2023 | 002

Cooled Spray combustion for

particulate matter reduction in a large-
bore single-cylinder engine
Emission Reduction Technologies - Engine Measures & Combustion Development

Adam Klingbeil, Wabtec Corporation

Victor Salazar, GE Research
Thomas Lavertu, Wabtec Corporation
Kevin Bailey, Wabtec Corporation

This paper has been presented and published at the 30th CIMAC World Congress 2023 in Busan,
Korea. The CIMAC Congress is held every three years, each time in a different member country. The
Congress program centres around the presentation of Technical Papers on engine research and
development, application engineering on the original equipment side and engine operation and
maintenance on the end-user side. The themes of the 2023 event included Digitalization &
Connectivity for different applications, System Integration & Hybridization, Electrification & Fuel Cells
Development, Emission Reduction Technologies, Conventional and New Fuels, Dual Fuel Engines,
Lubricants, Product Development of Gas and Diesel Engines, Components & Tribology,
Turbochargers, Controls & Automation, Engine Thermondynamis, Simulation Technologies as well as
Basic Research & Advanced Engineering. The copyright of this paper is with CIMAC. For further
information please visit https://www.cimac.com.
 ABSTRACT
Wabtec’s Cooled Spray combustion technology was developed by Wabtec and GE Global Research
to modify the physical processes that impact fuel and air mixing in a diesel engine and thereby reduce
the engine out particulate emissions. The Cooled Spray inserts are small monolithic fixtures that are
mounted near the fuel injector and contain passages which passively control air flow and fuel-air
mixing when the fuel is being injected into the cylinder. The improved fuel-air mixing has the potential
to significantly reduce soot formation in diesel engines. Wabtec’s Cooled Spray technology capitalizes
on some of the learnings of Sandia’s ducted fuel injection while offering a robust design for
installation, alignment, and performance benefits.

Engine tests using Wabtec’s Cooled Spray combustion technology have shown promise for significant
particulate matter (PM) reduction while minimizing impact on other emissions or fuel consumption.
Additive manufacturing processes facilitated rapid prototyping of multiple Cooled Spray inserts that
were then tested on a large-bore medium-speed single-cylinder engine at select operating conditions.
The engine tests were performed at 13.5bar IMEP and 25.5bar IMEP with EGR in the range of
30-35%The experimental results show that PM can be reduced by over 50%, but the PM reductions
are dependent on the Cooled Spray hardware design, the nozzle design, and the operating condition.
This paper will review analysis and test results obtained in a single cylinder engine that shows the
benefits of the Cooled Spray combustion technology. Key performance and emissions parameters will
be compared to those of the baseline engine without the Cooled Spray technology.

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1 INTRODUCTION
Emissions reduction of criteria pollutants such as
nitrous oxides (NOx) and PM has been a priority for
the diesel engine industry for years. Due to the
public health concerns of these species, regulators
have sequentially lowered the allowable levels to
improve overall air quality. This has led to the
development of highly effective technologies to
reduce the tailpipe emissions of NOx and PM.
Aftertreatment systems are common on diesel
engines to reduce engine-out emissions to meet
regulated levels. These systems allow for engines
to be run in a fuel efficiency mode while still
maintaining emissions compliance.
Diesel particulate filters (DPF’s) are the leading
technology for particulate matter reduction in use
today. They are highly effective at reducing engine-
out PM to near zero levels. While DPF’s are highly
effective at reducing PM, they do have several
drawbacks that provide motivation for continued
technology development. These include pressure
drop across the DPF that increases engine fuel
consumption, packaging challenges, and the cost
of the system. Developments include efforts to
improve the existing technology to reduce cost,
pressure drop and required packaging space. In-
cylinder technologies to reduce the engine out PM
are also continuously explored. These can include
advanced combustion strategies such as low
temperature combustion with premixed
combustion. However, the low temperature
combustion strategies have limits on the engine
load potential. An improved in-cylinder mixing
strategy that has minimal impact on engine
operation outside of reduced PM could provide
significant benefits.
While diesel engines have been focusing on
emissions reductions for decades, some recent
research has shown the potential of mitigating PM
emissions by placing small objects like ducts near
the fuel injector orifices. Mueller et al. reported
early results of their work looking at ducted fuel
injection (DFI) for particulate control [1]. They found
that placing a small metallic tube approximately
3mm in diameter and 14 mm long would
significantly attenuate visible light emission
typically associated with soot emissions. Optical
imaging showed that the duct prevented
combustion near the fuel injector and extended the
flame liftoff length to the end of the duct or even
further beyond. They also showed that if the
distance between the duct and the injector was too
large, combustion could occur between the injector
and the duct resulting in a significant amount of light
emission. This early demonstration provided strong
motivation to explore and understand this
technology further.
CIMAC Congress 2023, Busan Paper No. XXX
In a subsequent article, Gehmlich et al. [2]
performed a more detailed study looking at several
different duct configurations and implemented an
additional optical technique that allowed for
quantification of soot levels. This study confirmed
that soot was indeed attenuated to the extent that,
in some cases, soot concentration was too low to
measure. There were several key learnings from
this work. It was shown that the standoff distance
for DFI was not a critical parameter for the ducts
investigated until it became too large. For very
large standoff distances, the fuel spray is not
completely captured by the duct and combustion
occurs between the duct and the injector resulting
in significantly increased soot emissions.
Additionally, variations of the duct diameter
suggested that a 2mm diameter duct performed
better than either a 1.5 or 3mm diameter duct, but
this is not conclusive because multiple parameters
were changed simultaneously. Limited testing of
different lengths suggests that duct length is not an
important parameter for the conditions explored,
but more testing may be necessary to confirm that
preliminary result. Inlet and outlet duct shaping
were also explored and showed some promise for
additional soot reduction compared to unshaped
ducts.
Fitzgerald et al. investigated DFI in an optically
accessible constant pressure combustion chamber
where they explored a different injector with a
larger fuel orifice and used diesel as a fuel rather
than n-dodecane which had been used in the
Sandia experiments[3]. The 138 um fuel orifice
represents a ~50% increase in the orifice diameter
compared to the Sandia experiments. Non-reacting
spray visualization for different standoff distances
illustrated that very long standoff distances prevent
the spray from being completely captured by the
duct, which supports the observations by
Sandia[2]. Soot luminosity experiments were used
as a surrogate for soot measurements and duct
diameter was explored for reacting spray
experiments. For these tests, duct diameters from
2 to 4 mm were explored and the 2mm diameter
showed the most reduction in soot luminosity,
suggesting that the smallest diameter tested
resulted in the lowest soot production, however, the
reduction in natural luminosity was 50% or less and
not nearly as high as the 80-100% reduction in
natural luminosity that Sandia had observed. In this
work, CFD analysis was performed to investigate
some of the experimental configurations. The
results from that analysis suggest that DFI reduced
the centerline equivalence ratio at the flame liftoff
length and that may be the cause of the reduced
soot.
Ongoing studies in DFI have shown the potential
for DFI in a fired engine at low load with and without
Page 3
EGR [4] and while there appears to be some
discrepancies about the ideal trends in some
parameters [5] the general trend has held that DFI
is effective at reducing combustion-generated soot.
Tanno et al [6] ran a series of experiments in a rapid
compression machine as well as a test engine and
analyzed DFI using CFD. Their conclusions were
that DFI was effective in the engine, showing up to
50% reduction in smoke and the CFD analysis
suggested that DFI helped to promote mixing if the
fuel/air stream prior to combustion.
Nilsen et al. [7,8] have extended their work to run
their optical engine with a four-orifice fuel injector.
The increased fuel flow from the injector has
enabled them to run the engine up to 10 bar
GIMEP. They have also conducted a parameter
sweep which included intake oxygen concentration,
intake pressure, fuel flow, injection pressure, intake
temperature, and injection timing. Throughout
these studies, they continued to observe a
significant decrease in soot compared to
conventional diesel combustion.
A preliminary study [9] of DFI at engine loads up to
20 bar BMEP showed an increase in soot
compared to conventional diesel combustion. The
duct geometry in this study had a 2.5 mm diameter,
14 mm length and 3.8 mm standoff distance. Their
results showed an increase in soot compared to
conventional diesel combustion for test points with
and without exhaust gas recirculation (EGR). In all
cases, there was a greater increase in soot for
more advanced injection timings. The authors
hypothesized that the increase in soot for the
ducted fuel injection is possibly due to the in-
cylinder geometry not being modified for DFI and
the possibility that the combustion system will need
to be modified to realize the benefits of DFI.
The current body of published work related to DFI
suggests that it can provide soot reduction of 50%
or more for some conditions, but the majority of this
work has been done in combustion vessels with
some limited demonstrations in small engines
operated at part load with individual tubes aligned
to the fuel nozzles. Wabtec has developed Cooled
Spray (CS) technology which utilizes a single
monolithic component that is mounted near the fuel
injector to reduce combustion generated soot from
all fuel orifices. The CS devices control the air-fuel
mixing near the nozzle and serve to reduce soot
formation from the fuel injection plumes. The CS
inserts were tested in a large-bore medium-speed
single cylinder engine operating under conditions
representative of US EPA Tier 4 emissions for
locomotives at 12 and 23 bar BMEP. The tests
show that significant PM reductions can be
achieved with CS technology and that the
CIMAC Congress 2023, Busan Paper No. XXX
performance benefit is strongly dependent on the
geometry of the injector nozzle and CS design.
2 EXPERIMENTAL SETUP
The experiments were performed using production
locomotive hardware in a single cylinder engine
(SCE), at GE Research in Niskayuna, NY. This
engine featured dedicated air supply and EGR
systems that can simulate operating conditions like
those found in a turbocharged multi-cylinder
engine. Auxiliary systems to cool or heat the air,
coolant and oil are also in place. Diesel fuel is
supplied to the engine via a high-pressure common
rail system designed to operate at injection
pressures representative of modern locomotive
engines. Under normal operation, the fuel is
injected into the cylinder using production and
prototype injectors for locomotive applications. For
the Cooled Spray tests, the cylinder head and
injector were fitted with custom-designed Cooled
Spray inserts. Slow-speed data, sampled at 1 Hz,
were acquired for various parameters of interest
and are complemented by high-speed cylinder-
pressure measurements. Emissions and PM
measurements were acquired using a six gas
Horiba MEXA-ONE emission bench (CO, O2, THC,
CH4, CO2, NOx), an AVL smoke meter and an AVL
Smart Sampler (for PM). Table 1 describes the
main engine specifications.
It was reported in [1] that for ducted fuel injection,
the duct and the nozzle need to be in close
alignment. For Cooled Spray technology, it was
also found that the fuel passages must be well
aligned with the nozzle holes. Therefore, a
significant effort was devoted to devise a
methodology to align the nozzle holes with the
Cooled Spray fuel passages. The details of the
alignment procedure are described below.
Table 1. Engine and Fuel Injection System
Specifications.
Engine Parameter Value
Number of Cylinders 1
Displacement [L] 15.7
Bore [mm] 250
Stroke [mm] 320
Compression Ratio 15
Max Injection Pressure [bar] 2200
Number of injector nozzle holes 8
Fuel ULSD
Page 4
2.1 Cooled Spray Inserts
Additive Manufacturing (AM) involves creation of
parts through addition of material, typically bonding
thin layers of metals or polymers to create
complicated shapes that can be optimized for
weight and performance. Designs intended for
conventional manufacturing techniques like
castings, forgings, and fabrications are limited by
practical constraints like large minimum wall
thicknesses, parting line locations, minimum
feature sizes, core assembly constraints, and often
a requirement to join many parts together to
perform a single function. Due to extensive AM
material development by the aerospace industry,
many AM-compatible materials can accommodate
the extreme temperature of operation that will be
seen by the Cooled Spray insert in operation.
Figure 1: Cylinder heads used in this study. A: stock
cylinder head for baseline nozzle testing. B:
modified cylinder head with Cooled Spray insert
installed.
CIMAC Congress 2023, Busan Paper No. XXX
Additive manufacturing is the ideal manufacturing
process for creating prototypes of the Cooled Spray
insert. Creating multiple unique prototypes quickly
is critical to timely development. Using AM, the
time from concept model design to full
manufactured part, ready for testing, is on the order
of 2 – 3 weeks, with the majority of that time taken
up in the post printing machining and heat
treatment processing. Using Laser Powder Bed
Fusion allows for small features to be created in
unique shapes, with fine feature resolution, that can
allow for optimization and fast iteration of geometric
parameters like fuel passage diameter. Depending
on the details of the final design, AM may also be
the best option for production components.
The Cooled Spray prototypes were designed to be
installed in a modified cylinder head. Figure 1
compares the baseline cylinder head (Figure 1A)
and the modified cylinder head with a Cooled Spray
insert (Figure 1B). The component is relatively
compact, has no additional moving parts, and was
designed to fit between the valves and not interfere
with valve motion.
The inserts themselves are Wabtec proprietary
designs, but key features of the Cooled Spray
inserts are related to the fuel passages, in
particular the diameter of the fuel passages. In this
study, three different diameters were evaluated.
For the first nozzle (Nozzle 1, which is a lower flow
nozzle), one fuel passage diameter was evaluated
(D1) and represents the largest fuel passage
diameter. For the second nozzle (Nozzle 2, which
represents a lower flow nozzle) two fuel passage
diameters were evaluated (D2 and D3). The fuel
passage diameter D2 is equal to 93% of D1 while
D3 is equal to 74% of D1. The small difference
between D1 and D2 is a result of some changes in
the manufacturing process between when the
inserts were made. D3 was selected to explore a
smaller fuel passage diameter relative to D2.
The Cooled Spray prototypes were installed in the
cylinder head, but it was important to ensure that
the fuel injector was properly aligned with the fuel
passages of the Cooled Spray hardware. The
alignment was performed manually in several
steps. First the nozzle was installed in the injector
at a position that was approximately aligned with an
injector feature. The injector was then installed into
the head, but the injector clamp was not tightened.
A drill bit was selected with drill diameter similar to
the fuel injector nozzle orifice size and the drill was
inserted into one of the nozzle holes. The injector
was then carefully rotated so that the shank of the
drill bit was visually centered in the Cooled Spray
fuel passage. Figure 2 shows diagrams of how the
Page 5
placement of the alignment drill bit after the
alignment was completed. Note that the size of the
drill bit is substantially smaller than the size of the
shank.
Figure 2: Front (A) and side cross-section (B)
images of the alignment drill bit in the Cooled Spray
device.
This alignment procedure posed several
challenges. First, since there was not visual access
to the injector nozzle, inserting the drill bit into the
nozzle hole required patience and a steady hand.
Second, since the drill bit size was relatively small
(less than 0.5mm), there was risk of breaking the
drill inside the injector tip. The drill bit did break
during one alignment and the injector was
replaced. Finally, the alignment is not quantitative
and it’s not clear how well the nozzle could be
aligned or how repeatable that alignment was.
Future efforts will be dedicated to improving and
simplifying the alignment process.
2.2 Test Matrix
Table 2 summarizes the operating conditions and
hardware combinations reported in the present
paper. All conditions were representative of US
EPA Tier 4 locomotive emissions. Two nozzles
were tested and for each nozzle, two power levels
were tested. The combinations of Cooled Spray
hardware are detailed in the table.
Table 2: Summary of hardware combinations
tested. D2=0.93*D1, D3 = 0.74*D1.
Nozzle Power Hardware
Configuration
Nozzle 1 40% Without Cooled Spray
Nozzle 1 40% Cooled Spray, D1
Nozzle 1 100% Without Cooled Spray
Nozzle 1 100% Cooled Spray, D1
Nozzle 2 40% Without Cooled Spray
CIMAC Congress 2023, Busan Paper No. XXX
Nozzle 2 40% Cooled Spray, D2
Nozzle 2 40% Cooled Spray, D3
Nozzle 2 100% Without Cooled Spray
Nozzle 2 100% Cooled Spray, D2
Nozzle 2 100% Cooled Spray, D3
3 RESULTS
The effectiveness of Cooled Spray to reduce PM
was tested using a low flow (Nozzle 1) and a high
flow nozzle (Nozzle 2). In this section we will start
the discussion with the low-flow nozzle cases and
then move to the high-flow nozzle configuration.
Finally, a comparison between all of them will be
presented.
3.1 Low Flow Nozzle (Nozzle 1)
Nozzle 1 was tested with and without Cooled Spray
for medium and high load conditions. The results
are shown in Figure 3, where the points of each
trace correspond to a start of injection (SOI) sweep
at constant brake specific NOx (BSNOx) levels
consistent with the Tier 4 regulation of 1.3 g/hp-hr.
To maintain constant BSNOx throughout the timing
swing, EGR was adjusted and boost pressure was
maintained constant. Hence, as injection timing
was advanced, brake specific fuel consumption
(BSFC) improved, but EGR was increased. As
EGR was increased, the air to fuel ratio (AFR) also
dropped and the PM increased significantly. At
each load, the data has been normalized by the
nominal operating point of the configuration without
Cooled Spray, which in Figure 3 corresponds to the
point where ΔBSFC and ΔBSPM are zero. It is
important to note that this point also meets Tier 4
US EPA locomotive BSPM regulations.
Page 6

Figure 3: BSPM and BSFC tradeoff for Nozzle 1
with and without Cooled Spray. (a) medium load,
and (b) high load. The points of each trace
correspond to an SOI sweep at constant Tier 4
NOx. For each load the data points have been
normalized by the nominal point.
For the medium power case, Figure 3A shows that
throughout the SOI sweep, the BSPM is 30-50%
lower with Cooled Spray. At ΔBSFC=0, i.e. without
BSFC gains, Cooled Spray can decrease BSPM
around 30%. This is quite significant and shows
that Cooled Spray is effective in reducing PM even
for medium speed engines. We also observe that
if the injection timing is adjusted to maintain
constant ΔBSPM, i.e. keeping PM at Tier 4 levels,
some small fuel savings can be achieved.
However, if the primary objective is in PM
reduction, then a small BSFC penalty can lead to
even more significant PM reductions that would not
be realized by tuning the baseline engine
operation. Based on these encouraging results, the
load of the engine was further increased to a high
load operating condition.
CIMAC Congress 2023, Busan Paper No. XXX
Figure 4: High-speed cylinder pressure and heat
release data for Nozzle 1 with and without Cooled
Spray.
Figure 3B shows the results at the high load
condition where we can see that Cooled Spray
shows PM reductions greater than 50% throughout
the SOI sweep. This plot again confirms the
effectiveness of Cooled Spray in reducing the PM
and also indicates that, for the tested
configurations, the technology improves at high
loads. Some points to note are that at ΔBSFC =
0 %, the PM has decreased by more than 60 %.
This means that an engine fitted with Cooled Spray
technology has the potential to meet future
emission regulations with limited to no PM
aftertreatment which could be beneficial for future
engine architectures. Figure 3B also shows that at
Tier 4 emission levels (ΔBSPM = 0%), Cooled
Spray can enable fuel savings on the order of 2%.
At current Tier 4 emission levels, Cooled Spray
could enable significant fuel savings if this
technology were introduced into current engines.
In locomotive engines, regulations require that
emissions be reported on a duty cycle basis. The
duty cycle includes different weighing factors for
each of 8 notches (power settings) that cover from
idle up to full power operation. Thus, an engine
equipped with Cooled Spray technology will need
Page 7
to report emissions over the duty cycle. The
observed emissions reductions at medium and high
loads suggest that Cooled Spray can be effective
over a range of engine power, but more data is
needed to verify the overall impact on performance.
Nevertheless, other conditions, including low load,
were not investigated in this paper and will be the
topic of further research and publication.

Figure 4 shows high speed cylinder pressure and

apparent heat release rate for Nozzle 1 with and
without Cooled Spray. The two operating
conditions correspond to the circled data points in
Figure 3B. For these tests, the commanded
injection timing was maintained and EGR was
adjusted to maintain the target NOx emissions.
Inspection of the cylinder pressure traces shows
little difference between the two operating
conditions. The heat release rate shows that the
baseline condition has lower heat release between
-5 and 25 deg ATDC and higher heat release after
about 25 deg ATDC. While the differences in the
heat release rate appear small, it is clear from
Figure 3B that the small improvements in the HRR
with the Cooled Spray tests lead to a BSFC
improvement of over 1% while also showing a
substantial improvement in PM emissions.

3.2 High Flow Nozzle (Nozzle 2)

A second fuel injector nozzle configuration was
installed on the engine to quantify the performance
benefit of Cooled Spray using a higher flow nozzle.
In this case, two fuel passage diameters were
explored to better understand how the fuel passage
diameter impacts the performance of the Cooled
Spray insert. The first Cooled Spray configuration
was similar to the Cooled Spray hardware from the
initial tests, with a fuel passage diameter of 93% of
D1 and other geometric parameters remaining the
same. The PM versus SFC plots are shown in
Figure 5 for this configuration. For this hardware,
the performance was worse at Notch 4 than for the
baseline nozzle, resulting in higher PM or higher
SFC than the baseline nozzle could achieve
without Cooled Spray. This hardware was also
tested at Notch 8, which is the full power condition.
In this case, the performance of the Cooled Spray
insert was no better or worse than the baseline
nozzle without Cooled Spray. Thus, for the lower
flow nozzle, a very similar Cooled Spray design
was effective at controlling PM for both Notch 4 and
Notch 8 while for this nozzle this design was
ineffective or even detrimental to performance.
Figure 5: BSPM and BSFC tradeoff for Nozzle 2
with and without Cooled Spray. (a) medium load,
and (b) high load. The points of each trace
correspond to an SOI sweep at constant Tier 4
NOx. For each load the data points have been
normalized by the nominal point.
A second Cooled Spray configuration was tested
with this nozzle and the results are also plotted in
Figure 5. This insert fuel passage diameters that
were 74% of D1, but the rest of the geometry
remained the same. For Notch 4 operation, this
insert performed better than the D2 insert tested
with the same nozzle, but it performed similar to or
slightly worse than the baseline nozzle with no
insert. At Notch 8, the performance of this insert
was substantially better than either the D2 insert or
the baseline nozzle with no insert. Particulate was
reduced by as much as 75% with similar SFC.
The results with this nozzle illustrate that Cooled
Spray can be very effective at reducing PM
emissions, but the performance benefits may not
translate to all engine operating conditions.
Additionally, it is possible to see benefits or
penalties based on the match between the nozzle
and the insert. Based on the tests so far, it isn’t
clear why the lower flow nozzle exhibited PM

CIMAC Congress 2023, Busan Paper No. XXX Page 8

benefit with the largest fuel passage diameter
tested (D1) while the higher flow nozzle only
showed PM benefit with the smaller fuel passage
diameter (D3 = 0.74D1). Generally, one would
expect that for a higher flow nozzle, which has
larger fuel drillings, the fuel passages in the insert
may need to be larger as well, but these results
suggest that the higher flow nozzle performed
better with the smallest fuel passages while the
lower flow nozzle performed well with the larger fuel
passage diameter.

Because of limited time available to this project,

little effort was spent trying to understand variability
which could play an important role in the outcome
of these tests. While many of the observed
performance differences are much larger than the
measurement variability for the PM and SFC, there
are other sources of variation that could be
affecting how the engine operates. All components
were made assuming that the fuel hole drillings in
the injector nozzle and the Cooled Spray insert
were equally spaced. Additionally, the injector was
aligned to the insert as best as it could be, but there
was no way to characterize how good the
alignment was or how repeatable it was from
installation to installation. Hence there is a
possibility that some of the performance
differences observed between the two inserts in
Figure 5 were caused by differences in random
misalignment or by small differences in part
manufacturing. Figure 6: BSPM and BSFC tradeoff for Nozzle 2
with and without Cooled Spray. (a) medium load,
and (b) high load. The points of each trace
correspond to an SOI sweep at constant Tier 4
3.3 Comparison of High Flow and Low Flow NOx. For each load the data points have been
Nozzles normalized by the nominal point.
The two nozzles showed different trends with
The same comparison is made for the full power
respect to the addition of the Cooled Spray inserts.
The lower flow nozzle showed strong PM reduction condition in Figure 6B. In this case, the high flow
for both the medium and high power levels while nozzle paired with the D2 Cooled Spray insert
the higher flow nozzle showed no benefit at the shows similar or worse performance compared to
the lower flow nozzle without Cooled Spray. The
medium load condition but significant benefit at the
high flow nozzle paired with the D3 Cooled Spray
high load condition. This section compares the
overall performance of the two nozzles with Cooled insert shows significantly better performance
Spray to determine the lowest PM combination. compared to the baseline low flow nozzle without
Cooled Spray, but once again, the best
performance is seen with the low flow nozzle and
The three Cooled Spray combinations are
the Cooled Spray insert. In this high load condition,
compared in Figure 6 along with the baseline low
there is one data point for the high flow/Cooled
flow nozzle. For the medium power condition
Spray combination that is nearly identical in
(Figure 6A), the high flow nozzle with the smaller
performance to the low flow/Cooled Spray
fuel passages shows an advantage over the high
combination. Since the test data are limited, it is
flow nozzle with the larger fuel passages, but they
possible that the high flow nozzle may exhibit even
are both worse than the low flow nozzle without
lower PM for some conditions, but the limited
Cooled Spray. However, the low flow nozzle with
amount of time for testing prevented further
Cooled Spray shows the best performance.
exploration at the time of this study. In future efforts,
additional operating conditions and hardware
combinations may be explored for further
optimization.

CIMAC Congress 2023, Busan Paper No. XXX Page 9

4 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
The effectiveness of Cooled Spray technology
tested in a single cylinder locomotive engine is
reported in this work. PM emissions from a low and
a high flow fuel nozzle, each fitted with and without
Cooled Spray and tested at medium and high load
conditions, were compared. The results show that
depending on the fuel nozzle configuration, Cooled
Spray can significantly reduce PM emissions and
enable fuel savings for medium speed engines.
The main findings of the present study can be
summarized as follows:
• For Nozzle 1 (low flow), the Cooled Spray
inserts with the largest fuel passages (D1)
significantly reduced BSPM emissions
throughout the SOI sweep. Specifically, BSPM
reductions of 30 and 60 [%] at ΔBSFC = 0 %
were achieved at medium and high load,
respectively. These results also show that the
level of PM reduction is condition dependent.
• At current Tier 4 PM levels (ΔBSPM = 0 %),
Cooled Spray with Nozzle 1 (low flow) enables
BSFC savings of up to 2 % at high load. At
medium load, the BSFC gains are almost
negligible.
• For Nozzle 2 (high flow), Cooled Spray with the
second largest fuel passages (D2=0.93*D1)
had a detrimental impact on performance at
medium load and minimal impact at the high
load condition.
• For Nozzle 2 (high flow), Cooled Spray with the
smallest fuel passages (D3=0.74*D1) had a
small detrimental impact at the medium load
condition but had a significant benefit for the
high load condition.
Overall, the limited testing described here has
shown that PM reductions of >60% are possible for
some conditions using Cooled Spray. Promising
results were observed for Nozzle 1 at all conditions
tested. Nozzle 2 did not appear to be as promising.
This could be because the higher flow rates and
larger fuel orifices were not compatible with this
design.
However, it is important to note that Nozzle 1, which
had the smaller fuel orifices in the nozzle, showed
significant PM reduction with a Cooled Spray
design that had the largest fuel passages while
Nozzle 2 showed the worst performance for a very
similar Cooled Spray design (similarly sized fuel
passages). Furthermore, Nozzle 2 only showed
some PM benefit when a Cooled Spray design was
used that significantly smaller fuel passages.
CIMAC Congress 2023, Busan Paper No. XXX
The lower flow nozzle (Nozzle 1) was only tested
with one Cooled Spray insert. When the higher flow
nozzle (Nozzle 2) was tested with a Cooled Spray
insert having a similar geometry, the performance
was worse than without Cooled Spray. While this is
not surprising by itself, it was unexpected that this
higher flow nozzle would then show a PM benefit
with the smallest fuel passages tested.
One explanation of this data is that the physics are
complex and that the fuel passage diameter isn’t
the only parameter that affects performance and
these complex physics are driving unexpected
performance relationships between the nozzle and
the Cooled Spray inserts. Another possibility is that
some of the performance changes observed with
the different nozzle/Cooled Spray combinations
were caused by manufacturing variation in either
the nozzle or the Cooled Spray device or a result of
variability in the installation and alignment process.
The performance benefit for the high flow nozzle
using only the Cooled Spray insert with the smaller
fuel passages also suggests that the lower flow
nozzle may benefit further if even smaller fuel
passages are used. Since the high flow nozzle
showed best performance for the D3 insert, a
similar geometry should be tested on the lower flow
nozzle in an effort to further optimize.
Lastly, the performance observations for the high
flow nozzle with the small fuel passages are
interesting to consider. Comparing the lower power
and higher power conditions, the insert showed no
performance benefit at low power and showed
significant benefit at higher power. This suggests
that some of the benefits are sensitive to
parameters that change with power (i.e., gas
density, injection duration, or total fuel quantity). It
would be valuable to scrutinize these results further
with advanced tools like CFD to better understand
how the higher power conditions may be benefiting
from Cooled Spray while the lower power condition
is not.
More research is required to better understand the
optimal design features and the physics of these
devices. Future work should focus on
characterizing scalability of these devices as well
as quantifying alignment and the effects of
misalignment and understanding the load
dependence of the performance benefits.
5 ABBREVIATIONS
AFR: Air-Fuel Ratio
AM: Additive Manufacturing
BSNOx: Brake Specific NOx
Page 10
 BSPM: Brake Specific Particulate Matter
BSFC: Brake-Specific Fuel Consumption
DPF: Diesel Particulate Filter
GIMEP: Gross Indicated Mean Effective Pressure
IMEP: Indicated Mean Effective Pressure
IVC: Intake Valve Closure
SCE: Single-Cylinder Engine
SOI: Start of Injection
TDC: Top Dead Center
ULSD: Ultra-Low-Sulfur Diesel
6 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors would like to thank the management at
Wabtec Corporation for granting permission to
work on and publish the content.
7 REFERENCES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY
[1] Charles J. Mueller, Christopher W. Nilsen,
Daniel J. Ruth, Ryan K. Gehmlich, Lyle M. Pickett,
Scott A. Skeen, Ducted fuel injection: A new
approach for lowering soot emissions from direct-
injection engines, Applied Energy, Volume 204,
2017, Pages 206-220, ISSN 0306-2619,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2017.07.001.
Prac. in Mobility 1(3):1074-1083, 2019,
https://doi.org/10.4271/2019-01-0545.
[6] Tanno, S., Kawakami, J., Kitano, K., and
Hashizume, T., "Investigation of a novel leaner fuel
spray formation for reducing soot in diffusive diesel
combustion- Homogenizing equivalence ratio
distribution in the lift-off region -," SAE Technical
Paper 2019-01-2273, 2019,
https://doi.org/10.4271/2019-01-2273.
[7] Nilsen, C., Biles, D., Yraguen, B., and Mueller,
C., “Ducted Fuel Injection versus Conventional
Diesel Combustion: An Operating-Parameter
Sensitivity Study Conducted in an Optical Engine
with a Four-Orifice Fuel Injection,” SAE Int. J.
Engines 13(3):346-362, 2020.
[8] Nilsen, C., Biles, D., Yraguen, B., and Mueller,
C., “Ducted Fuel Injection versus Conventional
Diesel Combustion: Extending the Load Range in
an Optical Engine with a Four-Orifice Fuel Injector,”
SAE Int. J. Engines 14(1):48-58, 2021.
[9] Svensson, K., Kim, C., Seiler, P., Martin, G. et
al., “Performance and Emissions Results from a
Heavy-Duty Diesel Engine with Ducted Fuel
Injection,” SAE Technical Paper 2021-01-0503,
2021, doi:10.4271/2021-01-0503.
8 CONTACT
Adam Klingbeil, PhD
Engineering Technical Leader
Wabtec Corporation
Adam.Klingbeil@Wabtec.com

[2] R.K. Gehmlich, C.J. Mueller, D.J. Ruth, C.W.

Nilsen, S.A. Skeen, J. Manin, Using ducted fuel
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mixing-controlled combustion strategies for engine
applications, Applied Energy, Volume 226, 2018,
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[3] Fitzgerald, R., Svensson, K., Martin, G., Qi, Y.

et al., "Early Investigation of Ducted Fuel Injection
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[4] Nilsen, C., Biles, D., and Mueller, C., "Using

Ducted Fuel Injection to Attenuate Soot Formation
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[5] Svensson, K. and Martin, G., "Ducted Fuel

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CIMAC Congress 2023, Busan Paper No. XXX Page 11

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