Advanced Modeling of Common Rail Injector Dynamics and Comparison with Experiments

The aim of this work is to set up a methodology for simulating Common Rail high-pressure injectors based on coupling a lump-model with CFD two-phase multi-dimensional computations. The unit simulated is the Bosch injector. The injector lump-model resulted in the definition of the three sub-models for hydraulics, mechanics and electro-magnetics. The second-order differential governing equations have been solved in Matlab/Simulink environment and are properly coupled together with the one-dimensional partial differential equations that describe the unsteady pipe flow. A detailed library of thermo-mechanical properties for ISO-4113 oil and diesel fuel is included.

Cavitation effects on discharge coefficient in the main orifices were accounted for by using results from CFD steady two-phase flow simulations. The evaluation of the model capability was assessed by using detailed experiments carried out at different practical injector operating conditions. Instantaneous and integrated injected flow rate, and injector needle lift were measured and collected for comparison with simulation.

CFD steady computations revealed to be unavoidable in driving the lump-model toward a high reliability of injector performances over the whole range of injection pressures and energizing times.