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2013-01-0250
Experimental and Numerical Study of Water Spray Injection at
Engine-Relevant Conditions
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Copyright 2012 SAE International
ABSTRACT
Water spray characterization of a multi-hole injector under
pressures and temperatures representative of engine-relevant
conditions was investigated for naturally aspirated and boosted
engine conditions. Experiments were conducted in an optically
accessible pressure vessel using a high-speed schlieren
imaging to visualize the transient water spray. The
experimental conditions included a range of injection
pressures of 34, 68, and 102 bar and ambient temperatures of
30 200C, which includes flash-boiling and non flash-
boiling conditions. Transient spray tip penetration and spray
angle were characterized via image processing of raw
schlieren images using Matlab code. The CONVERGE CFD
software was used to simulate the water spray obtained
experimentally in the vessel. CFD parameters were tuned and
validated against the experimental results of spray profile and
spray tip penetration measured in the combustion vessel (CV).
With the validated CFD model, water spray injection into an
engine in-cylinder configuration was simulated. The CV
experimental results showed that collapsing spray plumes
were observed for higher temperature of the charge, showing
reduced spray tip penetration. The engine CFD results showed
that water injection at 90 BTDC showed better vaporization
and decreased the formation of liquid wall film on piston
surface, cylinder head, and cylinder wall compared with those
for 60 BTDC water injection.
INTRODUCTION
Recently the water injection scheme has been used in high
performance engines equipped with a supercharger or
turbocharger. These engines entrain additional air and fuel that
is injected into the cylinder to maintain the stoichiometric ratio
and thus more power can be produced. Turbocharger also
heats the inlet air while compressing it, leading to less dense
air and thus altering the stoichiometric ratio to the rich side. In
high-pressure turbocharged engine operation during the
compression stroke, the air-fuel mixture sometimes
prematurely ignites before the spark plug ignition because of
the high inlet air temperature. This premature ignition may
cause severe engine damage. In order to avoid damages by
combustion detonation, water is injected in the engine cylinder
to cool down the inlet charge. Water can cool the inlet charge
during the compression stroke through its high latent heat of
vaporization and has an additional effect of total thermal mass
increase and thus reduces the peak combustion temperature.
However, inappropriate water injection in terms of injection
timing with respect to the fuel injection timing will locally
quench the flame, resulting in significant cycle-to-cycle
variation and substantially increase hydrocarbon emissions.
Combustion knock is a SI engine phenomenon and creates
high temperature regions in the cylinder; these regions are
mainly responsible for high NOx emissions. Water injection
has been used to inhibit NOx formation by injecting water in
the inlet manifold. Lanzafame [1] carried out experiments to
understand the effect of water injection in a single cylinder
CFR engine. With the range of water injection over the fuel
ratio from 1 to 1.25, experimental data showed a reduction in
the nitric oxide level by 50%.
Iwashiro et al. [2] suggested that direct (in-cylinder) water
injection not only reduces the local temperature that causes
knock in a HCCI engine but also increases its thermal
efficiency by 2%. Moreover, it also extended the operation
range of IMEP from 460 kPa to 700 kPa, while maintaining
lower NOx levels.
The effect of water injection can also be significant during the
combustion process, where the injection of water reduces the
combustion product temperature and therefore reducing
thermal NOx formation substantially. Nicholls [3] used water-
fuel emulsion for controlling NOx emissions. According to
results observed, 10% water in gasoline caused a reduction in
nitrogen oxides by 10-20%. Conversely, 20% increase in
hydrocarbon emissions was found for water injection/fuel ratio
of 1.
Shah et al. [4] compared the effect of water injection with
EGR in terms of emission formation. As is similar with the
use of EGR, water injection provided a significant reduction in
NOx emissions but with a smaller increase in particulate
Page 2 of 16

matter (PM). At low and medium load conditions, it was
found that water injection is not as effective as EGR. When
water injection is accompanied with EGR, NOx emissions
were reduced significantly and particulate matter emissions
were also controlled. In addition, water injection increases the
charge humidity which has profound effect on NOx emission
as observed by Taxon et al. [5].
The objective of the current work is to study the effect of
different water injection timings during the compression
stroke on the inlet charge cooling. The CFD tool is used to
understand the vaporization profile and liquid film formation
over the crank angle and its effect on charge cooling and
reduction in peak temperature, while no combustion is carried
out during the simulation.
EXPERIMENTAL SETUP AND TEST
CONDITIONS
Combustion Vessel
An experimental study has been carried out in an optically
accessible constant-volume combustion vessel (CV) at
Michigan Technological University [5, 6] as shown in Figure
1. The Michigan Tech CV (MTU-CV) is a 1.0 L constant-
volume vessel which enables combustion studies including
spray, ignition, and flame investigations at a maximum
pressure of 350 bar with full-field, multi-axis, optical access.
The chamber is cubical with an interior of 100 mm per side.
On each of the six faces of the cube are ports. In three of these
ports windows were installed providing unobstructed
orthogonal optical access to the combustion chamber. Optical
windows provide access and opportunity for high-speed
imaging to study water spray development. The top face port
houses the spark plug assembly and two fans in order to create
turbulence inside the vessel as shown in Figure 1. Another
face port houses the water injector assembly. On the eight
vertices of the combustion chamber there are instrument and
actuator access ports. In four of these ports are an intake and
two exhaust ports and a dynamic pressure transducer. The
pressure transducer is a Kistler 6001 piezo-electric dynamic
pressure transducer that is coupled to a Kistler 5044a charge
amplifier to measure the CV pressure.
Injection System
A schematic of the high-pressure GDI fuel supply system is
shown in Figure 2. A high-pressure fuel system based on
gasoline engine requirements was built in-house and is
capable of pressurizing fuel to 200 bar. The fuel supply system
is a high-pressure bladder type accumulator, which on one
side is pressurized with high-pressure nitrogen and with fuel
on the other side. In order to control the fuel temperature, an
injector window with a cooling jacket was designed and built
in-house. The chiller (Iso-Temp 3016D) has a capability to
control the temperature within a range of -22C to 35C
beyond which it works as a heater. However, the current test

Figure 1: Michigan Tech combustion vessel facility.
does not use the temperature control so no cooling system is
activated for all tests. It is assumed that the fuel temperature is
the same as the injector tip temperature during the injection
event.

Figure 2: GDI fuel supply system layout.
Gasoline Direct Injector
The injector utilized in the study is a commercial Bosch 6-hole
injector. Figure 3 shows the top view of the injector, where
symmetry between the spray plumes can be observed and
provides an idea of the side view of the fuel injection when the
injector is mounted in the combustion vessel.

Figure 3: Schematic view of GDI water injection: top view
(left) and side view (right).
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Because of the symmetry among the holes, only three plumes
can be observed and visualized in imaging presented in this
study (see right in Figure 3), as the remaining three plumes are
overlapped. During the experiment, the injector is mounted
horizontally such that the camera captures the side view of the
spray shown in the right of Figure 3. The obtained images thus
show only three plumes injecting from the tip of the injector.
An injection pulse width of 3 ms was used for all test
conditions. Technical specifications of the multi-hole GDI
injector utilized in the study are listed in Table 1.
Relationship of Temperature and Pressure at
Engine Conditions
The pressure and temperature conditions corresponding to the
crank angle positions can be obtained by considering the
following assumptions:
- Considering ideal gas assumption and no irreversibility
- Considering isentropic process, relation obtained between
pressure, temperature and compression ratio are used to
calculate pressure and temperature values at different
degrees before-top-dead-center (BTDC).
- Compression ratio at various degrees BTDC is calculated
by using maximum compression ratio concept, maximum
compression ratio considered for this experiment was
CR
max
=19.
There are equations used for the calculation of T
1
temperature
influenced by the remaining residual gas [8].
Q* is the enthalpy decrease during isothermal combustion per
unit mass during the combustion as defined in Eq. 1,

)

Eq. (1)
where m
f
, m
a
, m and Q
LHV
are fuel flowrate, air flowrate, total
flowrate and lower heating value of the fuel, respectively.
Furthermore, specific enthalpy for a stoichiometric mixture of
isooctane and air is given below in Eq. 2, including the
residual mass fraction:

)

Eq. (2)

The residual gas mass fraction, x
r
, can be determined in terms
of pressure ratio of intake and exhaust (blow-down),
compression ratio, and specific enthalpy from Eq. (2) as given
below.

) ]

Eq. (3)

where CR
max
is the compression ratio, p
e
and p
i
are the intake
and exhaust pressures, respectively. Note that T
1
decreases
with an increase in the residual gas. The residual mass
fraction, x
r
, increases as p
i
deceases below p
e
, decreases as
CR
max
increases, and decreases as specific enthalpy increases.
Relationship between T
1
and T
i
(intake temperature) is given
by Eq. (4)

()


Eq. (4)

The residual gas temperature, T
r
can be determined below
from Eq. 5

)
()
(

Eq. (5)

Upon attaining p
1
and T
1
from the above equations, we can
calculate the pressure, p, and temperature, T, can be calculated
at any given crank angle using isentropic relations in Eq. 6.

Eq. (6)

)


where the crank angle can be determined by Eq. 7.

)()
Eq. (7)

Compression ratio, CR
var
, is a function of crank angle. Specific
heat equation ratio, , is assumed to be 1.33, and initial
pressure p
i
and temperature T
i
are given as 1 bar and 300 K,
respectively.
Test Conditions
In this study, four different BTDC conditions (60, 75, 90 and
180 degrees) were selected for naturally aspirated and three
boosted cases. At each crank angle, three fuel injection
Table 1: GDI injector configuration
Parameter Value
Designed bend angle 10 deg
Diameter of all orifices, D 205 m
Length of all orifices, L 300 m
L/D ratio 1.463
Maximum injection pressure 200 Bar
Spray plume angle at 20 MPa ~15 deg
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pressures (34, 68, and 102 bar) were selected along with 5
repeated tests for the naturally aspirated case (P
i
= 1.01 bar)
and 4 repeated tests for the boosted case (P
i
= 1.36, 1.71, and
2.02 bar). The water injection duration was set as 3 ms for all
tests. This paper will present the results for the fuel injection
pressure of 68 bar, with CV pressure and temperature
conditions determined to match crank angle positions.
The CV wall temperature was varied by electrical heaters at
the respective crank angle position condition, and pressurized
by low pressure nitrogen. Tests at temperatures less than
150C were considered as low temperature tests while high
temperature tests were considered for temperatures above
150C. It was observed that ambient conditions for crank
angle positions of 75, 90, and 180 BTDC fall in the low
temperature region, while 60 BTDC falls in the high
temperature region, as seen in Tables 2 and 3, respectively.

Table 2: Low temperature test matrix

Table 3: High temperature test matrix


Imaging Diagnostics
To visualize the evolution of the water spray, a conventional
schlieren imaging setup was used as shown in Figure 4. Two
schlieren mirrors, a light source, reflector, knife edge, and a
high speed camera were used for the schlieren imaging setup.
The concave schlieren mirrors were 152 mm in diameter and
had a focal length of 750 mm. A 65-W halogen lamp with a
slit size of 2 mm 5 mm was used as the light source. The
light source was placed at the focal point of the first schlieren
mirror, this generated a collimated beam emerging from the
first schlieren mirror, which was directed towards the optical
combustion chamber. The collimated beam after passing
through the chamber was deflected by a 90 reflector onto the
second schlieren mirror. This collimated beam from the
second schlieren mirror converges at the focal point of the
second mirror. The high speed camera (Photron FASTCAM
SA1.1) was placed at some distance from this focal point such
that the focus plane (plane passing through the injector tip) is
well captured. A knife edge is placed in a vertical position at
the focal point to block the non-refracted rays from passing
through the camera lens. The Photron camera was setup with
exposure time up to 2 s, frame rate up to 0.2 ms, and
resolution of 640 624 pixels. The camera was also equipped
with a Nikon lens of focal length 50 mm.

Figure 4: Optical Setup for Schlieren.
Image Post-Processing
Matlab program was used to perform image processing on raw
schlieren images captured by the high-speed camera. First the
images were subtracted from the background image (with no
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spray). The obtained images were then filtered with 2D
median filter; this eliminated the unwanted noise from the
spray images. Then on applying simple threshold the images
were converted to binary images. Bwlabel, a predefined
Matlab function, was used to find the biggest cluster of 1s in
the binary image. Using Sobel and edge operator, a well-
defined boundary around the biggest cluster was defined; this
spray boundary was then overlapped with the original spray
image. The horizontal distance between the injector tip and the
furthermost co-ordinate with value 1 was measured as
penetration length as suggested in SAE J 2715 [9].

Figure 5: Flowchart of post-processing schlieren image.
Raw image (far left), subtracted spray image, binary image,
and extreme eight points (far right) on overlapped spray
image.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Schlieren images of transient water spray injection have been
analyzed to characterize the spray formation process and to
calculate the time-dependent spray penetration. Control
parameters include a range of ambient pressures, temperatures,
and injection pressures, while an injection pulse width of 3 ms
was kept for all test conditions.
Results from the injection pressure of 68 bar are presented
here at the condition of the ambient temperature ranging from
30 to 200C. Low temperature tests were conducted at the
temperatures less than 150C

while the high temperature tests
above 150C. The ambient charge gas is nitrogen and charge
pressure varies from 1 to 7 bar. Data presented here are spray
images, calculated penetration length as a function of time,
and penetration length at a fixed time after-start-of-injection
(ASOI).
Low Temperature Test Results
As stated earlier, ambient temperatures less than 150C were
considered as low temperature tests. Time-dependent schlieren
images for naturally aspirated (P
i
= 1.01 bar) and boosted (P
i
=
1.36 bar) conditions are shown in Figures 6 and 7,
respectively.
The schlieren images presented are rotated 90 with respect to
the original raw images for comparison. Furthermore, the raw
spray was inclined slightly upwards because of a 10 designed
bend angle of the injector nozzle as defined in Table 1. As
seen in the Figure 6 and 7, all images show three distinct
plumes injected into the chamber at 0.2 ms ASOI. For low
density cases ( = 1.1 and 1.5 kg/m
3
), the left plume reaches
the bottom of the chamber after 2.0 ms ASOI while the plume
at = 3.6 kg/m
3
does not reach the bottom of the combustion
vessel before 2.8 ms ASOI.
No particular trends in terms of spray structure formation are
observed for all cases regardless of charge temperature and

Figure 6: Spray images for naturally aspirated (P
i
=1.0 bar)
condition.

Figure 7: Spray images for boosted (P
i
=1.36 bar) condition.
charge density. All plumes show pointed structures at the
leading edges such that three distinct travelling plumes at the
leading tips exist. This clearly indicates that the leading edge
is in liquid-phase. In addition, for the cases with almost
similar density but different temperature, i.e., naturally
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aspirated case at = 2.7 kg/m
3
seen in Figure 6 versus the
boosted case at = 2.8 kg/m
3
seen in Figure 7, the penetration
length is similar at a given time for both cases, showing an
insignificant effect of temperature on the penetration length.
For the cases with different density but same temperature, i.e.,
naturally aspirated case at = 2.0 kg/m
3
versus the boosted
case at = 2.8 kg/m
3
, the penetration length is slightly shorter
at a given time for the high density case. As the inlet pressure
is increased in boosted conditions up to 2.02 bar, all spray
structures are similar to the images in Figures 8 and 9 except
for a decreased penetration due to the increasing charge
density.

Figure 8: Spray images for boosted (P
i
=1.71 bar) condition.

Figure 9: Spray images for boosted (P
i
=2.02 bar) condition.
As observed in all Figures 6-9 corresponding to low
temperature case, the spray shows a similar unique structure as
it penetrates in charged ambient gas. Three plumes penetrating
in three distinct directions with no plume to plume interaction
is observed. It is also observed that the penetration length of
the spray decreases with an increase in ambient density, i.e.,
boosted conditions. For naturally aspirated and boosted (P
i
=
1.36 bar) engine conditions, the high impingement of spray on
the walls is seen during the time of injection before 3.0 ms
ASOI for all the ambient conditions. However for boosted (P
i

= 1.71 bar) and (P
i
= 2.02 bar) engine conditions, wall
impingement is seen for the first two less dense ambient cases
while no impingement on walls is observed for their densest
ambient case during injection, up to 3 ms ASOI.
Impingement on the walls leads to formation of liquid mass
depository on the walls as seen in Figure 10. A black patch
circled is the liquid wall film formed on the front glass
window of the combustion vessel due to impingement of one
of the 6 plumes. The darker the patch, larger the film thickness
is. The patch fades away with time as the film vaporizes, but
even at 11.2 ms ASOI the patch is still visible due to the high
heat of vaporization of water, which slows down its
vaporization process.

Figure 10: Spray impingement on CV walls.
Liquid Penetration

Figure 11: Spray penetration by varying ambient conditions
for the low temperature tests. The specific conditions are the
same in Figures 6-9.
The influence of ambient pressure (or density) on spray
penetration is shown in Figure 11. Similar spray penetration
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profiles are observed for all low temperature cases, with a
reduction in liquid penetration observed with an increase in
ambient pressure.
In order to make sure the spray formation was repeatable over
time; 5 runs per injection pressure for naturally aspirated case
and 4 runs per injection pressure for boosted conditions were
performed. Figure 11 shows the mean values of liquid
penetration length. Greater the slope of the curve, greater the
momentum and penetration of the liquid droplets are. Boost
conditions increase the ambient density but do not
significantly change the penetration particularly for the low
boosted conditions. Table 4 shows the penetration length
variations and corresponding percentage variations of boost
cases with respect to naturally aspirated (NA) case at 1.8 ms
ASOI. This table shows the effect of charge density on
penetration length at the similar temperature range. As
expected, the penetration length shortens with increasing
density or pressure.
Table 4: Spray penetration comparison at 1.8 ms ASOI

High Temperature Test Results
As stated earlier, the high temperature tests are those above
150C, using nitrogen charged gas. Only one ambient
condition corresponding to engine like condition at 60 BTDC
was considered for each engine type (naturally
aspirated/boosted) as shown in Table 3.
Figure 12 shows a sequence of water spray images by varying
the charge density but keeping the charge temperature around
200C. A significant change in the spray pattern is observed
for the high temperature tests compared to the low temperature
tests as seen in Figures 6-9.
As seen in the Figure 12, low ambient density, i.e., = 3.71
kg/m
3
illustrates a collapsed spray pattern due to the flash-
boiling effect. The effect of the flash-boiling is enhanced in
terms of the vaporization process by reducing the ambient
pressure and increasing the temperature [5]. The concept of
flash boiling is to utilize the two-phase flow of fuel injection
to enhance atomization and vaporization, reduce the fuel
penetration, and therefore readily control the air-fuel mixing
and the resulting combustion process. With an increase in the
ambient density the separation among the plumes begins
earlier in time, i.e., close to the injector tip, leading to the
formation of three distinct separate plumes as seen in Figure
12. As the water is injected and rapidly depressurized to a
pressure below its saturation vapor pressure, sudden boiling
occurs and the liquid transforms into vapor. Thus, the vapor
formed is drawn towards the central axis of the spray
overcoming the radial momentum, resulting in collapsing or
merging of spray plumes.

Figure 12: Spray developments in the naturally aspirated
and boosted conditions of P
i
=1.36, 1.71, and 2.02 bar (from
left to right colum).
In these high temperature tests only one of the cases i.e., spray
collapsed case, has ambient pressure below injected water
saturation vapor pressure (around 6 bar for these conditions),
and thus collapsed plumes are observed. However the rest of
the three cases have a similar three-plume pattern like those of
the low temperature case. As observed, the tip of the spray
plumes for all the cases appear blunt resulting from mixing of
the liquid-phase and vapor-phase, indicating some evidence of
vapor formation. Table 5 shows the time at which some signs
of vapor formation were observed in Figure 12, indicating
vaporization starts slightly earlier for the naturally aspirated
case compared to the boosted cases.
Table 5: Sign of vaporization observed

BTDC Stage Penetration (mm)
Percentage
change from NA
Naturally Aspirated 78.0 0.0
Boosted, Pi = 1.36 bar 77.7 0.3
Boosted, Pi = 1.71 bar 72.4 7.2
Boosted, Pi = 2.02 bar 66.6 14.6
Naturally Aspirated 80.4 0.0
Boosted, Pi = 1.36 bar 77.8 3.2
Boosted, Pi = 1.71 bar 78.6 2.2
Boosted, Pi = 2.02 bar 75.6 5.9
Naturally Aspirated 88.0 0.0
Boosted, Pi = 1.36 bar 87.7 0.4
Boosted, Pi = 1.71 bar 87.2 0.9
Boosted, Pi = 2.02 bar 79.4 9.8
At 1.8 0 ms ASOI
75
90
180
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Liquid Penetration
Due to the sudden formation of vapor for the collapsed spray,
a relatively large spray-plume width occurs at = 3.71 kg/m
3

in Figure 12. This causes a reduction in spray penetration due
to transformation of nozzle axial momentum (related to
penetration) to radial momentum (related to the plume-width),
and due to the increased effect of the vapor and air drag
forces. Thus, for the collapsed spray case (lowest ambient
density among these cases), lower penetration is observed and
compared with the denser case seen in Figure 13. However
this effect will be substantially reduced by further increasing
the ambient density as seen in the case of the density above
6.3 kg/m
3
, which has been reported elsewhere [10].

Figure 13: Spray penetration comparison for high
temperature tests.
NUMERICAL SIMULATION
Break-up Models used in CFD Simulation
The numerical simulation of a multi-hole injector was carried
out using CONVERGE CFD software [12]. Various spray
break-up models are available in CONVERGE CFD code such
as the Kelvin-Helmholtz (KH) and Rayleigh-Taylor (RT)
instability mechanisms, Linearized Instability Sheet
Atomization (LISA) break up model, and Taylor Analogy
Breakup (TAB) model. In addition, CONVERGE has the
capability of using both KH and RT models together, called
KH-RT spray break-up model. The use of KH-RT model is a
common practice while simulating high-pressure solid cone
sprays [12].


Figure 14: Liquid core approximation [11].
According to the KH-RT break-up model, a liquid core exits
near the nozzle tip as seen in Figure 14. Liquid blobs with the
diameter of nozzle are injected from the nozzle tip and these
blobs are shed into child droplets by primary aerodynamic
instability simulated by KH alone. This aerodynamic spray
break-up by KH alone takes place up to break-up length L,
after which both KH and RT instabilities are responsible for
the spray break-up. In other words, the KH break-up
mechanism acts on the spray droplets throughout their
lifetime, while RT break-up mechanism acts once the break-up
length is achieved. The break-up length [12] is defined below:
,
where B
1
is KH break-up time constant,
l
and
g
are the
density of fuel and ambient gas, and r
o
is the radius of the
nozzle. B
1
can be tuned (increased or decreased) to result in an
accurate prediction of spray penetration by comparing
experimental results. While B
1
value varies from 5 to 100 for
various injectors, the typical value is 7 [12].
In the liquid core region, child droplets shed from liquid blobs
are subjected to rapid acceleration and RT instability becomes
a more dominant effect. These accelerated child droplets are
subjected to a rapid deceleration due to drag force exerted by
the ambient gases; this causes unstable RT waves to build up
on the surface of droplets. For RT waves to form on droplets,
the scaled wavelength of these waves (C
RT
A
RT
) should be
smaller than droplet diameter. When these RT waves have
grown for sufficient time (C
t
/O
RT
), it causes break-up of
liquid droplets according to the RT mechanism [13]. C
RT
, RT
size constant, can be tuned (increased or decreased) to change
the outcome of the predicted RT break-up radius. While, C
t
,
RT time constant, can also be tuned (increased or decreased)
to delay or promote RT break-up. The break-up parameters
selected for both low and high temperature tests are shown in
Table 6.
Table 6: KH-RT break-up parameters used for the present
study
Parameter Low Temp Case High Temp Case
L 7.0 7.0
C
t
1.0 0.1
C
RT
0.6 0.25
Turbulence model used for all the simulations was rapid
distortion Reynolds Average Navier-Stroke (RNG) k-c model
[14]. During the spray process, droplets may collide with
others to form more fine droplets or may coalesce to form a
single droplet. The outcomes of these droplet collisions were
simulated by No Time Counter (NTC) method [15]. Dynamic
drag model, which determines the droplet drag dynamically
and takes into account the variations in the drop shape, was
chosen [16]. CONVERGE uses the Frossling correlation to
calculate the time rate of change of droplet radius due to water
vaporization [17]. A particle-based wall film model which is
available in CONVERGE was used to model the liquid
droplets interaction with solid surfaces.
g
o l
1
r
B L

-
=
Page 9 of 16

CFD Simulation Geometries
Two geometries were considered in the numerical modeling,
one representing CV and the second representing engine
geometry.
CV Geometry
A CAD model, cubic in shape, is shown in Figure 15 for the
CV simulation. Maximum cell size used was 3 mm, with total
number of cells of 39,000 during the start of simulation.
Adaptive mesh refinement (AMR), tool for generating
automatic adaptive mesh refinement, was activated for spray
velocity, temperature, and spray species, i.e., water. The level
of AMR embedding for these three parameters was set to 3.
Thus, cell size of 1 mm was generated where AMR was
activated.

Figure 15: CAD model CV simulation geometry.
I n-Cylinder Geometry
A CAD model of the engine as shown in Figure 16, was used
for the simulation.

Figure 16: CAD model engine simulation geometry.
Simulation crank angle timing was from -180 to 180. During
this simulation both the inlet and outlet valves were kept
closed. Maximum cell size was 3 mm, with total number of
cells of 86,700. Adaptive mesh refinement was also activated,
with a level of embedding of 3 for spray velocity, temperature
and spray species. The piston surface has a bowl shape which
is typically adopted in the GDI engine [18]. The bore diameter
and stroke are 88 mm and 98 mm, respectively, with a
compression ratio of 10.4.
CV Simulation Results
Before performing the engine simulation, the CFD spray
break-up parameters for the CV simulation were validated
against the experimental results CV tests. Two cases, one from
high temperature and other from low temperature were
selected and simulated. The spray break-up parameters were
tuned to the values listed in Table 6 for each case such that the
CFD results have a good agreement of spray shapes and liquid
penetration with the experiment. With these tuned values
determined, spray simulation was extended to the engine
simulation. The following sections will present the
comparison of spray characterizations between the CFD and
experiments including the spray shapes and penetration.


Figure 17: Spray formation comparison: = 2.0 kg/m
3
,
114C and droplet radius size unit as meter.
The spray profiles from the experiment and simulation in
terms of droplet size distribution are shown in Figures 17 (low
temperature) and 18 (high temperature) as a function of time,
i.e., ASOI. The diameter of the droplets exiting from the
nozzle tip (at the start of injection) is approximately the same
as the diameter of the nozzle i.e., 205 m. These droplets
break further into smaller droplets through the KH-RT break-
up mechanism with time. For the high temperature case seen
in Figure 18 six individual plumes collapse towards the
injector central axis, whereas for the low temperature case
seen in Figure 17 they appear to be penetrating away from the
injector central axis. The simulation captures the vortex
formation at the tip of each plume for the high temperature
case since these vortexes were formed by allowing the RT
mechanism to act fast enough on the droplets.
Page 10 of 16



Figure 18: Spray formation comparison: = 3.7 kg/m
3
,
199C, and droplet radius size unit as meter.

Since both the RT time and size constants for the high
temperature case were tuned to lower values than the low
temperature case as listed in Table 6, the simulation promotes
the RT break-up significantly in the high temperature case.
This acceleration of the RT break-up causes the RT waves to
grow more rapidly on the droplets leading to faster breakup of
water droplets. However for the low temperature case the RT
time and size constant values were kept higher, thus RT break-
up was slow compared to the high temperature case, resulting
in the formation of larger droplet size. This can be observed
from Figures 17 and 18 where for the high temperature case
the droplet radius size distribution is mostly between 1 m to
30 m, whereas for the low temperature case it varies from 30
m to 100 m. Breaking up of droplets to finer droplets
increases the drag force that acts on them, which tends to
change their momentum and thus leads to vortex formation as
observed later in Figure 18. In addition, impingement on the
walls leads to formation to finer droplet size as observed in
Figure 17 at the time of 2.8 ms ASOI. However, no
impingement on the wall was observed for the high
temperature case.
Liquid Penetration
Simulated liquid penetration is determined based on the
fraction of total liquid mass in the whole domain [12]. The
liquid penetration is defined as the distance from the nozzle
exit that encompasses a certain percentage of the total
available liquid mass injected from this nozzle. In the present
work, this percentage was set to 98%. Simulated liquid
penetration is compared with the repeated experimental runs
as shown in Figures 19 and 20.
Overall, the predicted liquid penetrations are in good
agreement with the experiments for earlier injection time but
later they tend to divert over time for both cases. Although the
CFD predicts slightly higher penetration at longer spray
duration, the model well captures spray shapes observed in the
experiments seen in Figures 17 and 18.


Figure 19: Liquid penetration comparison at low
temperature. The conditions are the same as Figure 17.


Figure 20: Liquid Penetration comparison at high
temperature. The conditions are the same as Figure 18.
Percentage Distribution
Figure 21 shows the percentage distribution of liquid and
vapor phases of water spray for both the low and high
temperature cases as a function of time. High vaporization is
observed for the high temperature case. This can be expected
as the spray droplets are smaller in size compared to the low
temperature case.
Page 11 of 16


Figure 21: Liquid and vapor percentage distribution.
Engine Simulation Results
In the engine simulation, two different cases of injection
timings were considered, i.e., 60 and 90 BTDC, in order to
characterize the effect of injection timing on spray
vaporization. Since the engine with a compression ratio of
10.4, the maximum pressure and temperatures are 25.9 bar and
740 K, respectively, at the time of TDC. The engine
simulation runs from -180 to 180 with inlet and exhaust
valves closed at the fixed engine speed of 2000 rpm. Figure 22
shows the water spray formation process for various crank
angles when the water injection begins at 90 BTDC. Since
the injection duration is 3 ms which is the same as the CV
simulation, the injection is complete at 54 BTDC at the
engine speed of 2000 rpm. A spray cloud is formed near the
piston head, while no stagnation of water is observed on the
piston surface as the piston approaches 180 ATDC. A spray
impingement on the bowl of the piston head can be seen
around 70 BTDC while most of spray bounces back towards
the cylinder head. Droplet sizes decrease substantially where
the temperature reaches maximum. However, there is a
discernible amount of liquid drops present when the piston
reaches at 180 ATDC. During the injection period from 90 to
36 BTDC, relatively large drops persist over the longer
period since the cylinder temperature is relatively low.
A different spray formation is observed for the 60 BTDC
injection as shown in Figure 23. The spray cloud is observed
near the piston region and stagnation of water inside the piston
cavity is also seen. The water droplets of 90 BTDC injection
penetrates at a higher velocity than 60 BTDC injection
because of its injection into a less denser medium and also low
increment in cylinder pressure during its time of injection. In
fact, the 90 BTDC injection is observed to have high
impingement on the piston surface, allowing most of the
droplets to rebound by breaking into smaller droplets by
impingement. These smaller droplets further impinge on the
piston head and lose most of its momentum by that time,
giving rise to spray cloud formation near cylinder head. In
contrast, for the 60 BTDC injection water droplets lose most
of its momentum before its first impingement as it is injected
into a more dense medium and due to high increment in
cylinder pressure during its time of injection. The relative
injector-piston distance is also less compared to the 90 BTDC
injection, thus most of the droplets on their impingement slide
over the piston surface leading to the formation of wall film.
Wall Wetting
In order to characterize water impingement impact on the
walls, calculation has been performed to visualize how much
water spray hangs within the cylinder and how much sticks on
the walls during the piston movement. Figures 24 and 25
visualize the portions of water moving midair in the cylinder
as colored with blue and sticking on the walls as colored with
red. The wall surface includes the piston surface, cylinder
head, and cylinder wall. Note that dense red color indicates
thicker wall film or large mass deposit on the walls.
A significant difference of wetting characteristics can be
observed. A larger portion of spray sticks on the cylinder head
and on the periphery around the piston bowl for 90 BTDC
injection while a larger portion of wetting can be seen inside
the piston bowl for 60 BTDC injection. A large amount of
water sticks to the piston surface for 60 BTDC injection
spray, whereas maximum amount of liquid is found stuck on
the cylinder head for 90 BTDC injection. This implies that
wall wetting can be decreased by injecting earlier during the
compression stroke. Earlier injection takes advantages of more
available cylinder volume for spray atomization. For example,
injection at 90 BTDC decreases the maximum film mass by
52.8% compared to injection at 60 BTDC.
Water Spray Distribution
Figure 26 shows the vapor and liquid phase mass distribution
of water as a function of crank angle at the speed of 2000 rpm.
Red color represents the vapor phase while both green and
brown colors represent the liquid phase. In the liquid phase,
green represents liquid droplets non-adhesive to the walls
whereas brown refers to liquid droplets adhesive to the walls.
It shows that a large amount of liquid film mass is formed for
the 60 BTDC injection and most of this film mass (around
90%) resides on the piston surface. In contrast, a majority of
the film mass (around 60%) is on the cylinder head for the 90
BTDC injection. At the crank angle of 40 ATDC in the 60
BTDC injection there is a drastic fall in film mass, indicating
the film mass formed on the piston begins to vaporize rapidly.
There is gradual increase in vapor formation and gradual
decrease of total liquid phase for the 90 BTDC injection case,
but a late steep increase in vapor phase is observed for the 60
BTDC injection case. Table listed in Figure 26 shows the total
area distribution over the crank angle for both the cases.
Page 12 of 16




Figure 22: Water injection at 90 degree BTDC.



Figure 23: Water injection at 60 degree BTDC.


Page 13 of 16

Figure 24: Wall film formation at 90 degree BTDC injection. Blue color indicates droplets non-adhesive to walls while red color
indicates droplets adhesive to walls.

Figure 25: Wall film formation at 60 degree BTDC injection. Blue color indicates droplets non-adhesive to walls while red color
indicates droplets adhesive to walls.

Figure 26: Liquid and vapor phase distribution over crank angle.
Page 14 of 16

Percentage Distribution
Figure 27 presents the percentage distribution of liquid and
vapor phases of water spray as a function of crank angle. A
better vaporization profile is observed for earlier injection
such that 50% of vaporization for the 90 BTDC injection is
observed 100 degrees before the 60 BTDC injection achieves
its 50% vaporization. For the 90 BTDC injection,
impingement happens at 75 BTDC which approximately
triples its vaporization rate. This increment in vaporization is
observed due to the break-up of water droplets into more finer
droplets (radius from 70 m 30 m to 30 m 1 m) as
seen in Figure 23. For the 60 BTDC injection, a drastic fall in
film mass is observed at 40 BTDC as it begins to vaporize
rapidly, which can be seen by sudden increase in vapor
percentage for the 60 BTDC injection at that crank angle.
Although the 60 BTDC injection shows high vaporization
percentage at 180 BTDC, the 90 BTDC injection has a
better vaporization profile for most of the crank angles as seen
in Figure 27.

Figure 27: Liquid and vapor percentage comparison for two
different injection timings as a function of crank angle.

Pressure and Temperature Traces
Figure 28 shows the effect of water injection on the cylinder
pressure. With water injection, a fall in peak pressure is
observed as water is converted to steam during the
compression stroke. This fall in peak pressure is due to the
loss of energy of intake charge, as this energy is being
absorbed to convert water to steam (heat of vaporization).
Figure 29 shows the effect of water injection on cylinder
temperature. The temperature of the charge falls down due to
heat transfer from the charge to water droplets. The fall in
peak temperature is signified for the 90 BTDC injection as it
has better vaporization compared to the 60 BTDC injection.
Table 7 shows the peak temperature for three different cases
considered.

Figure 28: Pressure traces for no water injection,
60 BTDC, and 90 BTDC.

Figure 29: Temperature trace curve for no water injection,
60 BTDC, and 90 BTDC.
Table 7: Peak charge temperature for no water injection,
60 BTDC, and 90 BTDC
Case Temperature (K)
No water injection 740
90 BTDC injection 680
60 BTDC injection 690

Figure 30 shows the effect of water injection on cylinder
ambient gas density. The 90 BTDC injection has the highest
peak density because of more water moving midair in the
ambient gas, while the 60 BTDC injection has less water
moving midair in ambient gas and more on the wall film. As
there is a pressure loss with water injection, the compression
work required to compress the charge also decreases. The 90
BTDC injection which has better vaporization during the
compression stroke may be expected to have the lowest peak
Page 15 of 16

pressure. According to ideal gas equation, pressure is directly
proportional to density and temperature, but density and
temperature are inversely proportional to each other, thus,
pressure trend for different water injection timing cannot be
predicted but will always be expected to be below the pressure
curve for no water injection case.

Figure 30: Density trace curve for no water injection,
60 BTDC, and 90 BTDC.
SUMMARY
Water spray experiments were carried out in a constant-
volume combustion vessel for various engine relevant
conditions varying from 180 to 60 BTDC simulating a
naturally aspirated and three different boosted engine cases.
For the low charge temperature below 150C, all six water
plumes from a multi-hole GDI injector penetrated in six
different directions away from the injector axis. However, for
the high charge temperature of 200C, all six plumes appear to
collapse towards the injector axis for one case, i.e. = 3.71
kg/m
3
due to the flash-boiling effect.
The CONVERGE CFD package was used to simulate and
validate the water spray with experiment results. The
validation was achieved by tuning KH-RT break-up
parameters to match the spray tip penetration and spray shapes
experimentally observed. With this tuned model, simulations
of water spray injection were carried out for two different
cases in the engine in-cylinder configuration; water spray
injection at 60 and 90 BTDC. The results are summarized
below:
- Earlier water injection at 90 BTDC during the
compression stroke shows better vaporization profile
compared to at 60 BTDC. Water injection at 90 BTDC
achieved 50% of water evaporation 100 degree crank
angle earlier than the injection at 60 BTDC when the
engine speed is 2000 rpm.
- Earlier water injection also decreases the tendency of
formation of liquid wall film, which decreases the
vaporization. 28% increase in wall film mass was
predicted for injection at 60 BTDC compared to injection
at 90 BTDC.
- Decrease in cylinder peak pressure and charge
temperature was simulated while increase in charge
density was observed when the water is injected into the
cylinder. Approximately 8% and 6.7% reduction in peak
temperature observed for the 90 and 60 BTDC injection
timings, respectively, compared to without water
injection.
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CONTACT INFORMATION
Seong-Young Lee,
MEEM, Michigan Technological University
815 R.L. Smith Bldg.
1400 Townsend Drive,
Houghton, MI 49931, USA
Phone: 906-487-2559
Email: sylee@mtu.edu

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Acknowledgements are given to Nostrum Energy for financial
support.
DEFINITIONS/ABBREVIATIONS
ASOI After Start Of Injection
ATDC After Top Dead Center
BTDC Before Top Dead Center
CFD Computational Fluid
Dynamics
CFR Cooperative Fuel Research
CV Combustion vessel
EGR Exhaust gas recirculation
GDI Gasoline Direction Injection
HCCI Homogeneous Charge
Compression Ignition
IMEP Indicate Mean Effective
Pressure
KH Kelvin-Helmholtz
PM Particular Matter
RT Rayleigh-Taylor