On instationary mechanisms in cavitating micro throttles

The current investigation presents numerical simulations of cavitating flows in a simplified model of a mushroom valve chamber of a piezo common rail injection system. Two discharge throttles with different step diameters are investigated. The developed models are able to predict relevant features of cavitating flow in fuel injectors. Special attention is put on the investigation of wave dynamics and related instationary mechanisms in the discharge throttle and the valve chamber. To this respect, a compressible flow solver with a homogeneous mixture model and barotropic description of the diesel-like-fluid is utilized. Highly unsteady phenomena are observed in both investigated designs. The structure of the cavitating flow is further analyzed with an emphasis on the interaction between collapsing vapor clouds in the throttle step and reentrant motion in the discharge throttle. Furthermore, numerical simulations reveal significant influence of the throttle step diameter on the cavity dynamics.