Spray behavior is regarded as one of the main factors influencing engine performances, fuel consumption and emissions for diesel engines. Under high injection pressure, diesel spray behaviors are extremely sensitive to the nozzle internal geometries, especially the geometric structures of orifice entrance. Based on the synchrotron radiation X-ray tomography technique, the 3D digital models of nozzle tips can be constructed. A new automatic method is presented to reveal the inlet structures according to these nozzle orifice models. The planes passing through the orifice axis are determined and used to cut the models, and then the corresponding cutting images are applied to measure the inlet chamfer radii around the orifice axis automatically. The orifices of a single-hole nozzle and an eight-hole nozzle are measured according to this method. The results show that this method can automatically measure the orifice inlet chamfer radii around the orifice axis with high precision. The obtained inlet chamfer radius shows the whole profile of the orifice entrance, which is a precise feedback for nozzle designing and manufacturing, and it also provides precise geometrical boundary conditions for the study of spray behaviors.
