach that disregards the effect of cavitation. This would
be questionable for the cavitating nozzles. However, some approaches
that account for reductions in the effective orifice area due to cavitation
bubbles or foaming in the nozzle orifice have also been used [4,6]. To
our knowledge, the former and the latter methods have never been
compared using experimental data for nozzles with cavitating and non-
cavitating geometries.
The objective of this paper is thus to explore the influence of nozzle
geometry-induced cavitation on estimates of fuel injection rates based
on momentum flux measurements. To this end, experiments were per-
formed with two hydro-grinding nozzles – one having a cylindrical
orifice with a strong tendency to induce cavitation, and the other
having a convergent orifice that tends to suppress cavitation. In

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: chengjun.du@chalmers.se (C. Du), sven.b.andersson@chalmers.se (S. Andersson), f3cma@chalmers.se (M. Andersson).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fuel.2018.10.119
Received 12 June 2017; Received in revised form 18 October 2018; Accepted 23 October 2018
Available online 30 October 2018
0016-2361/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
C. Du et al. Fuel 238 (2019) 354–362

Fig. 1. Simplified cross-sectional view of flow in the cavitating and the non-cavitating nozzle orifices. Ao : the area of the orifice exit, Aeff : the cross-sectional area of
flow, : the density of flow, f : the liquid density, u : the flow velocity profile, ueff : the effective velocity profile of the flow through the effective area Aeff .

addition, near-field microscopic images were captured to investigate M

the effect of cavitation on the liquid jet at the nozzle exit. ueff =
f ·A eff (3)

2. Theoretical background Combining Eqs. (2) and (3), the actual mass flow rate of liquid jet
can be expressed as:
As discussed in the ‘Introduction’ section, there are two different mact = f ·A eff ·M (4)
methods to estimating injection rates based on momentum flux mea-
surements. The main difference between these methods is whether they From Bernoulli’s equation, the theoretical velocity uth , i.e. the
do or do not account for the effects of cavitation in the nozzle orifice. maximum potential fluid velocity at the orifice exit, can be expressed
Cavitation creates vapor bubbles or foam films along the inner walls of as:
the nozzle orifice. Fig. 1 presents simplified depictions of flow phe-
nomena in the cavitating nozzle orifice and the non-cavitating nozzle 2·(Pi Pa)
uth =
orifice. Fig. 1(a) shows that the cavitating layer may contain vapor f (5)
bubbles or foam films in a cavitating nozzle orifice. Naber and Siebers
[4] took account for the effect of cavitation by assuming that it reduces The theoretical mass flow rate mth can be expressed as:
the cross-sectional area of flow ( Aeff ) such that it becomes smaller than mth = f · A o ·uth = Ao · 2· f ·(Pi Pa) (6)
the area of the orifice exit ( Ao ). The effective velocity profile (ueff ) of
the flow through the effective area Aeff is then computed, taking into where Pi and Pa represent the injection pressure and ambient pressure,
account the flow’s non-uniform velocity profile (u ). It should be noted respectively. Ao represents the theoretical cross-sectional area of the
that cavitation introduces variation in the density of the flow at the liquid jet at the nozzle exit if there is no cavitation and the jet’s cross
orifice exit because of the presence of vapor bubbles; for simplicity, it is sectional area is equal to that of the nozzle exit. The discharge coeffi-
assumed that the density of flow ( ) through the area Aeff is equal to the cient Cd is defined as the ratio of the actual mass flow rate to the the-
liquid density ( f ). The alternative approach, which has been widely oretical mass flow rate, and is obtained by combining Eqs. (4) and (6):
used [5,7–10], ignores the effects of cavitation and thus effectively
assumes that Aeff Ao . This approach may be appropriate for a non- mact Ca·M
Cd = =
cavitating nozzle orifice such as a hydro-grinding nozzle with a positive mth 2· Ao ·(Pi Pa) (7)
K-factor because nozzle orifices with positive K-factors or hydro-
The area contraction coefficient Ca and velocity coefficient Cv are
grinding inlets are known to suppress cavitation. Specifically, Blessing
defined as done by Payri et al. [12]:
et al. [13] and Duke et al. [14] found that nozzle orifices of the size
used in diesel injectors induced no cavitation if they were hydroground Aeff
Ca =
and had positive K-factors. This raises the question of whether the ap- Ao (8)
proach that ignores cavitation can produce reliable results for cavi-
ueff
tating nozzles, and if not, why? The purpose of this paper is to address Cv =
uth (9)
these issues.
The derivation of the approach that accounts for cavitation in- The coefficient Ca is used to account for the reduction in the liquid
corporates that of the approach that disregards cavitation. If the liquid flow area through the orifice exit because of cavitation bubbles. Under
jet’s velocity in the radial direction is neglected, its momentum flux cavitating conditions, both Cv and Ca are less than 1. The relationship
when it impinges on the target’s surface normal to the direction of li- between Cd , Ca and Cv is defined as:
quid flow can be expressed as:
Cd = Ca· Cv (10)
M = mact · ueff (1) Combining Eqs. (7) and (8), Ca can be derived as:

where mact and ueff represent the actual mass flow rate and the effective 2· Ao ·Cd2·(Pi Pa)
Ca =
velocity of the liquid jet, respectively. The actual mass flow rate mact M (11)
can be expressed as:
The only unknown parameter in the above equation is Cd , which can
mact = f ·A eff ·ueff
be determined using an expression presented by Naber and Siebers [4]:
(2)
m
where f and Aeff represent the fuel density and the effective area of the Cd =
t· Ao · f ·uth (12)
liquid jet at the orifice exit, respectively.
Combining Eqs. (1) and (2), the effective velocity of liquid jet can be where m is the mass of fuel injected over a time t . Having de-
expressed as: termined Cd , Ca can be computed. This approach was applied by Siebers

355
C. Du et al.
[15], who used the calculated value of Ca with a scaling law to predict
liquid phase penetration. If assuming Ca 1, one obtains the definition
of the discharge coefficient Cd for the approach that neglects cavitation:
mact M The experimental set-up for the momentum flux measurement
Cd = =
mth 2·Ao ·(Pi Pa ) (13)
Here, the superscript ‘′’ is used to indicate that the value of Cd is
calculated using Eq. (13), to distinguish it from the value computed
using Eq. (12). The actual mass flow rate mact can be measured as
mact Cd mth , or mact = Cd mth . Integrating mact over one injection
period yields the calculated mass mc . The difference between the
calculated mass mc and the weighed mass m w which is the measured
weight of one injection period can then be expressed as a percentage:
mc mw
(%) = 100 ×
mw (14)
In this work, to determine whether Eq. (13) can be used for nozzles
with and without positive K-factors, Cd was calculated using Eq. (13)
and the difference between the calculated and weighed masses of in-
jected fuel were compared using Eq. (14). This procedure was also
performed using the value of Cd calculated with Eq. (12).
Various dimensionless numbers can be used to denote the extent of
cavitation in a nozzle orifice. One way to relate the cavitation number
to the occurrence of cavitation is based on the pressure difference
across the nozzle orifice. For example, the cavitation number proposed
by Nurick [16] is:
Pi Pv
CN =
Pi Pa (15)
where Pv is the fuel vapor pressure. Based on the equation above, Payri
et al. [17] obtained critical cavitation numbers (CNkr ) for cylindrical
nozzles under diesel-engine like conditions. If the actual CN for such a
nozzle is below its CNkr value, cavitation will occur and the mass flow
will be choked. Under such conditions, the mass flow will be in-
dependent of the pressure differential between the injection and am-
bient pressures. In this work, Eq. (15) is used to predict the occurrence
of cavitation in a cylindrical orifice. It should be noted that Chaves et al.
[18] have argued that the cavitation number alone is not sufficient to
characterize cavitation in small orifices such as those of diesel engine
injectors, because the transit time for cavity collapse in such systems is
on the order of a few microseconds.
Force sensor Injector
Charge amplifier
Charge amplifier
NI chassis Pulse generator
Laptop
Fig. 2. Set-up for momentum flux measurements.
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Fuel 238 (2019) 354–362
3. Experimental set-up
3.1. Set-up for momentum flux measurement
consists of a Scania XPI high pressure common rail system, two top-feed
Scania XPI injectors, a Kistler 9215A force sensor with a Kistler
5015A1000 charge amplifier, a Kistler 4067C3000 pressure sensor with
a Kistler 4618A0 amplifier, a NI cDAQ-9172 chassis with a NI 9215
module, and a Standord DG535 pulse generator and a laptop. A sche-
matic of the set-up is shown in Fig. 2. The pulse generator sends an
injection pulse and a trigger signal at 0.1 Hz as the injection frequency
to the injector driver and the NI chassis, respectively.
To ensure that the entire liquid jet impinges on the target area of the
force sensor, the nozzle tip was placed ∼1.5 mm from the target. This
distance is close to that used by Pickett et al. [6] and Siebers [15]
(2–3 mm). In addition, the surface of transducer target is an octagon-
like structure, and the shortest distance between two parallel surfaces is
3.5 mm. The diameter of the liquid jet at ∼1.5 mm away from the in-
jector tip is smaller than 1.0 mm. Therefore, the entire liquid jet would
impinge on the transducer target. Fig. 3 shows a time series of images of
a liquid jet impinging on the force sensor target shortly after the start of
injection (ASOI). The images were captured using a Phantom V1210
video camera at a frame rate of 190,000/s. The green line in the Fig. 3
indicates the liquid jet boundary. The center axes of the liquid jet and
the force sensor are clearly well aligned. In addition, the jet’s width
before impinging is smaller than that of the force sensor’s target area.
After 21.0 µs ASOI, scattered fuel from the impinged liquid jet blocked
the view of observation, so no images acquired after this point are
shown. Details of the experimental conditions are presented in Table 1.
A hundred injections of fuel were collected in a closed bottle, then the
fuel mass was weighed using an electronic scale.
3.2. Fuel injection set-up
Fig. 2 shows that the injection pressure sensor is placed close to the
injector’s fuel inlet and the distance between the pressure sensor and
the nozzle tip is ∼24 cm. As the injector needle moves upwards (to-
wards the injector’s control chamber), the needle in the control
chamber is actuated by a solenoid or a piezoelectric transducer. Since
the pressure in the control chamber is much lower than the fuel line
pressure, the injection pressure Pi in the nozzle orifice is assumed to be
equal to the fuel line pressure. The experiments were performed using a
commercial common rail accumulator for heavy duty trucks that can
serve up to six eight-hole injectors. The use of one single-hole injector
Pressure sensor
Accumulator
Injector
driver
High pressure pump
C. Du et al. Fuel 238 (2019) 354–362

Force sensor Target Nozzle tip

K0 K2
ASOI [µs]
0 4 mm

5.25

10.50

Fig. 4. The orifice outlet diameter.

15.75
K0 K2
21.00

Fig. 3. Demonstration of the liquid jet impingement. The green line is the
boundary of the liquid jet. Injection pressure is 2000 bar. (For interpretation of
the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web
version of this article.)

Fig. 5. The inner structure of nozzle orifice.

Table 1
Experimental conditions.
Injection pressure [bar] 800–2500 Table 3
Key properties of MK1 diesel fuel.
Ambient pressure [bar] 1.0
Density at 293 K [kg/m3] 823.8
Injection pulse [ms] 3.0
Number of injections 60 (impingement), 100 (mass weight)
Temperature at 95% distillation [K] 573
Sensor read-out rate [Hz] 100 k
Kinematic viscosity at 313 K [mm2/s] 2.2
Frequency of injection [Hz] 0.1
Vapor pressure at 308 K [kPa] 0.5

3.3. Set-up for near-field imaging of the liquid jet

Table 2
Details of the nozzles’ geometry.
Near-field imaging of the liquid jet in the vicinity of the nozzle
Nozzle 1 (K0) Nozzle 2 (K2) orifice was performed using a Questar QM-1 long distance microscope.
This microscope was placed ∼920 mm away from the spray chamber,
Outlet diameter [µm] 190 ± 0.7 190 ± 0.7
and ∼933 mm away from the targeted liquid jet near to the nozzle tip.
K-factor 0 2
Hydro-grinding [%] 30 30 The observation area was 0–3 mm above the nozzle tip. A schematic of
Nominal orifice length [mm] 1.1 1.1 the optical set-up is shown in Fig. 6. A Phantom V1210 camera was
Mass flow at 137.9 bar [mg/ms] 3.52 3.86 used to capture images of the liquid jet at a frame rate of 160,000/s
with a spatial resolution of 16.5 µm/pixel and an exposure minimum
time of 0.44 µs. A halogen lamp was used as a light source for back-
thus minimized pressure losses during the injection period. ground illumination. The injection system and injectors were identical
The injectors used were of the solenoid sac-nozzle type, with exit to those used for the momentum flux measurements. The energizing
holes located along their central axes. Details of the nozzles’ geometry injector pulse duration was 3.0 ms as in the momentum flux measure-
are shown in Table 2. The outlet diameter of each nozzle orifice was ments, and five injections were imaged under each set of experimental
measured precisely by electron microscopy with the spatial resolution conditions.
of 0.72 µm/pixel, and the resulting images are shown in Fig. 4. The
nozzles’ inner structures were captured by X-ray scanning and are
shown in Fig. 5. These images are only used to show the nozzles’ 4. Data processing
structures, and cannot be used for accurate measurements of their di-
mensions. However, estimates of the inlet and outlet diameter based on As can be seen in Fig. 7(a), there is high frequency noise during the
pixel counting in the X-ray images suggest that the K-factors for nozzles first 0.4 ms after the start of energizing (ASOE) the injector that persists
K0 and K2 are very close to 0 and 2, respectively. until 1.5 ms ASOE. The normalized amplitude spectrum of the mo-
Commercial MK1 diesel fuel without added rapeseed methyl ester mentum flux from Fig. 7(a) was calculated using the fast Fourier
(RME) sold on the Swedish market was used in all the experiments; key transform (FFT); a representative example is shown in Fig. 7(b). The
properties of this fuel are presented in Table 3. The fuel tank connected amplitude is very low at frequencies above 10 kHz, so a cutoff fre-
to the high pressure pump was cooled continuously with cold tap water, quency 30 kHz was considered sufficient for lowpass filtering. A re-
so the fuel temperature was assumed to be equal to the room tem- presentative example of processed momentum flux data is shown in
perature of 293 K. Fig. 7(a). The threshold values for identifying the start and end of im-
pingement were set at 2% and 15% of the maximum processed mo-
mentum flux, respectively. A high threshold of 15% was used to define

357
C. Du et al.
Spray chamber
Halogen lamp Long distance microscope
~920 mm
(a)
Injection
period
(b)
30 kHz
Fig. 7. (a): comparison of the original momentum flux data (black line) and
processed one (red line). (b): normalized spectrum amplitude of momentum
flux from the original data (a). Injection pressure is 2500 bar and the nozzle is
K2. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the
reader is referred to the web version of this article.)
the end of impingement to minimize the influence of oscillations in the
force sensor target. Before the start of impingement and after the end of
impingement, the value of the momentum flux was set to zero in both
the original and processed spectra. The injection period is illustrated by
the dotted line shown in Fig. 7(a); only results recorded within this
window were considered when calculating discharge coefficients, mass
flow rates, and so on.
As can be seen in Fig. 8, there is noise in the raw injection pressure
data during the duration of the energizing injector pulse (3.0 ms). Sa-
vitzky-Golay filtering was used to remove this noise from the injection
pressure signal. In addition, the data were corrected for the time lag
resulting from the fact that the injection pressure sensor was placed
∼24 cm away from the nozzle tip. The local speed of sound in the rail
was calculated based on the polynomial fitting equation suggested by
Payri et al. [19]. An illustrative set of processed injection pressure re-
sults is shown in Fig. 8. These procedures were applied to all the in-
jection pressure and momentum flux measurements presented in this
358
Fuel 238 (2019) 354–362
Fig. 6. Optical set-up for the near
High speed video camera field imaging of the liquid jet (seen
from above).
Fig. 8. Comparison of the original injection pressure data (black line) and
processed one (red line). The condition is the same as in Fig. 7. (For inter-
pretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred
to the web version of this article.)
paper.
5. Results and discussions
5.1. Results based on the calculation of Cd
As discussed in the ‘Theoretical background’ section, if one assumes
that Ca 1, Eq. (13) can be used to calculate Cd , and so mact can be
computed. In this section, Ca 1 is assumed for nozzles K0 and K2,
allowing the effect of cavitation on the injection rate measurement to
be investigated.
Fig. 9 compares the mean integrated mact (mc ) based on the Cd to the
weighed mass (m w ). Surprisingly, it shows that the difference for
nozzle K2 is less than 2.0% for all injection pressures, but is about 9%
for nozzle K0. This implies that the Cd calculated with Eq. (13) is ap-
propriate for mact for nozzle K2 (which has a K-factor of 2) but not for
nozzle K0. It also implies that the area contraction coefficient Ca for
nozzle K2 is almost equal to one while that for nozzle K0 is less than
one. In addition, for nozzle K0, the calculated masses for all injection
pressures are about 9% higher than the weighed mass. On the basis of
Eqs. (7) and (8), this suggests that the Ca for nozzle K0 should be around
0.83.
As shown in Fig. 9, the double standard deviation (2σ) of the cal-
culated mass mc is less than 0.8 mg for all injection pressures. The de-
viation of the mean calculated mass was thus less than 2.5% for all
measurements. The deviation was primarily due to fluctuations in the
injection pressure. During all momentum flux measurements, the in-
jection pressure before energizing the injector was maintained
within ± 15 bar of the target value, corresponding to a fluctuation of
around 2% for an injection pressure of 800 bar, with much smaller
fluctuation of percentage for higher injection pressures. The lower
double standard deviation for the nozzle K2 was due to smaller fluc-
tuations in the injection pressure.
5.2. Results based on the calculation of Cd
According to Eq. (12), the m is the mass of fuel injected over a time
t . Liquid fuel was collected from 100 injections using fixed injection
pulses, and an average m for a single injection was computed. The
quantity m / t was then defined as the mean mass flow rate, so the
value of Cd calculated using this quantity corresponds to the mean value
C. Du et al.
K0
=9.1
=8.6 =8.4
=9.3
=9.2
Fig. 9. Weighed fuel masses m w (filled black circles) and masses calculated based on Cd (mc , open circles) for nozzles K0 and K2. The double standard deviations (2σ)
of the calculated mc values and the differences are also shown (filled blue circles). (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is
referred to the web version of this article.)
Fig. 10. Averaged momentum flux and that of mean value at injection pressure
1600 bar are shown in (b). Averaged injection pressure for the K2 is shown in
(a).
over a single injection. Therefore, the mean value of uth was used in its
calculation, i.e. the mean injection pressure over the injection period, as
shown in Fig. 10(a). The injection period t was determined based on
the averaged momentum flux, as shown in Fig. 10(b). The threshold
values specified in the ‘Data processing’ section were used to define the
start and end of injection. The mean momentum flux was calculated
over the injection period, and is shown by the dotted lines in Fig. 10(b).
Similarly, the mean injection pressure over the injection period is
shown by the dotted line in Fig. 10(a). In both figures, the lengths of the
dotted lines correspond to the duration of the injection period. For
clarity, only the injection pressure for nozzle K2 is shown in Fig. 10(a).
Having obtained Cd , Ca is calculated using Eq. (11). The M in Eq. (11) is
the mean value during the injection period. In reality, Cd varies over the
injection period. However, when using the impingement measurement
359
Fuel 238 (2019) 354–362
K2
=1.9
=1.6
=1.7
=-1.0
=-1.9
Fig. 11. Measured discharge coefficient Cd and area contraction coefficient Ca
at different injection pressures for nozzle K0 and K2.
method based on Eq. (12), it is necessary to use the mean value.
As shown in Fig. 10(b), the two nozzles behaved differently in terms
of the momentum flux at the start and end of injection. This is due to
the use of different injector bodies. As reported by Huang et al. [20], the
liquid jet momentum and flow rate are sensitive to needle movements
during opening and closing, but not when the needle is sufficiently
lifted. Since for both injectors the needle would have been lifted high
enough shortly after the ASOE, the differences between two nozzles
result from the difference in nozzle geometry.
Fig. 11 shows the measured discharge coefficient Cd and area con-
traction coefficient Ca at different injection pressures for nozzles K0 and
K2. Nozzle K2 has a larger discharge coefficient Cd than nozzle K0. The
area contraction coefficient Ca for nozzle K2 is around 1 at all injection
pressures, indicating that cavitation is much less likely in nozzle K2.
This nozzle has 30% hydro-grinding, which further suppresses the oc-
currence of cavitation. The lack of cavitation for this nozzle is con-
sistent with the experimental observations of Blessing et al. [13] and
Duke et al. [14], both of whom observed no cavitation in nozzle orifices
with positive K-factors and hydro-grinding. The area contraction coef-
ficient Ca for nozzle K2 was greater than 1 at injection pressures of 800
and 1200 bars. Since a contraction coefficient above unity is physically
meaningless, these results are presumably due to uncertainty in the
measurements.
Interestingly, the measured area contraction coefficient Ca for
nozzle K0 was around 0.85 for all injection pressures. This is consistent
C. Du et al.
K0
2500 bar
2000 bar
1600 bar
1200 bar
800 bar
Fig. 12. Transient injection rates at different injection pressures for nozzles K0 (left) and K2 (right).
with the value of 0.83 estimated in the section on ‘Results based on the
calculation of Cd ’, and implies that when using Eq. (13), the main error
derives from overestimation of Ca .
Finally, attempts were made to measure the transient mass flow
rates for both nozzles using Eq. (4). For this purpose, the area con-
traction coefficient Ca was assumed to be constant, yielding the tran-
sient mass flow rates shown in Fig. 12. Unsurprisingly, the use of Eq. (4)
means that the trends in the mass flow rate mirror those in the mo-
mentum flux. As shown in Fig. 12, the mass flow rate for nozzle K2 is
higher than that for K0, presumably because of the former nozzle’s
higher discharge coefficient. The difference in the injection duration at
different injection pressures in Fig. 12 was due to different hydraulic
forces for closing injector needle at different injection pressures.
5.3. Examination of cavitation in the nozzle K0
Eq. (15) can be used to evaluate the extent of cavitation in the cy-
lindrical nozzle K0. Payri et al. [17] concluded that the critical cavi-
tation number CNcri was 1.2 for an injection pressure of 800 bar, so
cavitation should be expected when the CN is below 1.2. They also
found that the critical cavitation number CNcri increased with the in-
jection pressure. The calculated cavitation number CN for the nozzle K0
is 1.0 at all injection pressures, so it is expected to exhibit cavitation
independently of the injection pressure. Cavitation in nozzle K0 causes
the effective area of liquid flow to be smaller than that of the orifice
exit, so the area contraction coefficient Ca is less than 1. This is con-
sistent with the finding that the calculated mass for this nozzle is
greater than the weighed mass, as shown in Fig. 9. The mass flow rate
and discharge coefficient Cd calculated under the assumption of negli-
gible cavitation are thus not reliable for cavitating nozzles such as K0,
so there will be no further discussion based on this value. Instead, the
discussion for this nozzle will use the discharge coefficient Cd calculated
using Eq. (12), and the associated area contraction parameter.
Payri et al. [17] and Soteriou et al. [11] found that the discharge
coefficient only depends on the cavitation number CN under cavitating
conditions. In addition, Payri et al. found that the choking of mass flow
rate under cavitating conditions increased with the injection pressure.
However, the data presented in Fig. 12 do not indicate that nozzle K0
exhibited such a choking. This difference may be due to the use of
different ambient pressures and a different cylindrical nozzle in this
work and that of Payri et al.; we used a cylindrical nozzle orifice with
30% inlet hydro-grinding, while Payri et al. used one with a much
sharper inlet which would induce stronger cavitation in a nozzle. On
the other hand, using a transparent nozzle under diesel-like injection
conditions, Badock et al. [21] observed that increasing the injection
pressure had little effect on the dimensions of the cavitation films or the
accumulation of bubbles. In other words, one would thus expect the
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Fuel 238 (2019) 354–362
K2
2500 bar
2000 bar
1600 bar
1200 bar
800 bar
effective area of the liquid jet to be largely independent of the injection
pressure. Accordingly, the discharge coefficient for nozzle K0 could be
also largely independent of the injection pressure.
5.4. Near field liquid jet imaging at the nozzle orifice exit
As discussed above, the difference in the mass flow rate between the
nozzle K0 and the nozzle K2 is due to cavitation inside the former
nozzle. To better understand the effect of cavitation on the liquid jet, it
was imaged near the nozzle orifice exit using a long-distance micro-
scope during the steady period of injection (1.5–3.0 ms ASOE). As
shown in Fig. 7(a), the momentum flux was relatively stable during this
period, so it can be assumed that the injector needle was sufficiently
raised to avoid affecting the results. Thus any observable differences in
liquid jet structure between the two nozzles are due to differences in the
nature of their orifices. Fig. 13 shows instantaneous liquid jet images at
2.0 ms ASOE. The black line shown in Fig. 13 is the boundary of the
liquid jet, and the threshold for determining the liquid jet boundary is
the same for both nozzles. The difference in light intensity between the
nozzles is due to the use of different light source intensities and does not
affect the determination of the jet boundary.
The mean width of the jet at different distances from the nozzle tip
is shown Fig. 14. The mean jet width was obtained by averaging the
liquid jet width during the steady period (1.5–3.0 ms ASOE) over five
injections. Since the discharge coefficient Cd is relatively stable at dif-
ferent injection pressures for both nozzles, the width is only shown for
injection pressures of 2000 and 2500 bar. The width measurements
K0
K2
Fig. 13. Instantaneous near field liquid jet images for nozzles K0 (top) and K2
(bottom). Conditions: injection pressure 2000 bar, 2.0 ms ASOE.
C. Du et al.
Injection pressure 2000 bar
50 µm
Fig. 14. Liquid jet width near the orifice exit. Conditions: injection pressure 2000 bar (left), injection pressure 2500 bar (right). Double standard deviations ( ± 2σ)
are shown for the nozzle K0.
Fig. 15. Normalized light extinction of liquid jet during the steady period under
injection pressure 2000 bar.
started at a nominal distance of 50 µm from the nozzle tip. Fig. 14
shows the normalized light extinction of the averaged liquid jet images
from one injection event during steady period. The images in this figure
are representative of the jets formed under the specified conditions
because there was little variation between injection events under fixed
conditions.
As shown in Fig. 14, the liquid jet width for nozzle K0 was greater
than that for K2 at injection pressures of 2000 and 2500 bar. Fig. 15
also clearly shows that the liquid jet is more widely spread for nozzle K0
than K2. This is consistent with the observations of Blessing et al. [13],
who found that a nozzle with a K-factor of 0 produced a larger micro
cone angle (corresponding to a greater width) than one with a K-factor
of 2.5 for a given nozzle outlet diameter. This is also consistent with our
previous finding [22] that a nozzle with a K-factor of 0 produced a
larger liquid/vapor local cone angle in the upstream region of the spray
than did a nozzle with a K-factor of 2. The difference between nozzles
K0 and K2 is mainly due to the higher radial (normal to the orifice axis)
velocity of the liquid jet in the former nozzle, which in turn is due to
cavitation. CFD simulations performed by Liu et al. [23] showed that
the radial flow velocity at the boundary of the nozzle orifice was higher
in a non-hydro-grinding nozzle than in a hydro-grinding nozzle with a
tendency to suppress cavitation inside the nozzle orifice. Therefore, the
cavitating nozzle causes the liquid to spread more widely in the plane
361
Fuel 238 (2019) 354–362
Injection pressure 2500 bar
50 µm
normal to the nozzle axis. Put simply, the tendency of nozzle K0 to
induce cavitation increases the width of the liquid jet near the nozzle
tip relative to that for the non-cavitating nozzle K2.
One of the reasons for taking account of the area contraction is that
the ‘hydraulic flip’ type cavitation might occur as considered by Naber
and Siebers [4]. An interesting aspect of Fig. 14 is that the liquid jet
width for nozzles K0 and K2 is larger than the orifice diameter 50 µm
away from the nozzle tip. Assuming that hydraulic flip occurs at the
orifice exit for the nozzle K0, the liquid jet width should be smaller than
the orifice exit diameter. However, Fig. 14 indicates that the opposite
occurs. It was shown by Liu et al. [23] that within one orifice diameter
of the orifice exit, both hydro-grinding and non-hydro-grinding nozzles
(the latter of which have a strong tendency to induce cavitation) tend to
produce intact liquid columns (or liquid jet core). In addition, laser
sheet observations reported by Badock et al. [21] suggested that both
cavitating and non-cavitating nozzles produce intact liquid cores in the
vicinity of the nozzle orifice. The red regions of Fig. 15 indicate strong
light extinction because of dense liquid jet, thus it could represent the
liquid jet core. It is tempting to suggest that both nozzle K0 and nozzle
K2 produce an intact liquid core at the orifice exit, with no hydraulic
flip type cavitation. It also implies that taking into area contraction
effect, in our case, is because of non-negligible non-uniform velocity
profile and liquid density at the nozzle orifice exit.
6. Discussion
This paper presents measurements of the mass flow rate through
nozzles with K-factor values of 0 and 2 using the momentum flux
measurement method. For a nozzle with a K-factor of 2 and 30% hydro-
grinding, the measured area contraction coefficient Ca is approximately
1 at injection pressures of 800–2500 bar. Thus, the approach of esti-
mating the transient mass flow rate under the assumption of negligible
cavitation yields reasonably accurate results for such nozzle. Therefore,
it is assumed that there is no occurrence of cavitation when the area
contraction coefficient Ca is near 1. However, for a nozzle with a K-
factor of 0 and 30% hydro-grinding, the measured area contraction
coefficient Ca is significantly less than 1 for such nozzle. In addition,
comparing the near-field liquid jet images, a nozzle with a K-factor of 0
showed clearly a greater width of liquid jet than that of a nozzle with a
K-factor of 2. Therefore, cavitation occurs in a nozzle with a K-factor of
0, and it is necessary to use the approach that accounts for cavitation
when dealing with nozzles of this sort. In addition, as shown in Fig. 9,
the mass of injected fuel estimated using the approach that neglects
cavitation is higher than the weighed mass. Therefore, we suggest that
it would be possible to determine whether cavitation occurs in a given
nozzle by calculating its expected mass of injected fuel under the
C. Du et al.
assumption of no cavitation and comparing the result to the actual
injected mass. It should be noted that the assumption of no cavitation in
this paper is made when the measured area contraction coefficient Ca is
approximately 1. However, a small amount of cavitation, not sig-
nificantly altering the mass flow rate, may still be present, and to fur-
ther confirm absence of cavitation in nozzle K2, an independent in-
vestigation, for example, X-ray based imaging might be helpful.
It should be noted that the method of measuring transient mass flow
rates based on momentum flux measurements has some limitations. As
discussed in the section on “Results based on the calculation of Cd ”, this
method assumes that the discharge coefficient Cd is constant during the
injection period. However, it is known that the Cd is not constant.
Therefore, mass flow rate estimates based on momentum flux mea-
surements do not account for the impact of needle lift on the transient
mass flow rate. It was concluded by Manin et al. [24] that relatively
high oscillations of mass flow rate were mainly due to displacement of
the injector itself while injecting. Therefore, in cases where it is ne-
cessary to account for temporal variation in the mass flow rate, the
Bosch long-tube method or Zeuch method are recommended. Although
there are limitations on the momentum flux measurement method, one
of advantages is that it is possible to measure the mass flow rate of each
nozzle hole in a multi-hole injector.
7. Conclusion
Using two 30% hydro-grinding nozzles with a K-factor of 0 and K-
factor of 2, two different mass flow rate measurement approaches using
the momentum flux measurement have been discussed. Liquid jet
images near the nozzle tip were also captured using a long-distance
microscope. The following conclusions were drawn:
• For a cavitating nozzle K0, the measured area contraction coefficient
Ca is around 0.85 which is significantly less than 1. When estimating
the injection rate based on momentum flux measurements, failure to
account for cavitation caused the integrated injection rate to be
overestimated around 9%. Thus, it is recommended that for mass
flow rate estimates based on momentum flux measurements, the
approach that accounts for cavitation by separately determining the
discharge coefficient should be applied.
• For a non-cavitating nozzle K2, the measured area contraction
coefficient was around 1 because there was little or no cavitation
expected in the nozzle orifice. When estimating the injection rate
based on momentum flux measurements, failure to account for ca-
vitation caused less than 2% the difference between the integrated
injection rate and the actual weighed mass. Therefore, the approach
that disregards cavitation is appropriate for such nozzles.
• The tendency towards cavitation in a nozzle orifice can be estimated
by comparing the injected mass calculated using the approach that
neglects cavitation to the actual weighed mass: if the nozzle pro-
duces appreciable cavitation, the calculated mass will be over-
estimated.
•
Because of cavitation in nozzle K0, the width of the liquid jet near
this nozzle’s tip was greater than that for the non-cavitating nozzle
K2, in keeping with others’ findings. Both nozzles produced an intact
liquid core at and near the orifice exit.
• It was also found that for both nozzles K0 and K2, the discharge
coefficient and area coefficient were independent of the injection
pressure in the 800–2500 bar range.
Acknowledgments
Financial support from CERC (Combustion Engine Research Centre
at Chalmers) and its participant companies is gratefully acknowledged,
especially Scania CV AB who provided injection systems. Sara
362
Fuel 238 (2019) 354–362
Alfredsson and Kim Kylström from Scania CV AB are also acknowledged
for taking X-ray images and assembling the injectors. Electron micro-
scope images were taken by Philipp Hoier at Department of Industrial
and Materials Science, Chalmers University of Technology.
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