Technical Paper
Calculation of Thermal Boundary Conditions for Hydrogen Internal Combustion Engines
2023-10-31
2023-01-1675
Hydrogen has been identified as a promising decarbonization fuel in internal combustion engine (ICE) applications in many areas including heavy-duty on- and off-road, power-generation, marine, etc. Hydrogen ICEs can achieve high power density and very low tailpipe emissions. However, there are challenges; designing systems for a gaseous fuel with its own specific mixing, burn rate and combustion control needs, which can differ from legacy products. The primary pollutant of concern for Hydrogen ICEs is NOx which can be addressed by running the engine at very lean equivalence ratios and the use of Exhaust Gas Recirculation (EGR). Computation Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is a valuable tool to model the combustion characteristics under different conditions, as presented in SAE-2023-01-0197 [1], which can also be used to predict thermal loading.
