ILASS Europe 2013, 25th European Conference on Liquid Atomization and Spray Systems, Chania, Greece, 1-4 September

r 2013

Modelling of Unsteady Effects on Jet Breakup

E.O. Diemuodeke1 and I. Sher2
1: School of Engineering, Cranfield University, Cranfield, Bedfordshire, UK

Abstract
The theory of jet instabilities has been developed under several assumptions, which include the assumption that
the jets are steady. The common-rail diesel fuel injection systems utilizing pulsed injection have drastically
improved the ability to lower emissions, noise, and fuel consumption. However, with the application of the
injection techniques in modern engines, the unsteady effects introduced by the pulsed injection are yet to be fully
investigated. These unsteady effects may be attributed to some of the deviations observed in the literature
between theoretical predictions and experimental data. The present paper has been able to demonstrate through
analytical means that unsteady effects of liquid jet have significant impacts on the instability and breakup of
liquid fuel. The model was developed from the Navier-Stokes equation with linear perturbations, which
considers transient base flow parameters. Results obtained have good agreement with experimentally obtained
data for penetration length and spray angle.

Introduction
Fuel injector performance has a direct effect on the combustion efficiency, pollutant emissions and combustion
instability of combustion systems[1]. Government legislations regarding emissions are becoming stringent.
Therefore, there is a need for more effective design of fuel combustion systems. The effective design of
combustion systems is a function of good understanding of fuel breakup processes. The aim is to introduce the
liquid fuel in a high surface area to volume ratio for a stable combustion process. The process surrounding the
injection of liquid through a small aperture and the subsequent breakup of the bulk liquid has proven to be very
complex [2][3].
The atomization processes are mainly attributed to cavitation, turbulent and aerodynamic forces, but it is
generally acknowledged that the aerodynamic forces are the major controlling factor of the atomization
process[4][5]. The Kelvin-Helmholtz (KH) instability model for liquid breakup was suggested by Reitz and
Bracco [6] on the basis of surface waves formation as a result of hydrodynamic and aerodynamic forces
interactions. The model is constructed on the basis of a first order linear analysis of a KH instability growing on
the surface of a cylindrical liquid jet that is penetrating into a quiescent incompressible gas with a relative
velocity. Both the liquid and the gas are assumed to be incompressible, and the gas is assumed to be inviscid.
The dynamic of the liquid jet and gas interaction are described by the linearization of Navier-Stokes equations
for two-phase flow based on steady base flow parameters. The liquid phase is assumed as the disperse phase and
the gas phase as the continuous phase. The detailed analysis, which can be found in [6], yields a dispersion
equation relating the growth rate of a perturbation to its wavelength. The dispersion equation obtained is not
amenable to analytical solution; however, numerical curve fit was sorted, which shows that there exists a single
maximum in the wave growth rate curve and assumed that the maximum growth rate controls the liquid breakup.
The theory of jet instabilities has been developed under several assumptions, including an assumption that the
jets are steady. However, in most practical engineering applications these jets are highly unsteady, and the
transient effects are attributed to some of the inconsistencies between experimental data and theoretical data [4]
[5][7][8][9]. The acceleration of the liquid during start-up of the convectional injectors is in the order of 10 6
[m/s2] at the orifice exit for high Reynolds numbers. This transient effect on the liquid breakup mechanisms
would be more severe in the modern fuel injection techniques, e.g pulsed injection (illustrated in Figure. 1),
which are intended to mitigate exhaust emission and to improve fuel economy. Sazhin et al [4] have stressed the
importance of transient effects on jet instability and breakups by incorporating the jet acceleration into the
classical KH instability model. The solution method was further advanced in Turner et al. [5]. In this paper we
present results of a reconstructed K-H model [10, 11], predicting the characteristic breakup and penetration
lengths of an unsteady jet.

Injection velocity, uz[m/s]

25th ILASS Europe 2013

Modelling of Unsteady Effects on Jet Breakup

Pulsed
injection

Convectiona
l injection

Start-up
Shut-down

Time after start of injection t[s]

Figure 1. Velocity Evolution after Start of Iinjection

Mathematical modelling
It is assumed that the interaction between aerodynamic forces and the jet hydrodynamic forces induce surface
waves, as shear flow, because of relative velocity between the liquid and gas. Considering the assumptions made
by Reitz and Bracco [6] and Egger and Villermaux [12], one proceeds with the reconstruction of the classical
KH instability model for liquid breakups by modifying the linearization process of the Navier-Stokes equation.
The free-surface shear of a liquid jet indicating the linearization parameters is shown in Figure 2.
r

Free- surface velocity, uzg=0

Nozzle wall
(0,R0)

z
Shear layer
thickness
u(z,r,t)

Figure 2. Cylindrical material coordinate system model for a liquid jet

The Navier-Stokes equations for the 2D cylindrical material coordinate system shown in Figure 2 can be written,
as follows:
The continuity equation:
(1)
The momentum equation:
r-direction momentum
(2)
z-direction momentum
(3)
The transient effects of the fuel injection are incorporated in the linearization process by decomposing velocity
and pressure as follows:
and
(4)
It is postulated that the growth of perturbed parameters varies with time [10, 11], thus, the perturbed parameters
have the following forms:
;
;
(5a,b,c,d)
2

25th ILASS Europe 2013

Modelling of Unsteady Effects on Jet Breakup

The governing equations are subject to the following boundary conditions:

(1) The kinematic boundary condition
(6)
(2) The dynamic boundary condition at the interface of liquid and gas
With
follows thus

where

denotes the surface for which

(7)
has to be determined, it
(8)

(3) The axisymmetric assumption

(9)
Solving this system with its boundary conditions for the dispersion relation, for a case of a quiescent gas phase
gives ([11]):
(10)
It is assumed that the disturbance growth rate is approximately constant,
velocity rate change is the jet acceleration, hence,
considering the real part,

, and that the base

and

. With these assumptions and

, in the frame of temporal analysis, Eq.(11) is obtained:

(11)

The plot of Eq.(11), for constant axial velocity, shows that there exists a maximum (Figure 3). The dominant or
the liquid breakup controlling wave number,
, which corresponds to the maximum growth rate,
,
is expected to occur at

[6].
350
Uz=50
300

250

a=200
a=180
a=160
a=140
a=120

w[1/s]

200

a=100

150

a=80
a=60

100

a=40
a=20

50

a=0
0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500
k[1/m]

3000

3500

4000

4500

5000

Figure 3. Variation of growth rate,

, with wavenumber,
, and jet acceleration, a[m/s2] at constant velocity
The breakup controlling wavenumber and the corresponding growth rate are, therefore, respectively given as
([11]):

(12)
and
(13)
The unsteady jet breakup macro structure is obtained accordingly. The relation for the half spray angle,
Trinh and Chen (2006) as proposed by Reitz and Bracco (1982) [6] is used:

, in
(14)

where

is a constant that accounts for the nozzle entrance shape, which must be fitted experimentally [6], and
is the optimum wavelength.
3

25th ILASS Europe 2013

Modelling of Unsteady Effects on Jet Breakup

The spray angle can be obtained by geometrical considerations - approximating the half of the spray as an
isosceles triangle with the height being half the penetration length[13][14], as follows:
(15)
where is the upstream half image projected spray area and
The penetration length is obtained as:

is the spray penetration length.

(16)

where

Results and Discussion

Transient experimental injection velocity, , presented in [8][9] for a 3 hole 0.2 mm diameter valve covered
orifice (VCO) diesel injector at different injection pressures, were used for the validation of the developed
transient KH instability model.
Figure 4 shows the model predicted spray angle and experimental spray angle data [8] for transient fuel
injection. Figure 4 shows that there is a good agreement between model predicted results and the experimental
data. The spray angle is observed to be very high at the initial start of injection and later settled for a value
around 17o, which corresponds to the steady fuel injection region. It is observed that the 60 [MPa] injection
pressure has a wider spray angle compared to higher injection pressures, this may be attributed to initial low
penetration velocity into dense ambient and more time to adjust to the surrounding gases, which makes it less
constrained to expand. The significant difference in the spray angle in the accelerating region, 0-0.5 [ms] after
start of injection and the steady region shows that the unsteady effects have significant effects on the liquid fuel
breakups.

Figure 4. Spray Angle Variation with the Time after Start of Injection in an Ambient of
Density 47 [kg/m3] at various Injection Pressures.
Figure 5 shows the penetration length variation with injection time at various injection pressures in an ambient
density of 47 [kg/m3]. Figure 5 shows that there exists an agreement between unsteady KH instability model and
the experimental penetration length [8]. Careful observation of Figure 5 reveals that there exists a maximum in
the predicted penetration length by the KH instability model. This observation is in conformity with majority of
experimental data presented in the literature [15]. In terms of the injection pressure, it is observed that the liquid
penetration reached the maximum value faster with elevated injection pressure due to the higher jet velocity,
which induces instability and breakup more rapidly.

25th ILASS Europe 2013

Modelling of Unsteady Effects on Jet Breakup

Figure 5. Evolution of Penetration Length after time of injection at various Injection

Pressures in an ambient Density of 47 [kg/m3]

Conclusions
The theory of jet instabilities has been developed under several assumptions, which include the assumption that
the jets are steady. These assumptions may be attributed to some of the deviations observed in the literature
between theoretical predictions and experimental data. The present work has been able to demonstrate through
analytical means that unsteady effects of liquid jet have significant impacts on the instability and breakup of
liquid fuel. Results obtained have good agreement with experimentally obtained data for penetration length and
spray angle. Unsteady jets are particularly prevalent in modern fuel injection strategies, like pulsed injection.

Nomenclature
Symbol
A
A
I
K
L
p
R0

Re
t
u

Quantity
Area
Acceleration
Modified first-kind Bessel function
Modified second-kind Bessel function
Length
Pressure
Jet radius
Real part
Timescale
Velocity
wavenumber

Units
m2
m/s2

Function parameter
Full spray angle
Wavelength
Smooth function
Constant
Perturbed boundary
Density
Surface tension
Growth rate

m
N/m2
m
s
m/s
1/m

Greek letter

Subscript
0
1
g
l
max

m
m
kg/m3
N/m
1/s

Zero-order
First-order
Gas
Liquid
Maximum parameter
5

25th ILASS Europe 2013

opt
p
r
z
Superscript

Modelling of Unsteady Effects on Jet Breakup

Optimum parameter
Penetration
Radial direction
Axial direction
Perturbed parameter; derivative

References
[1]
[2]
[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]
[7]
[8]
[9]

[10]
[11]
[12]
[13]
[14]
[15]

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