The purpose of this study is the experimental and numerical investigation on the DME spray characteristics in the combustion chamber according to the injection timing in a common-rail injection system. The visualization system consisted of the high speed camera with metal halide lamp was used for analyzing the spray characteristics such as spray development processes and the spray tip penetration in the free and in-cylinder spray under various ambient pressure. In order to observe the spray characteristics as a function of injection timing, the piston head shape of re-entrant type was created and the fuel injected into the chamber according to various distance between nozzle tip and piston wall in consideration of injection timing. Also, the spray and evaporation characteristics in the cylinder was calculated by using KlVA-3V code for simulating spray development process and spray tip penetration under real engine conditions. It was revealed that the high ambient pressure of 3 MPa was led to delay the spray development and evaporation of DME spray. In addition, injected sprays after BTDC 20 degrees entered the bowl region and the spray at the BTDC 30 degrees was divided into two regions. In the calculated results, the liquefied spray tip penetration and fuel evaporation were shorter and more increased as the injection timing was retarded, respectively.