Experimental Study on Entrainment Characteristics of High-Pressure Methane Free Jet

Entrainment occurs during the high-pressure gas jet process, which is crucial for a natural gas direct injection engine. This study presents an experimental investigation on the high-pressure methane jet from one single-hole injector and proposes a method to obtain the entrainment mass flow rate based on kinetic energy conservation. The entrainment is related to three variables, i.e., spring plate moving distance Δx, gas jet mass at the nozzle outlet m _n, and gas jet velocity u ₁. A spring-set test rig is built to measure the spring plate moving distance Δx, and the schlieren method is adopted to test the gas jet velocity u ₁ based on a constant-volume bomb (CVB) optical test rig; finally, the weight method is used to obtain the methane gas jet mass at the nozzle outlet m _n. This combined measuring method is verified to be valid in the near field to the nozzle. The results show that the methane jet mass flow rate gradually increases along the jet direction and has a two-zone entrainment process. Zone I: near field (Lr < 10), the methane jet mass flow rate linearly increases up to the maximum; in the nozzle exit field (Lr < 1), it is conserved, and no entrainment occurs. Zone II: far field (Lr ≥ 10), the jet mass flow rate maintains the maximum, and the entrainment becomes saturated with a saturation value larger than the initial value at the nozzle outlet. The entrainment rate experiences three stages, linearly increasing in stage I and early stage II but not in late stage II and stage III. The methane injection pressure causes great effects on the mass flow rate and entrainment. As the injection pressure increases, the methane jet mass flow rate increases linearly, but the entrainment rate decreases.