TY - JOUR TI - A numerical study of the effects of injection rate shape on combustion and emission of diesel engines AU - He Zhixia AU - Xuan Tiemin AU - Xue Yanru AU - Wang Qian AU - Zhang Liang JN - Thermal Science PY - 2014 VL - 18 IS - 1 SP - 67 EP - 78 PT - Article AB - The spray characteristics including spray droplet sizes, droplet distribution, spray tip penetration length and spray diffusion angle directly affects the mixture process of fuel and oxygen and then plays an important role for the improvement of combustion and emission performance of diesel engines. Different injection rate shapes may induce different spray characteristics and then further affect the subsequent combustion and emission performance of diesel engines. In this paper, the spray and combustion processes based on four different injection rate shapes with constant injection duration and injected fuel mass were simulated in the software of AVL FIRE. The numerical models were validated through comparing the results from the simulation with those from experiment. It was found that the dynamic of diesel engines with the new proposed hump shape of injection rate and the original saddle shape is better than that with the injection rate of rectangle and triangle shape, but the emission of NOX is higher. And the soot emission is lowest during the late injection period for the new hump-shape injection rate because of a higher oxidation rate with a better mixture between fuel and air under the high injection pressure.