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The flow rate meter based on the Laser Doppler Anemometer (LDA) has been developed to evaluate the fuel injection rate. The flow rate meter is called as LDA flow rate meter. The instantaneous flow rate has been measured at the upstream of an injector. The measured results of instantaneous flow rate are influenced by reflection pressure waves from the end of pipe. The effects of the pressure waves appear as undesirable oscillations in the results of the instantaneous flow rate. A reducing method of the oscillations is proposed as data correction. Corrected data of LDA flow rate meter have similar profiles to the results by the BOSCH-Type injection indicator. The results indicate the instantaneous injection rate can be evaluated by using the LDA flow rate meter.

The fuel adhesion to the surfaces of the intake port, cylinder wall and piston head is one of the common phenomena in turbocharged gasoline injection engine. It causes super-knock, unburned HC and oil dilution. In this study, the fuel thickness and amount of adhering fuel to the oil film on the flat plate are measured by laser induced fluorescence (LIF) method and high-speed camera. As a result, they can be evaluated quantitatively. An influence of the oil film on evaporation of the fuel is also clarified.

In a direct injection gasoline engine, the impingement of injected fuel on the oil film, i.e. cylinder liner gives rise to various problems such as abnormal combustion, oil dilution and particulate matter emission. Therefore, in order to solve these problems, it is necessary to have a clear understanding of the impingement behavior of the fuel spray onto the oil film. However, there is little information on the impingement behavior of the fuel droplet onto the oil film, whereas many investigations on the impingement behavior of the fuel droplet onto the fuel film are reported. In this study, fundamental investigations were performed for the purpose of clarifying the impingement behavior of the fuel spray onto the oil film. A single fuel droplet mixed with fluorescence dye was dripped on the oil film. To separately measure the fuel and the oil after impingement, simultaneous Mie scattering and laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) methods were performed.

The purpose of this study was to measure the distribution and volume of liquid film adhering to the walls after the injection of fuel by an injector of a port-injection engine using the laser induced fluorescence (LIF) method while changing the fuel pressure and the angle of injection, and to consider how adhesion can be reduced in order to decrease the exhaust emission of gasoline engine. Using a high-speed camera, we filmed the adhesion and evaporation of liquid film in time series. Perylene, used here as a fluorescence dye, was blended with a fuel comprising toluene and n-heptane, and the mixture was injected onto a solid surface using a port-injection injector. UVLED with a maximum output wavelength of 375 nm was used as the exciting light. To more accurately measure the volume of fuel adhesion, it was necessary to correct the unevenness of the light source.

In CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) verification of vehicle aerodynamics, detailed velocity measurements are required. The conventional 2D-PIV (Two Dimensional Particle Image Velocimetry) needs at least twice the number of operations to measure the three components of velocity ( u,v,w ), thus it is difficult to set up precise measurement positions. Furthermore, there are some areas where measurements are rendered impossible due to the relative position of the object and the optical system. That is why the acquisition of detailed velocity data around a vehicle has not yet been attained. In this study, a detailed velocity measurement was conducted using a 3D-PIV measurement system. The measurement target was a quarter scale SAE standard vehicle model. The wind tunnel system which was also designed for a quarter scale car model was utilized. It consisted of a moving belt and a boundary suction system.

The aim of the experiment is to observe the exhaust gas flow starting from the exhaust manifold to the catalytic converter at the 4 stroke engine of the passenger car to enhance the system's improvement. The manifold connects each exhaust pipe from the engine cylinders to the catalytic converter. The velocity pattern inside the exhaust manifold is measured using particle image velocimetry (PIV) meanwhile the time series velocity data is measured by Laser Doppler Anemometer (LDA). In the experiment, flow conditions with four pipes working simultaneously or single pipe working independently are tested. The initial velocity condition shown in the next is set at the upstream where the flow is inside the circular pipe. The initial velocity is 28m/s for the all pipes acting and 14m/s for each pipes acting. There are also 3 conditions of measurement: with catalytic converter, without catalytic converter and with hollow catalytic converter.

The lubrication mechanism is discussed by measuring the oil film behavior. The oil film behavior is evaluated by the oil film thickness and oil film velocity map. The combination method of laser induced fluorescence method (LIF) and particle image velocimetry (PIV) is applied to measure the oil film behavior. The oil film thickness is measured by LIF and its velocity distributions are measured by PIV. The combination method can provide both of the film thickness and velocities simultaneously. The first trial is performed in the model engine for checking the dynamics measurement of the oil film thickness by the LIF. The results show a difference of the oil film thickness distribution with crank angle. The combination method is tested in the engine with 4-cycle and 2-cylinder optical access engine with motoring condition. One cylinder of the engine is sapphire cylinder for observing oil film behavior on the piston skirt. Two clearances of the piston skirt of 30 µm and 100 µm is tested.

Air velocities in the cylinder of motored engine were measured by laser Doppler anemometer (LDA) and particle image velocimetry (PIV) to make the standard database that will be used for verification of the numerical simulation. A 4-stroke, 4-valve test engine with transparent cylinder was operated with engine speed of 600rpm. The velocities on that condition were measured individually in vertical- and swirl-direction. The distributions of mean- and RMS- velocities are obtained from the measured data. Flow velocity through the intake valve was also measured at the top of the cylinder. As the results, the flow structure by each crank angle can be clarified. The present data can be commonly used for some numerical research group of RC238 in JSME for verification of numerical simulation results. The effect of the tumble generation valve (TGV) is evaluated by velocity distributions.

Atomization characteristics of an ultrasonic fuel injector using a micro nozzle array were improved by change of horn geometries. Micro nozzles whose exit diameter d = 3 µm are mounted on a thin metal film, and the number of micro nozzles was varied from 2.0 × 104 to 1.2 × 105. Gasoline is periodically pushed out from the micro nozzles at frequencies from 62 to 65 kHz. A disk type PZT (Lead zirconium titanate) is used as an ultrasonic oscillator, and the oscillation is amplified by an axi-symmetric step-type horn. The oscillation amplitude is proportional to the area ratio of the horn. The number of micro nozzles increases with the increase in the small end diameter of the horn, while the oscillation amplitude decreases at the same time. In order to increase the fuel flow rate, the horn small end diameter Ds was varied from 10.5 to 25 mm, while the large end diameter is fixed at 30 mm.

Recently, rider comfort at highway driving has become an important issue in the performance improvement of motorcycles. Comfort includes windbreak, pressure on the rider, wind noise, visibility, and steering characteristics. However, most of these factors cannot be analyzed conventionally. Therefore we used CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) to examine the rider’s airflow environment. The environment of a rider on a motorcycle is an open space, very different from the passenger environment in an automobile. There are many airflow paths in a motorcycle with a cowl and a windscreen; thus, airflow behavior is constituted with a delicate balance. Though wind tunnel tests can give us an outline of airflow, CFD is a useful way to visualize the airflow of the rider’s environment and clarify the details. As the results, a lot of helpful knowledge was obtained for the development of new motorcycles.

An experimental study on a direct-injection gasoline spray initiated from a swirl injector was carried out in order to clarify the effects of ambient temperature and pressure. The sprays were formed in a pressure chamber where the maximum pressure and temperature reached 1.1 MPa and 423 K respectively. The spray-tip penetration for elevated ambient temperature is slightly longer than that for normal ambient temperature. From the measurement using phase Doppler anemometry, it was found that the Sauter mean diameter D32 is large under high ambient pressure condition. The effect of elevating the ambient temperature is to decrease D32 in the core region of the spray.

This paper describes the evaluation of flow characteristics inside a model engine cylinder using particle image velocimetry (PIV), laser Doppler anemometry (LDA), and numerical simulation by Partial Cells in Cartesian coordinate (PCC) method. The main goal of the study is to clarify the differences in the velocity characteristics obtained by these methods. The model engine head has a four-valve system. Single- and dual- valve opening conditions of the model engine head were tested by a steady flow test rig. The flow structures were completely different for these valve opening conditions. The mean velocities and their distributions obtained by the three methods show satisfactory agreement. However, there were differences in the turbulence intensities under several conditions and measuring positions. Taylor's hypothesis in the integral length scale of turbulence was also compared with single LDA and PIV measurements.

Effects of horn geometry on the atomization characteristics of an ultrasonic fuel injector using a micro nozzle array were investigated experimentally. Micro nozzles whose exit diameter d = 3 μm are mounted on a thin metal film. The number of the micro nozzles is from 2.0 × 104 to 1.2 × 105. Using an ultrasonic oscillator, gasoline is periodically pushed out from the micro nozzles at a frequency from 62 to 65 kHz. A disk type PZT (Lead zirconium titanate) is used as an ultrasonic oscillator, and the oscillation is amplified using a step-type horn. The input voltage to the PZT is varied from 0 to 200 V. To increase the fuel flow rate, the horn small end diameter DS is increased from 10.5 to 25 mm, while the large end diameter is fixed at 30 mm. To prevent forming a liquid film on the micro nozzle array, gutters are machined on the small end of the horn. It is shown that the SMD (Sauter mean diameter) of the spray is almost uniform around 10 to 14 μm.

The combination method for measuring the oil film thickness and velocity is proposed. The oil film thickness is measured by laser induced fluorescence (LIF) method and its velocity is measured by particle image velocimetry (PIV). A model engine is employed in order to check the LIF measurement for oil film thickness, and an optical access engine based on production engine is utilized for both measurements of oil film thickness and velocity. In the combination method, LIF images are used in the PIV measurement instead of particle images. From the results, the oil film thickness and velocity can be measured simultaneously by the combination method utilizing only LIF dye. The oil film thickness and velocity are presented along with crank angle of the engine under the motoring operation. The oil film velocity is also measured under the firing operation.

To achieve power output and cooling performance in motorcycle air-cooled engines equivalent to those in water-cooled engines, an engine utilizing air-flow generated by the moving motorcycle and a new oil-cooling system for an air-cooled engine was studied. The engine temperature distribution was obtained based on a CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) analysis of cooling-air/oil behavior using an inline four-cylinder 900cm3 engine. As a result of this study, engine temperature was sufficiently decreased and the difference in temperature among cylinders was reduced; the engine was tested in a prototype motorcycle.

Velocity measurement of an intermittent high-speed flow inside a micro wave rotor cell was carried out using a laser Doppler anemometry (LDA). The cell is 3 × 3 mm rectangular tube, whose length is 42 mm. The pressure ratio and rotor speed of the wave rotor were set at 2.5 and 5,000 rpm, respectively. Ethanol droplets were seeded into the flow as scattering particles. By use of laser beam expanders, the probe volume of the LDA optics was minimized, and sub-millimeter special resolution is realized while a wide velocity range (-100 to 300 m/s) is kept. It is shown that the velocity histories at local positions inside the wave rotor cell can be obtained with the LDA optics. The rapid velocity increase and decrease, due to the primary and secondary shock waves, are observed, and the propagation speed of the shock waves was estimated. It is shown that the velocity profile inside the cell is flat and that the boundary layer thickness inside the cell is smaller than 0.5 mm.

Characteristics of compressed natural gas (CNG) direct injection auto-ignition were investigated experimentally. A rapid compression machine (RCM) with the compression ratio of 10 was used. The diameter and thickness of the combustion chamber are 80 mm and 20 mm, respectively. After the compression start, fuel was directly injected with a single hole injector at the injection pressure of 7.0 MPa, and auto-ignition takes place. The fuel injection timing was varied from 50 ms to 60 ms from the compression start. Two kinds of natural gasses were tested; 12A (CH4: 99.1 %) and 13A (CH4: 86.3 %, C2H6: 5.2 %, C3H8: 1.9 % and others). A glow plug was installed in the cylinder in order to assist the ignition, which was set at 30 mm downstream from the fuel injector nozzle exit. Two kinds of auto-ignition processes were observed. For CNG 12A, auto-ignition always takes place after the end of the fuel injection. The ignition delay is relatively long (40 to 80 ms) and the fluctuation is large.

High-pressure fuel spray proposed for direct injection gasoline engine was evaluated by means of a phase Doppler anemometer (PDA) and flow visualization. The intermittent fuel spray from a swirl type injector was injected in a constant volume chamber under various conditions of backpressure and ambient temperature. The backpressures were set to 0, 0.5 and 1 MPa in gauge pressure. The ambient temperatures were set to 293, 373, 423 and 473K. Normal-heptane was used as a fuel with injection pressure of 10MPa and injection frequency of 10Hz. Spray characteristics of the temporal and spatial distributions of the mean velocity and the mean diameter were measured by the PDA. Visualizations of spray were also made by a particle image velocimetry (PIV). The experimental results show the effects of backpressure and ambient temperature on the spray shape and characteristics of droplet size and velocity distributions.

Characteristics of premixed charge compression ignition (PCCI) Diesel combustion were investigated experimentally. In a PCCI engine, the operatable range is limited by the cyclic variation at low loads and the intensive knock at high loads. In the present study, effects of compression ratio on the characteristics of the PCCI combustion are investigated experimentally. The compression ratio was varied from 18.8 to 14.8. For the early injection timing, the high load operation limit is extended from BMEP = 0.22 MPa to 0.40 MPa. At the same time, the minimum BSFC for the early injection timing decreases from 330 g/kWh to 230 g/kWh.

This paper presents two factors for improving the performance and emissions characteristics in HCCI diesel combustion, one is reducing compression ratio and another is changing the injector position. In a previous study, it was shown that HCCI diesel combustion could be realized by utilizing a hollow-cone spray with normal injection pressure. However there remained two major problems of engine instability and increase in BSFC (decrease in brake thermal efficiency). By reducing the compression ratio from 18.8 to 16.8, the engine stability was much improved to the level of conventional diesel combustion and the increase in BSFC became almost half, which was mainly due to the change of combustion phasing. In addition to this, application of 5 mm inside position of the injector realized almost no penalty of BSFC at higher load condition.