On the Mechanism of Flashing Injection of Initially Subcooled Fuels

The mechanisms responsible for flash-boiling injection were investigated. Using an electromagnetic injector developed for this study, propane, methanol and Indolene were heated and injected into a constant-volume vessel. Two regimes of flash-boiling injection were identified. In the first regime, flash-boiling occurs within the injector nozzle without an increase in spray-cone angle. In the second regime, the nozzle exit pressure is sufficiently low that the two-phase compressible mixture created by flash-boiling within the injector nozzle is underexpanded at the nozzle exit and expands externally to increase the spray-cone angle.