An investigation into the use of the piezo-fluidic combined units as fuel injectors for natural gas engines

A novel piezo-fluidic gaseous fuel injector system designed for natural gas engines is described in this paper. The system consists mainly of no-moving-part fluidic devices dmces and piezo electro-fluidic interfaces. The steady state dynamic characteristics of the system were tested on a laboratory expenmental rig. The results show that the system can handle the large gas volume flow rate required by natural gas engines and is capable of operating via pulse width modulation. A few typical commercial solenold type gas injectors were also tested and the results were compared with those from the piezo-fluidic injector system. It was found that the piezo-fluidic gaseous fuel injector system has faster switching responses and smaller injection cycle-to-cycle variations.