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Diesel-fueled HCCI combustion was achieved by multi-pulse injection before top dead center (TDC). However, the multi-pulse injections strategies have not been sufficiently studied previously due to the large number of parameters to be considered. In the present work, a series of multi-pulse injection modes with four or five pulses in each mode are designed, and their effects on diesel HCCI Combustion are experimentally studied. The results showed that the HCCI diesel combustion was extremely sensitive to injection mode. There were many modes to achieve very low NOx and smoke emissions, but the injection parameters of these modes must be optimized for higher thermal efficiency. A micro-genetic algorithm coupled with a modified 3D engine simulation code is utilized to optimize the injection parameters including the injection pressure, start-of-first-injection timing (SOI), fuel mass in each pulse injection and dwell time between consecutive pulse injections.

A concept of high density-low temperature combustion (HD-LTC) is put forward in this paper, showing potential of its high thermal efficiency and very low engine-out emissions by engine experimental and CFD modeling study. A single cylinder test engine has been built-up equipped with mechanisms of variable boost pressure and intake valve closing timing (IVCT). By delaying IVCT and raising boost pressure to certain values according to engine loads, the in-cylinder charge density is regulated much higher than in conventional engines. It is found that the high charge density can play the role of rising of heat capacity as exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) does. Thereby low temperature combustion is realized with less EGR (about 18~19% oxygen concentration) to achieve very low NOx and soot emissions, which is extremely important at high and full loads.

Engine experiments and CFD modeling studies have been carried out and shown that high density-low temperature combustion (H Density-LTC) has the potential of realizing high thermal efficiency and very low engine-out emissions at high and full engine loads. Parametric studies were conducted to explore the mechanism of formation of pollutants in high charge density in this paper. It was found that high charge density was normally favorable to spray atomization, evaporation and fuel/air mixing throughout the entire combustion process, but there was a turning value of charge density above which the improvement of thermal efficiency was reduced. The conversion of CO to CO₂ was accelerated and CO emission was decreased with increasing charge density, which was also proved to be beneficial to re-oxidation of soot formed. The oxygen concentration brings a conflict effect to NOx emissions and exhaust soot. The high density combustion relieved the conflict effect of oxygen concentration.

A sequential port injection, lean-burn, fully electronically-controlled compressed natural gas (CNG)/Diesel dual-fuel engine has been developed based on a turbo-charged and inter-cooled direct injection (D.I.) diesel engine. During the optimization of engine overall performance, the effects of pilot diesel and pre-mixed CNG/air mixture equivalence ratio on emissions (CO, HC, NOx, soot), knocking, misfire and fuel economy are studied. The rich and lean boundaries of the pre-mixed CNG/air mixture versus engine load are also provided, considering the acceptable values of NOx and THC emissions, respectively. It is interesting to find that there is a critical amount of pilot diesel for each load and speed point, which proved to be the optimum amount of pilot fuel. Any decrease in the amount of pilot diesel from this optimum amount results in an increase of NOx emissions, because the pre-mixed CNG/air mixture must be made richer, otherwise THC emissions would increase.

Combustion control strategy for high efficiency and low emissions in a heavy duty (H D) diesel engine was investigated experimentally in a single cylinder test engine with a common rail fuel system, EGR (Exhaust Gas Recirculation) system, boost system and retarded intake valve closing timing actuator. For the operation loads of IMEPg (Gross Indicated Mean Effective Pressure) less than 1.1 MPa the low temperature combustion (LTC) with high rate of EGR was applied. The fuel injection modes of either single injection or multi-pulse injections, boost pressure and retarded intake valve closing timing (RIVCT) were also coupled with the engine operation condition loads for high efficiency and low emissions. A higher boost pressure played an important role in improving fuel efficiency and obtaining ultra-low soot and NOx emissions.