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Battery Electric Vehicles and Extended Range Electric Vehicles, like the Chevrolet Volt, can use electrical energy from the Grid to meet the majority of a driver�s transportation needs. This has the positive societal effects of displace petroleum consumption and associated pollutants from combustion on a well to wheels basis, as well as reduced energy costs for the driver. CO2 may also be lower, but this depends upon the nature of the grid energy generation. There is a mix of sources � coal-fired, gas -fired, nuclear or renewables, like hydro, solar, wind or biomass for grid electrical energy. This mix changes by region, and also on the weather and time of day. By monitoring the grid mix and communicating it to drivers (or to their vehicles) in real-time, electrically driven vehicles may be recharged to take advantage of the lowest CO2, and potentially lower cost charging opportunities.

The interaction between a combusting diesel spray and a wall was studied by measuring the spray flame temperature time and spatially resolved. The influence of injection sequences, injection pressure and gas conditions on the heat transfer between the combusting spray and the wall was investigated by measuring the flame temperature during the complete injection event. The flame temperature was measured by an emission based optical method and determined by comparing the relative emission intensities from the soot in the flame at two wavelength intervals. The measurements were done by employing a monochromatic and non intensified high speed camera, an array of mirrors, interference filters and a beam splitter. The studies were carried out in the Chalmers High Pressure High Temperature (HP/HT) spray rig at conditions similar to those prevailing in a direct injected diesel engine prior to the injection of fuel.

A series of experimental studies of diesel spray combustion was carried out using non-circular and back-step orifices. The experiments were performed in a single-cylinder engine and in a constant volume combustion chamber. In the engine tests, elliptic orifices with an aspect ratio of approximately 2:1 were compared with circular orifices. The elliptic orifices had sharp inlets and the circular orifices had rounded inlets. Elliptic orifices aligned with either the minor axis or the major axis in the direction of the nozzle tip were tested. The orifice shapes had minor effects on the heat release, ignition delay, and emissions of smoke, CO and HC. However, substantial differences were observed for emissions of NOx: for the vertical elliptic orifices, emissions up to 37.6 percent lower than with circular orifices were observed. In the combustion bomb tests, rectangular and back-step orifices were compared with circular orifices, all with sharp inlets.

Analysis of spray-wall interaction is a major issue in the study of the combustion process in DI diesel engines. Along with spray characteristics, the investigation of impinging sprays and of liquid wall film development is fundamental for predicting the mixture formation. Simulations of these phenomena for diesel sprays need to be validated and improved; nevertheless they can extend and complement experimental measurements. In this paper the wall film thickness for impinging sprays was investigated by evaluating the heat transfer across a temperature controlled wall. In fact, heat transfer is significantly affected by the wall film thickness, and both experiments and simulations were carried out to correlate the wall temperature variations and film height. The numerical simulations were carried out using the STAR-CD and the KIVA-3V, rel. 2, codes.

During the development of the aerodynamic properties of fore coming road vehicles down scaled models are often used in the initial phase. However, if scale models are to be utilised even further in the aerodynamic development they have to include geometrical representatives of most of the components found in the real vehicle. As the cooling package is one of the biggest single generators of aerodynamic drag the heat exchangers are essential to include in a wind tunnel model. However, due mainly to limitations in manufacturing techniques it is complicated to make a down scaled heat exchanger and instead functional dummy heat exchangers have to be developed for scaled wind tunnel models. In this work a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) code has been used to show that it is important that the simplified heat exchanger model has to be of comparable size to that of the full scale unit.

Nowadays for small-scale power generation there are electrochemical batteries and mini engines. Many efforts have been done for improving the power density of the batteries but unfortunately the value of 1 MJ/kg seems to be asymptotic. If the energy source is an organic fuel which has an energy density of around 29 MJ/kg with a minimum overall efficiency of only 3.5%, this device would surpass the batteries. This paper is the fifth of a series of publications aimed to study the HCCI combustion process in the milli domain at high engine speed in order to design and develop VIMPA, Vibrating Microengine for Low Power Generation and Microsystems Actuation. Previous studies ranged from general characterization of the HCCI combustion process by using metal and optical engines, to more specific topics for instance the influence of the boundary layer and quenching distance on the quality of the combustion.

A Turbulent Flame Speed Closure Model is modified and implemented into the FIRE code for use in 3D computations of combustion in an SI-engine. The modifications are done to account for mixture inhomogeneity, and mixture compression through the dependency of local equivalence ratio, pressure and temperature on the chemical time scale and a global reaction time scale. The model is also subjected to further evaluation against experimental data, covering different mixture and turbulence conditions. The combustion process in a 4-valve pentroof combustion chamber is simulated and heat release rates and spatial flame distribution are evaluated against experimental data. The computations show good agreement with the experiments. The model has proven to be a robust and time effective simulation tool with good predictive ability.

Wall wetting can occur irrespective of combustion concept in diesel engines, e.g. during the compression stroke. This action has been related to engine-out emissions in different ways, and an experimental investigation of impinging diesel sprays is thus made for a standard diesel fuel and a two-component model fuel (IDEA). The experiment was performed at conditions corresponding to those found during the compression stroke in a heavy duty diesel engine. The spray characteristics of two fuels were measured using two different optical methods: a Phase Doppler Particle Analyzer (PDPA) and high-speed imaging. A temperature controlled wall equipped with rapid, coaxial thermocouples was used to record the change in surface temperature from the heat transfer of the impinging sprays.

The paper describes a novel method for calculating the residual gas fraction and the trapping efficiency in a 2 stroke engine. Assuming one dimensional compressible flow through the inlet and exhaust ports, the method estimates the instantaneous mass flowing in and out from the combustion chamber; later the residual gas fraction and trapping efficiency are estimated combining together the perfect displacement and perfect mixing scavenging models. It is assumed that when the intake port opens, the fresh mixture is pushing out the burned charge without any mixing and after a multiple of the time needed for the largest eddy to perform one rotation, the two gasses are instantly mixed up together and expelled. The result is a very simple algorithm that does not require much computational time and is able to estimate with high level of precision the trapping efficiency and the residual gas fraction in 2 stroke engines.

To elucidate the processes controlling the auto-ignition timing and overall combustion duration in homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) engines, the distribution of the auto-ignition sites, in both space and time, was studied. The auto-ignition locations were investigated using optical diagnosis of HCCI combustion, based on laser induced fluorescence (LIF) measurements of formaldehyde in an optical engine with fully variable valve actuation. This engine was operated in two different modes of HCCI. In the first, auto-ignition temperatures were reached by heating the inlet air, while in the second, residual mass from the previous combustion cycle was trapped using a negative valve overlap. The fuel was introduced directly into the combustion chamber in both approaches. To complement these experiments, 3-D numerical modeling of the gas exchange and compression stroke events was done for both HCCI-generating approaches.

In this work, constant volume combustion is studied using a zero-dimensional FORTRAN code, which is a wide-ranging chemical kinetic simulation that allows a closed system of gases to be described on the basis of a set of initial conditions. The model provides an engine- or reactor-like environment in which the engine simulations allow for a variable system volume and heat transfer both to and from the system. The combustion chamber is divided into two zones as burned and unburned ones, which are separated by an assumed thin flame front in the combustion model used for this work. Equilibrium assumptions have been adopted for the modeling of the thermal ionization, where Saha's equation was derived for singly ionized molecules. The investigation is focused on the thermal ionization of NO as well as for other species. The outputs generated by the model are temperature profiles, species concentration profiles, ionization degree and an electron density for each zone.

A naturally aspirated in-line six-cylinder 2.9-litre Volvo engine is operated in Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) mode, using camshafts with low lift and short duration generating negative valve overlap. This implementation requires only minor modifications of the standard SI engine and allows SI operation outside the operating range of HCCI. Standard port fuel injection is used and pistons and cylinder head are unchanged from the automotive application. A heat exchanger is utilized to heat or cool the intake air, not as a means of combustion control but in order to simulate realistic variations in ambient temperature. The combustion is monitored in real time using cylinder pressure sensors. HCCI through negative valve overlap is recognized as one of the possible implementation strategies of HCCI closest to production. However, for a practical application the intake temperature will vary both geographically and from time to time.

For the application to Gasoline Homogenous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) modeling, a multi-zone model was developed. For this purpose, the detailed-chemistry code SENKIN from the CHEMKIN library was modified. In a previous paper, the authors explained how piston motion and a heat transfer model were implemented in the SENKIN code to make it applicable to engine modeling. The single-zone model developed was successfully implemented in the engine cycle simulation code AVL BOOST™. A multi-zone model, including a crevice volume, a quench layer and multiple core zones, is introduced here. A temperature distribution specified over these zones gives this model a wider range of application than the single-zone model, since fuel efficiency, emissions and heat release can now be predicted more accurately. The SENKIN-BOOST multi-zone model predictions are compared with experimental data.

“Hot Bulb engines” was the popular name of the early direct injected 2-stroke oil engine, invented and patented by Carl W. Weiss 1897. This paper covers engines of this design, built under license in Sweden by various manufacturers. The continuous development is demonstrated through examples of different combustion chamber designs. The material is based on official engine performance evaluations on stationary engines and farm tractors from 1899 to 1995 made by the National Machinery Testing Institute in Sweden (SMP). Hot-bulb, diesel and spark ignited engines are compared regarding efficiency, brake mean effective pressure and specific power (power per displaced volume). The evaluated hot-bulb engines had a fairly good efficiency, well matching the contemporary diesel engines. At low mean effective pressures, the efficiency of the hot-bulb engines was even better than that of subsequent diesel engines.

Heat transfer to the walls of the combustion chamber is increased by engine knock. In this study the influence of knock onset and knock intensity on the heat flux is investigated by examining over 10 000 individual engine cycles with a varying degree of knock. The heat transfer to the walls was estimated by measuring the combustion chamber wall temperature in an SI engine under knocking conditions. The influence of the air-fuel ratio and the orientation of the oscillating cylinder pressure-relative to the combustion chamber wall-were also investigated. It was found that knock intensities above 0.2 Mpa influenced the heat flux. At knock intensities above 0.6 Mpa, the peak heat flux was 2.5 times higher than for a non-knocking cycle. The direction of the oscillations did not affect the heat transfer.

Ion current measurements can give information useful for controlling the combustion stability in a multi-cylinder engine. Operation near the dilution limit (air or EGR) can be achieved and it can be optimized individually for the cylinders, resulting in a system with better engine stability for highly diluted mixtures. This method will also compensate for engine wear, e.g. changes in volumetric efficiency and fuel injector characteristics. Especially in a port injected engine, changes in fuel injector characteristics can lead to increased emissions and deteriorated engine performance when operating with a closed-loop lambda control system. One problem using the ion-current signal to control engine stability near the lean limit is the weak signal resulting in low signal to noise ratio. Measurements presented in this paper were made on a turbocharged 9.6 liter six cylinder natural gas engine with port injection.

An engine with variable valve timing was operated in homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) mode. In two sets of experiments, the fuel was introduced directly into the combustion chamber using a split injection strategy. In the first set, lambda was varied while the fuel flow was constant. The second set consisted of experiments during which the fuel flow was altered and lambda was fixed. The results were evaluated using an engine simulation code with integrated detailed-chemistry. The auto-ignition temperature of the air-fuel mixture was reached when residual mass of the previous combustion cycle was captured using a negative valve overlap and compressed together with the fresh mixture charge inducted. When a pilot fuel amount was introduced in the combustion chamber before piston TDC, during the negative valve overlap, radicals were formed as well as intermediates and combustion took place during this overlap provided the mixture was lean.

Underhood Thermal Management has become an important topic for the majority of automotive OEM's. To keep combustion engines cool and manage waste heat efficiently is an important part in the design of vehicles with low fuel consumption. To be able to predict cooling performance and underhood airflow with good precision within a virtual design process, it is of utmost importance to model and simulate the cooling fan efficiently and accurately, and this has turned out to be challenging. Simulating the cooling fan in a vehicle installation involves capturing complex fluid dynamic interaction between rotating blades and stationary objects in the vicinity of the fan. This interaction is a function of fan rotation rate, fan blade profile, upstream and downstream installation components. The flow is usually highly turbulent and small geometry details, like the distance between the blade tip and the fan shroud, have strong impact on the fan performance characteristics.

Many new combustion concepts are currently being investigated to further improve engines in terms of both efficiency and emissions. Examples include homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI), lean stratified premixed combustion, stratified charge compression ignition (SCCI), and high levels of exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) in diesel engines, known as low temperature combustion (LTC). All of these combustion concepts have in common that the temperatures are lower than in traditional spark ignition or diesel engines. To further improve and develop combustion concepts for clean and highly efficient engines, it is necessary to develop new computational tools that can be used to describe and optimize processes in nonstandard conditions, such as low temperature combustion.

Today numerical models are a major part of the diesel engine development. They are applied during several stages of the development process to perform extensive parameter studies and to investigate flow and combustion phenomena in detail. The models are divided by complexity and computational costs since one has to decide what the best choice for the task is. 0D models are suitable for problems with large parameter spaces and multiple operating points, e.g. engine map simulation and parameter sweeps. Therefore, it is necessary to incorporate physical models to improve the predictive capability of these models. This work focuses on turbulence and mixing modeling within a 0D direct injection stochastic reactor model. The model is based on a probability density function approach and incorporates submodels for direct fuel injection, vaporization, heat transfer, turbulent mixing and detailed chemistry.