DIESEL INJECTION

Sajana Wijethunge
 Diesel injection

There’re two main types of fuel injection systems

Indirect injection Direct injection

1. Mechanical diesel indirect injection

An indirect injection diesel engine delivers diesel into a pre-chamber before the main chamber. Fuel is
not directly injected into the combustion chamber, it is either pre-chamber or swirl chamber, where
combustion begins and then spreads into the main combustion chamber.

By using a divided combustion chamber we can speed up the combustion process and it can increase
power output by increasing engine speed. This system requires glow plugs to start up the engine.

Advantages of indirect injection

 Higher engine speeds can be reached, because the burning continues in the pre-chamber.
 Indirect injection is much simpler to design and manufacture.
 The injection pressure required is low, so the injector is cheaper to produce.

Disadvantages of indirect injection

 In diesel indirect injection the fuel efficiency is low compared to diesel direct injection.
 Indirect injection diesel engines cannot start at all in cold weather, because of that glow plugs
are needed.
 Because the heat and pressure of combustion is applied to the piston is uneven, these engines
are less suited to high power outputs such as turbocharging, supercharging, or tuning, than
direct injection diesels.
 Combustion chamber types used in indirect injection

Pre-combustion chamber

Pre-combustion chamber is located in the cylinder head. It has a small hole connected to the engine
cylinder. Air from the main cylinder enters the pre-combustion chamber during the compression stroke.
The combustion starts by injecting fuel in to the pre-combustion chamber at the compression stroke.
Pressure from the pre-combustion chamber forces the fuel droplets to go through the small holes into
the main cylinder. The majority of the combustion actually takes place in the main cylinder. This type of
combustion chamber results a very good mix of the fuel and air.

Swirl combustion chamber

This is a swirl combustion chamber. Its spherical and connected to the main chamber by an angled
passage, both the injector and glow plug are screwed into the head. The glow plug pre heats the air
inside to help start the engine. During compression stroke the spherical shape makes the air swirl in the
chamber this helps make a better mixture of the air and fuel which improves combustion.
Air cell chamber

The air cell chamber is divided into main combustion chamber and
an air cell joined by a throat. The injector is in the throat, when
injection happens the combustion pressure forces the air to flow
from the air cell where it mixes. With fuel from the injector the rush
of air from the air cell produces a rotary motion of gas in the main
chamber which helps make combustion more efficient.

Fuel circuit

Injector types
 Pintle type

Pintle types are used in swirl chambers in indirect injection engines. These
injectors produce a soft spray and like the single hole type, have a low
injection pressure of 110 – 135 bar.

Operating pressure

Indirect injection systems in diesel engines already operate at pressures in excess of 100 MPa (15,000
psi).
 2. Mechanical diesel direct injection

The simple direct injection diesel engines inject fuel into the combustion chamber above the piston
directly. The compression of air inside the combustion chamber raises its temperature up to 400oC.
Then, it ignites the diesel-fuel injected into the combustion chamber. Direct injection is used in both
gasoline and diesel engines.

Direct injection's got an advantage over indirect injection because the intake valves don't have to be
open for it to function. This translates to better fuel economy, more power, and the injectors don't have
to wait for the timing of the intake valves.

Advantages of direct injection

 Minimum Heat loss during the compression because of lower surface area to volume ratio
results in better efficiency.
 Cold starting problems can be avoided.
 Higher low-end torque
 Longer engine life

Disadvantages of direct injection

 carbon buildup in the cylinder

 being more costly to produce
 High fuel injection pressure required.
 Heavier engine components
 Combustion chamber types used in direct injection

Shallow depth chamber

Heavy engines running with the low speeds mostly uses the shallow depth combustion chambers. The
depth of the cavity provided in the piston is quite small and the diameter is large. Due to the large
diameter, it will provide squish, forcing the air to the center of the combustion chamber.

Hemispherical chamber

The hemispherical chamber, the depth to the diameter ratio can be varied. So that the squish can be
controlled to attain better performance, this causes turbulence as fuel is injected into the cylinder.

Cylindrical chamber

In a few modern diesel engines, this type of combustion chambers were used. The shape of the
combustion chamber is design with the base angle of 30°. The Squish can be varied by varying the depth.
The swirl can be produced by masking the valve for nearly 180°of the circumference.
Toroidal chamber
This Toroidal chamber design is mainly focused to provide the powerful Squish along with the air
moment. As the more Squish, the mask needed on the inlet valve is small and there is better utilization
of oxygen.

Injector type
 Multi hole type

Multi hole type injectors are generally used for direct injection systems. Two or more holes are drilled at
various angles, these produce a highly atomized spray and have a high operating pressure of between
150 - 250 bars.
  Throttle type

The tip of the pintle is stepped and flared. This allows the quantity of fuel injected to vary progressively
over the course of the injection cycle.

Fuel circuit

Operating pressure

Direct injection systems operate at very high pressures of up to 30,000 psi.

 3. Electronic common rail diesel injection

Common rail direct fuel injection is a direct fuel injection system built around a high-pressure fuel rail
feeding solenoid valves. High-pressure injection delivers power and fuel consumption is better over
earlier lower pressure fuel injection. By injecting fuel as a larger number of smaller droplets, giving a
much higher ratio of surface area to volume, this provides improved vaporization from the surface of
the fuel droplets, and so more efficient combining of atmospheric oxygen with vaporized fuel delivering
more complete combustion.

Combustion chamber types

Common rail Diesel injection is an updated version of the direct injection system. The chambers used in
common rail diesel injection is similar to the direct injection combustion chambers.

Injector types
 Electrohydraulic injector
 Direct acting injector
Fuel circuit

Operating pressure

On diesel engines, it features a high-pressure (2,000 BAR – 29,000 PSI) fuel rail.
 4. Difference between rotary pump and inline pump

The fuel injection pump is a important component of the diesel engine. Precisely deliver fuel and
maintains a timing that keeps the engine running smooth. Continuously, the pump controls the amount
of fuel needed to gain the desired power. Major advances in the development of the diesel engine are a
direct result of better fuel injection.

Rotary pump

A rotary type fuel injection pump is a simple design. This type of pump is usually used in high-speed,
light vehicle diesel engines. This is also known as Distributor Injection Pumps.

A spinning rotor makes a hydraulic connection with the different ports on the distributor head, similar to
the way a distributor works on a gasoline engine. These types of pumps have only one fuel-metering
plunger. Benefits of a rotary-style pump with only one plunger are all the shots of fuel are exactly the
same, and it makes for a smaller overall pump size. Distributor style pumps have less moving parts
compared to inline pumps. Applications - Bosch VE (17,000 psi), Stanadyne DB2 (6,700 psi).
Inline pump

When the rotary pump uses a single plunger to deliver fuel, the in line pump utilizes several plungers
operated by a camshaft, one plunger for each cylinder, which mechanically connected to the engine.
These pumps also called jerk pumps. Inline injection pumps look like mini inline engines. Applications -
Bosch P7100 (18,000 psi).
 5. CRDI high pressure pump

In the common rail system, pressure generation and injection are separate, meaning that the fuel is
constantly available at the required pressure for injection. The pressure is generated by the high-
pressure pump. The pump compresses the fuel and feeds it to the high-pressure pipe to the inlet of the
rail. From there, the fuel is distributed to the individual injectors, which inject into the cylinder’s
combustion chamber.

The high-pressure pump compresses the fuel and supplies the required amount. Because of the
constant feed of fuel is delivered to the high-pressure reservoir it can maintain the pressure.
 6. Diesel engine heating system

Glow plugs
Diesel engines rely on the heat generated through the compression of an intake air charge a
temperature of around 850 degrees Celsius. It is critical for a diesel engine to start in order to guarantee
that this temperature is reached and the engine can be started in minimal time even in unfavorable cold
weather conditions, additional heat must be introduced to the combustion chamber. In most diesel
passenger vehicles this is achieved using glow plugs. It was originally designed for indirect injection,
pencil type glow plugs were fitted to the cylinder head with the tip projecting into the pre combustion
chamber.

Fuel-heating system
Because diesel engines require much higher temperatures to fire the fuel, they’ve always been harder to
start in cold weather than gasoline powered vehicles. This is a system for preheating diesel fuel before
being introduced into a chamber. The system includes a preheating element, the heat needed to reach
the burning point of the diesel fuel with the presence of preheating will be less in amount compared to
the system without preheating. Compression heat with fuel preheating will remain constant so the
combustion of the diesel fuel will be perfect improving diesel engine performance.
Block heater
Most diesel engines comes with a built in electric-powered block heaters to keep the engine block warm
overnight. The heater goanna heat the engine block up and ready to be started in a cold weather.

Diesel air intake heater

The air intake heater heats air before it enters the engine in to encourage starting with cool or cold air.

Diesel filter types

Fuel filters in the diesel engine filter out harmful impurities and moisture in the fuel system. It keeps the
engine in normal working condition, reduce wear and tear, avoid clogging the fuel system and improve diesel
engine life. On diesel engines there two filters in the fuel system, they are primary and secondary fuel filters.
The primary filter filters out all the big particles and rust, the secondary filter filters the fine small particles in
the fuel. The primary filter is usually located between the tank and the supply pump, the secondary filter
between the supply pump and the injection pump.
Diesel emission control systems
The complete combustion of diesel fuel would only generate CO2 and H2O in combustion chambers of
engine. But a number of harmful products are generated during combustion. The most significant
harmful products are CO, HC, NOx, and DPM. High temperature combustion creates nitrous oxides and
cooler combustion and less efficient combustion creates DPM (Diesel particle matter).

EGR – Exhaust gas recirculation

Manufacturers decided to use this in order to try to limit the number of nitrous oxides coming out the
tailpipe. EGR system does that by delivering some of the exhaust gases, recirculating it back into the
intake through the EGR valve. The down side of this system is that's replacing fresh air fuel mixture
coming into the engine and results in a less efficient.

DPF – Diesel particulate filter

It’s similar to a muffler but it’s a very fine filter. Exhaust gases that's coming out of the engine is caught
in a screen that's filters down to one micron. At some point however it starts plugging up the DPF and
that caused a little back pressure the engine caused it to run low efficiency. The solutions are to take it
off and get it cleaned or replace it, which is very expensive.
Selective catalytic reduction
The system and it works in conjunction with DEF – Diesel exhaust fluid. Diesel exhaust fluid is
ammonia, this is computer controlled. It injects ammonia into the selective catalytic reduction the
ammonia then combines with the NOx in the engine and comes out of the tail pipe as some harmless
water and nitrogen.