Development of cavitation and enhanced injector models for diesel fuel injection system simulation

To expedite the application of fuel injection equipment to diesel engines, powertrain engineers are simulating the rate of injection with computer models. Many of the simple models give quite substantial errors if fuel cavitation in the high pressure system and the variations in bulk modulus with temperature and pressure are not included. This paper discuses cavitation and a companion paper discusses the treatment of non-linear bulk modulus. Diesel fuel injection nozzle hole size has been reduced and the injection pressures have been raised, to improve combustion, and the termination of the injection has been accelerated, to reduce carbon particle mass in the exhaust. High injection pressures and rapid termination set up very large hydraulic waves in the pipes and drillings of the fuel injection system, be it pump-pipe-nozzle or accumulator/common rail in type. The fuel momentum generated in these vigorous wave actions leaves such low pressures in parts of the system that vapour bubbles form in the fuel. Cavitation changes the bulk modulus of the fuel and the collapse of the cavities imparts sudden high pressure pulses to the fuel columns in the system and changes injection characteristics significantly. When modelling devices to control injection rate, the cavitation and non-linear bulk modulus have to be incorporated into the model. To this end, the concept of ‘condensation’ has been useful. The cavitated pipe section is divided into liquid and liquid + vapour mixture columns and modified momentum and mass conservation equations are applied separately. The model has been validated with a particular application of a rotary distributor pump to a high speed direct injection diesel engine, which is one of the more difficult fuel injection systems to model in which cavitation occurs at several operating conditions. The simulation results show the cavitation characteristics very well. This cavitated flow calculation model may be applied to other one-dimensional flow systems In addition, a more comprehensive injector model is introduced, which considers two loss factors at the needle seat and holes, sac volume, and viscous drag and leakage. This enhanced injector model shows some improvement at low load conditions