PHOTONICS APPLIED: INDUSTRIAL LASERS: The hole story: Femtosecond manufacturing improves automobile fuel efficiency

摘要

Better control of the spray pattern and droplet size from gas direct injectors using femtosecond laser machining has a dramatic impact on engine efficiency, improving performance by as much as 30%. Automakers around the world are under pressure to meet increasingly stringent mileage requirements, so they are working on at least two fronts: to design drive-train systems that run on renewable or alternative fuels, and to wring more mileage out of existing fossil-fuel engine designs. On the latter front, researchers have found that better control of the spray pattern and droplet size from gas direct injectors (GDI) can have a dramatic impact on engine efficiency, improving performance by as much as 30%. While this discovery is exciting for automotive designers, it has proven maddeningly difficult to machine fuel injectors to the required dimensions and tolerances.