Abstract
The capability of pilot injection with small fuel quantity at all engine operating conditions is one of the main feature of the common rail direct injection system. The purpose of the pilot injection is to lower the engine noise and to reduce the NOx emissions. This study describes the pilot spray structure characteristics of the common-rail diesel injectors with different electric driving characteristics, including solenoid-driven and piezo-driven type. Namely three common-rail injectors with different electric current wave were investigated in this study. The pilot spray characteristics such as spray speed, spray tip penetration, and spray angle were obtained by spray images, which is measured by the back diffusion light illumination method with optical system for high-speed temporal photography. As this research results, it was found that pilot injection of common-rail system was effected by rate of injection with different electrical characteristic for driving the injector.