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To measure the fuel vapor concentration in an unsteady evaporating spray injected into nitrogen atmosphere, the exciplex-forming method, which produces spectrally separated fluorescence from the liquid and vapor phase, was applied in this study. Two experiments were conducted to investigate the qualitative and quantitative applicability of the technique in a high temperature and high pressure atmosphere during the fuel injection period. One is to examine the thermal decomposition of TMPD dopant at a high temperature and a high pressure nitrogen atmosphere during a short period of time. The other is to calibrate the relationship between fluorescence intensity and vapor concentration of TMPD at different vapor temperatures. And then, the qualitative measurement of fuel vapor concentration distributions in diesel sprays was made by applying the technique.

The concentrations of soot, NO and the other combustion products were measured by incylinder gas sampling in a DI diesel engine. The effects of injection timing, swirl ratio, and combustion chamber geometry on the formation and emission processes of soot and NO were studied. The following results were obtained: (1) Soot is promptly formed in the flame during the early combustion period where the equivalence ratio in the flame is high over 1.0. Thereafter almost all the formed soot is swiftly burnd up by oxidation during the middle combustion period. This process mainly determines the exhaust soot concentration. (2) NO is formed in the flame during the early and middle combustion period where the flame temperature is high over 2000 K. The highest NO concentration is observed at the flame tip swept by the air swirl. Though the concentration of the formed NO decreases by dilusion it nearly constant during the later combustion period.

To investigate the ignition process in a diesel spray, the ignition in a transient fuel spray is analyzed numerically by a simple quasi-steady spray model coupled with the Shell kinetics model at various operating conditions and validity of this model is assessed by a comparison with existing experimental data. The calculated results indicate that the competition between the heat absorption of fuel and the hot air entrainment determines the equivalence ratio of mixtures favorable for the ignition to occur in the shortest time.

A diesel spray and flame in a quiescent atmosphere were realized without interference with combustion chamber walls in a newly constructed rapid compression machine. High speed shadow photography and pressure measurement were employed to obtain data for calculating the amount of air entrainment into the the flame and spray. From a comparison of air entrainment between the flame and spray, it turned out that when ignition delay becomes longer air entrainment into flames is promoted by the thermal expansion of multi-points ignition sources in the central region of the spray.

In this study, the combustion characteristics of diesel flame achieved in a rapid compression and expansion machine (RCEM) at various patterns of oxygen distribution in the chamber are investigated in order to clarify the effect of heterogeneity of oxygen distribution in diesel engines induced by EGR on the soot and NOx emissions. To make the heterogeneous distribution of oxygen in a combustion chamber, the mixtures with different oxygen concentrations are injected through the each different port located on the cylinder wall. Results indicate that the amount of oxygen entrained into the spray upstream the luminous flame region affects the NO emission from diesel flame strongly.

To investigate the ignition process in a diesel spray, the ignition in a transient fuel spray is analyzed numerically by a discrete droplet spray model (DDM) coupled with the Shell kinetics model at various operating conditions. Predicted results show that the fuel mixture injected at the start of injection, which travels along midway between the spray axis and the spray periphery, contributes heavily to the first ignition in a spray. The equivalence ratio and temperature of the first ignited mixture are kept nearly constant until the start of hot ignition. The temperature of the first ignited mixture is kept at a constant value of higher temperature than the thermodynamic equilibrium temperature of the mixture before the hot ignition starts. The equivalence ratio of the first ignited mixture is around 1.6 at initial gas temperatures between 750 K and 850 K.

Hydraulically damped rubber engine mounts (HDM) are an effective means of providing sufficient isolation from engine vibration while also providing significant damping to control the rigid body motions of the engine during normal driving conditions. This results in a system which exhibits a high degree of non-linearity in terms of both frequency and amplitude. The numerical simulation of vibration isolation characteristics of HDM is difficult due to the fluid-structure interaction between the main supporting rubber and fluid in chambers, the nonlinear material properties, the large deformation of rubber parts, structure contact problems among the inner parts, and the turbulent flow in the inertia track. In this paper an integrated numerical simulation analysis based on structural FEM and a lumped-parameter model of HDM is carried out.

This paper concerns the Direct System Identification Method (hereafter referred to as DSIM) which allows accurate and quick determination of two groups of properties which exercise dominant effects on low frequency vibration of a vehicle body. The first group is the rigid body properties of an engine. The second group is the properties of each engine mount. Under the assumption that the engine/mount system is a rigid body, this paper makes theoretical discussion for using the DSIM to induce the parameters of an engine/mount system, and makes improvements for better correlation with experiments. Also mentioned is a comparison of this study with the experimental results and verification of consistency on those parameters obtained from DSIM to predict the accurate vehicle characteristics, along with the role this method will play in upgrading the technology of prediction analysis.

CI engines provide higher thermal efficiency compared to other internal combustion engines. On the other hand large amounts of smoke and NOx are produced during combustion. Smoke and NOx can be reduced by applying Premixed Charge Compression Ignition (PCCI) combustion. Unfortunately, the problems of PCCI combustion include unstable start of combustion and limited operating range. The multi-pulse ultrahigh pressure injection allows fuel to control PCCI combustion. The objective of offset orifice nozzle is to improve mixture formation and shorten spray penetration in order to increase thermal efficiency and control PCCI combustion. The offset orifice nozzle was designed by shift orifice aliment from into the sac center to edge of sac follow swirl direction. Counter bore design was applied to offset orifice nozzle in order to keep the constant orifice length as standard nozzle.

A newly developed small-sized IES (inductive energy storage) circuit with static induction thyristor at turn-off action was successfully applied to an ignition system. This IEC circuit can generate repetitive nanosecond pulse discharges. In this paper, the ignition system using repetitive nanosecond pulse discharges was investigated as an alternative to conventional spark ignition systems. The experiments were conducted using spherically expanding flame configuration for CH4 and C3H8-air mixtures under various conditions. In conclusions, the ignition system using repetitive nanosecond pulse discharges was found to extend lean flammability limits compared with conventional spark ignition systems. In addition, the ignition system using repetitive nanosecond pulse discharges could shorten ignition delay time.

A rapid compression-expansion machine was developed, which can simulate intake, compression, expansion and exhaust strokes in a single Diesel cycle by an electrically controlled and hydraulically actuated driving system. The whole system which is composed of a hydraulic actuator, fuel injector and a valve driving device, is sequentially controlled by a micro-computer. The machine features; 1) accurate control of piston position at TDC, 2) no effect of lubricant on HC emission due to the use of dry piston rings; 3) independent control of local wall temperature; and 4) high power output to drive heavy piston at high frequency. The single cycle operation permits Diesel combustion experiments under a wide range of operating conditions and easy access of optical diagnostics with minimized amount of test fuel. The performance test showed that the machine can drive a DI Diesel type piston with a 100 mm bore at a maximum frequency of 16.7 Hz at a maximum compression pressure of 15 MPa.

A rapid compression-expansion machine which can simulate the combustion processes in diesel engines is developed. The configuration of the combustion chamber is a 100 mm bore and a 90 mm stroke, and the compression ratio is 15. The piston is driven by an electro-hydraulic system with a thrust of 90 kN and the maximum frequency of 20 Hz. The whole system composed of a hydraulic actuator, a fuel injection system, and a valve driving unit is sequentially controlled by a computer. The reproducibility of the stop position of the piston at the end of compression is achieved with an accuracy of ±0.1 mm by employing a hydraulic-mechanical brake mechanism. The experiment shows that the combustion in the expansion stroke is achieved, and that the combustion characteristics such as the rate of heat release and indicated output as well as the exhaust emission can be measured.

Local heat flux from the flame to the combustion chamber wall, q̇, was measured the wall surfaces of a rapid compression-expansion machine which can simulate diesel combustion. Temperature of the flame zone, T1, was calculated by a thermodynamic two-zone model using measured values of cylinder pressure and flame volume. A local heat transfer coefficient was proposed which is defined as q̇/(T1-Tw). Experiments showed that the local heat transfer coefficient depends slightly on the temperature difference, T1-Tw, but depends significantly on the velocity of the flame which contacts the wall surface.

The method was established to identify the dynamic stiffness of the engine mount using modal parameters acquired from experimental modal analysis. Vibration tests were conducted using actual large outboard motor the BF225 (165 kW), and the dynamic stiffness of the mounts was identified. The results show that this method can identify the engine mount dynamic stiffness more adequately than the conventional method, even when the engine mounts are subjected to loads corresponding to thrust force or even in the case that the stiffness of the parts supporting an outboard motor is low.

The increasing of global energy demand and stringent pollution regulations have promoted research on alternative fuels. In Thailand, ethanol, can be produced from many sources of national agriculture products as renewable fuel, which was strongly promoted by government due to its many merits for use in transportation field. In this study, combustion characteristics of ethanol-gasoline blend (20%, 85%, and 100%) as well as pure gasoline (E0) were investigated by using a swirl-generated constant volume combustion chamber. Flame propagations of different fuel blends were observed by high speed Schlieren photography technique while pressure history data were recorded for detailed combustion analysis. Combustion behavior, combustion duration and rate of pressure rise of all tested fuels were investigated in various swirl intensities and equivalence ratios. In addition, effect of swirl intensities and ethanol concentration on lean misfire limit were also discussed.

A newly developed small-sized IES (inductive energy storage) circuit with a semiconductor switch at turn-off action was successfully applied to an ignition system. This IES circuit can generate repetitive nanosecond pulse discharges. An ignition system using repetitive nanosecond pulse discharges was investigated as an alternative to conventional spark ignition systems in the previous papers. Experiments were conducted using constant volume chamber for CH₄ and C₃H₈-air mixtures. The ignition system using repetitive nanosecond pulse discharges was found to improve the inflammability of lean combustible mixtures, such as extended flammability limits, shorted ignition delay time, with increasing the number of pulses for CH₄ and C₃H₈-air mixtures under various conditions. The mechanisms for improving the inflammability were discussed and the effectiveness of IES circuit under EGR condition was also verified.

The relation between the characteristics of a non-evaporating spray and those of a corresponding frame achieved in a rapid compression machine was investigated experimentally. The fuel injection pressure was changed in a range of 55 to 260 MPa and the other injection parameters such as orifice diameter and injection duration were changed systematically. The characteristics of the non-evaporating spray such as the Sauter mean diameter and the mean excess air ratio of the spray were measured by an image analysis technique. The time required for a pressure rise due to combustion was taken as an index to characterize the flame. It was concluded that the mean excess air ratio of a spray is the major factor which controls the burning rate and that the high injection pressure is effective in shortening the combustion duration and reducing soot formation.

A one-dimensional numerical calculation has been performed on a new reciprocating heat engine proposed on the basis of super-adiabatic combustion in porous media. The system consists of two pistons and a thin porous medium in a cylinder; one being a displacer piston and the other a power piston. These create reciprocating motions with a phase relation angle. By means of the reciprocating flow system, the residual combustion gas enthalpy is effectively regenerated to induce enthalpy increase in the mixture through the porous medium. Due to heat recirculation, the thermal efficiency reaches to 58% under the condition of the compression ratio of 2.3.

To investigate the heat transfer phenomena inside the combustion chamber of a diesel engine, a correlation for the heat transfer coefficient in a combustion chamber of a diesel engine was investigated based on heat flux measured by the authors in the previous study(8) using the rapid compression and expansion machine. In the correlation defined in the present study, thermodynamically estimated two-zone temperatures in the burned zone and the unburned zone are applied. The characteristic velocity given in the correlation is related to the speed of spray flame impinging on the wall during the fuel injection period. After the fuel injection period, the velocity term of the Woschni’s equation is applied. It was shown that the proposed correlation well expresses heat transfer phenomena in diesel engines.

The local heat fluxes from impinging combusting and evaporating diesel sprays to the wall of a square combustion chamber were measured in a rapid compression machine. It was revealed that the ratio of local heat flux between the combusting and evaporating spray, q̇c/q̇e, is of the same order of magnitude as (Tc-Tw)/(Te-Tw) and its values estimated by a two-zone model agree roughly with the measured ones. The time-mean local heat flux during the spray impingement was found to be approximately proportional to the 0.8th power of the injection velocity and the heat-transfer phenomenon depends largely on whether the ignition starts before or after the impingement.