Thermal effects on Common Rail injection system hydraulic performance

The effect of the fuel temperature on the hydraulic performance of a Common Rail diesel injector has been investigated with an integrated experimental-numerical approach. An experimental campaign pertaining to single and double injections has been performed for fuel tank temperatures ranging from 28C to 68C. In general, an augment in the injected mass has been observed for increasing values of the fuel tank temperature. Moreover, the interaction between the main and after injection changes with the temperature and the dwell time threshold for fusion-free injections increases with the fuel temperature. The temperature at the injector nozzle has been measured and compared with that obtained with a thermo-fluid dynamics simple model, showing that the real temperature and the estimated one correlate well. The influence of the fuel temperature on the internal injector dynamic has been explored by means of a validated 1D numerical model of the injector thermo-fluid dynamics. The main direct effect of the temperature variation concerns the needle lift, which reaches a larger peak value for a higher fuel temperature: this explains the general increment in the injected mass and the augmented value of the injection fusion threshold for the main-after injections. The obtained results could allow more accurate open-loop control strategies for the injected mass, which include thermal effects, to be implemented