Cavitation inside enlarged and real-size fully transparent injector nozzles and its effect on near nozzle spray formation

The effect of string cavitation in various transparent Diesel injector nozzles on near nozzle spray dispersion angle is examined. Additional PDA measurements on spray characteristics produced from real-size transparent nozzle tips are presented. Highspeed imaging has provided qualitative information on the existence of geometric and string cavitation, simultaneously with the temporal variation of the spray angle. Additional use of commercial and in-house developed CFD models has provided complimentary information on the local flow field. Results show that there is strong connection between string cavitation structures and spray instabilities. Moreover, elimination of string cavitation results in a stable spray shape that is only controlled by the extent of geometric-induced cavitation pockets. Finally, PDA measurements on real-size transparent nozzle tips have confirmed that such nozzles reproduce successfully the sprays generated by production metal nozzles.