A fuel injector for an internal combustion engine is disclosed. The fuel injector includes a body defining an orifice. The orifice is configured to provide passage to a fuel into a combustion chamber of the internal combustion engine. The orifice includes an inlet port having a first oval shape and an outlet port having a second oval shape. The second al shape is orthogonal to the first oval shape. Moreover, a transition from the first oval shape to the second oval shape defines a stagnation plane, facilitating an exit of the fuel as a fan spray from the outlet port.

An object of the present invention is to provide a fuel injection device in which variations in an injection flow rate for each injection is suppressed and an injection amount is stabilized.

The fuel injection device according to the present invention includes: a valve element that is seated on or unseated from a valve seat; a plurality of guide parts (302a, 302b, 302c) that slidably guide the valve element; and flow paths (306a, 306b, 306c) sandwiched between the guide parts in a circumferential direction. In the fuel injection device, one guide part (302a) among the plurality of guide parts is formed to have a longer circumferential length than that of other guide parts (302b, 302c).

Nozzle and a method of making the same are disclosed. The method includes forming a material into a nozzle forming microstructured pattern comprising a plurality of nozzle hole forming features and planar control cavity forming features; forming at least one different material into a nozzle pre-form using the nozzle forming microstructured pattern, with the nozzle pre-form comprising a plurality of nozzle pre-form holes and sacrificial planar control cavities; and forming a nozzle from the nozzle pre-form, said forming the nozzle comprising removing enough of the at least one different material to remove the sacrificial planar control cavities so as to form a top surface of the nozzle pre-form into a top surface of the nozzle, and to form each of the nozzle pre-form holes into a nozzle through hole.

A spark-ignition direct fuel injection valve includes, at least, a seat member provided with a fuel injection hole and a valve seat and a valve body which controls fuel injection from the injection hole by contacting and separating from the valve seat. In the spark-ignition direct fuel injection valve: the injection hole has an injection hole inlet which is open inwardly of the seat member and an injection hole outlet which is open outwardly of the seat member; an opening edge of the injection hole inlet has a first round-chamfered portion formed on an upstream side with respect to a fuel flow toward the injection hole inlet; and an extending length (L) of the injection hole does not exceed three times a hole diameter (D) of the injection hole.

A drive unit of a fuel injection device includes a driver circuit. The driver circuit opens and closes a valve element of the fuel injection device by supplying a drive current to the fuel injection device. The driver circuit supplies the drive current to open the valve element and sets the drive current to zero in an intermediate lift area. The intermediate lift area is an area is which a lift amount of the valve element is smaller than a maximum target lift amount.

At least one of nozzle holes is provided as a non-circular nozzle hole where the ratio of the longest diameter to the shortest diameter of an outlet opening portion is greater than 1. A virtual non-circular cone and a virtual circular cone are defined for each of the non-circular nozzle hole and a circular nozzle hole where the ratio of the longest diameter to the shortest diameter of the outlet opening portion is 1. At least two adjacent nozzle holes are formed such that the virtual non-circular cone does not interfere with the virtual circular cone or the virtual non-circular cone.

It is an object of the present invention to provide a fuel injection valve that can increase the collision force of the fuel with respect to the injection hole inner wall surface and which can realize a sufficient atomization. In an imaginary plane orthogonal to a center axis line direction of a valve body, a plurality of injection holes through and through constituting a first injection hole set are formed such that an injection hole center axis extending from an injection hole inlet surface toward an injection hole outlet surface is formed to extend in a direction different from that of a straight line connecting the origin of an imaginary orthogonal coordinate system formed by an imaginary X-axis and an imaginary Y-axis and the center of an injection hole inlet surface and that the center of an injection hole outlet surface is situated close to the imaginary X-axis with respect to the center of the injection hole inlet surface.

A method of controlling a fuel injection device that can control a small amount of injection is provided. A fuel injection device for use in an internal combustion engine, includes: a valve body that can open and close a fuel passage, a needle that transfers a force with the valve body, and executes valve opening/closing operation, and an electromagnet that includes a coil and a magnetic core provided as a driver for driving the needle, and a cylindrical nozzle holder disposed on an outer periphery of the magnetic core and the needle, in which a current is supplied to the coil to exert a magnetic attractive force between the magnetic core and the needle to open the valve body.

A nozzle hole of a nozzle plate is coupled to a fuel injection port of a fuel injection device via a swirl chamber and first and second fuel guide channels opened into the swirl chamber. The swirl chamber is formed by combining first and second elliptical-shaped recessed portions. The first fuel guide channel opens at a side of a short axis of the first elliptical-shaped recessed portion and a side of the short axis that does not overlap with the second elliptical-shaped recessed portion, and the second fuel guide channel opens at a side of a short axis of the second elliptical-shaped recessed portion and a side of the short axis that does not overlap with the first elliptical-shaped recessed portion. The first and second fuel guide channels have depths deeper than those of the swirl chamber and extend inside of the swirl chamber while gradually reducing cross-sectional areas.

The invention relates to a control device applied to a cylinder injection type of an internal combustion engine (10). The control device control a disperse parameter for changing a degree of a spread of the fuel spray injected from the injector (20) such that the maximum degree of the spread of the fuel spray under a state where an amount of the fuel adhering to the spark generation part (31a) of the spark plug (30) at the ignition timing corresponds to a first amount, is smaller than the maximum degree of the spread of the fuel spray under a state where the amount of the fuel adhering to the spark generation part at the ignition timing corresponds to a second amount smaller than said first amount.