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A new formulation is developed for the ignition delay (ID) in diesel engines to account for the effect of piston motion on the global autoignition reaction rates. A differentiation is made between the IDe measured in engines and IDv, measured in constant volume vessels. In addition, a method is presented to determine the coefficients of the IDe correlation from actual engine experimental data. The new formulation for IDe is applied to predict the misfiring cycles during the cold starting of diesel engines at different low ambient temperatures. The predictions are compared with experimental results obtained on a multi-cylinder heavy-duty diesel engine.

Since the early inception of the adiabatic diesel engine in 1974, marked progress has taken place as a result of research efforts performed all over the world. The use of ceramics for heat engines in production applications has been limited to date, but is growing. Ceramic use for production heat engine has included: combustion prechambers, turbochargers, exhaust port liners, top piston ring inserts, glow plugs, oxygen sensors; and additional high temperature friction and wear components. The potential advantages of an adiabatic engine vary greatly with specific application (i.e., commercial vs. military, stationary vs. vehicular, etc.), and thus, a better understanding of the strengths and weaknesses (and associated risks) of advanced adiabatic concepts with respect to materials, tribology, cost, and payoff must be obtained.

This paper investigates theoretically the effects of heat transfer characteristics, such as crank-angle phasing and wall temperature swings, on the thermodynamic efficiency of an IC engine. The objective is to illustrate the fundamental physical basis of applying thin thermal barrier coatings to improve the performance of military and commercial IC engines. A simple model illustrates how the thermal impedance and thickness of coatings can be manipulated to control heat transfer and limit the high temperatures in engine components. A friction model is also included to estimate the overall improvement in engine efficiency by the proper selection of coating thickness and material.

Thermal barrier coatings are becoming increasingly important in providing thermal insulation for heat engine components. Thermal insulation reduces in-cylinder heat transfer from the engine combustion chamber as well as reducing component structural temperatures. Containment of heat also contributes to increased in-cylinder work and offers higher exhaust temperatures for energy recovery. Lower component structural temperatures will result in greater durability. Advanced ceramic composite coatings also offer the unique properties that can provide reductions in friction and wear. Test results and analysis to evaluate the performance benefits of thin thermal barrier coated components in a single cylinder diesel engine are presented.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate combustion and performance characteristics for an advanced class of diesel engines which support future Army ground propulsion requirements of improved thermal efficiency, reduced system size and weight, and enhanced mobility. Advanced ground vehicle engine research represents a critical building block for future Army vehicles. Unique technology driven engines are essential to the development of compact, high-power density ground propulsion systems. Through an in-house analysis of technical opportunities in the vehicle ground propulsion area, a number of dramatic payoffs have been identified as being achievable. These payoffs require significant advances in various areas such as: optimized combustion, heat release phasing, and fluid flow/fuel spray interaction. These areas have been analyzed in a fundamental manner relative to conventional and low heat rejection “adiabatic” engines.

Combustion in a diesel engine during cold starting under normal and border-line conditions was investigated. Experiments were conducted on a single cylinder, air-cooled, 4-stroke-cycle engine in a cold room. Tests covered different fuels, injection timings and ambient temperatures. Motoring tests, without fuel injection indicated that the compression pressure and temperature are dependent on the ambient temperature and cranking speeds. The tests with JP-5, with a static injection timing of 23° BTDC indicated that the engine may operate on the regular 4-stroke-cycle at normal operating ambient temperatures or may skip one cycle before each firing at moderately low temperatures, i.e. operate on an 8-stroke-cycle mode. At lower temperatures the engine may skip two cycles before each firing cycle, i.e. operate on a 12-stroke-cycle mode. These modes were reproducible and were found to depend mainly on the ambient temperature.

An experimental and numerical study was carried out to simulate the diesel spray behavior during cold starting conditions inside two single-cylinder optically accessible engines. One is an AVL single-cylinder research diesel engine converted for optical access; the other is a TACOM/LABECO engine retrofitted with mirror-coupled endoscope access. The first engine is suitable for sophisticated optical diagnostics but is constrained to limited consecutive fuel injections or firings. The second one is located inside a micro-processor controlled cold room; therefore it can be operated under a wide range of practical engine conditions and is ideal for cycle-to-cycle variation study. The intake and blow-by flow rates are carefully measured in order to clearly define the operation condition. In addition to cylinder pressure measurement, the experiment used 16-mm high-speed movie photography to directly visualize the global structures of the sprays and ignition process.

Combustion instability and white smoke emissions are serious problems during cold starting of diesel engines. In this investigation, a model has been applied to predict misfiring based on an analysis of the autoignition process. The effect of injection timing on combustion instability during the cold start transient, at different ambient temperatures is investigated, both theoretically and experimentally. Maps have been developed to show the zones where misfiring would occur. The experimental work was conducted on a direct injection heavy-duty diesel engine in a cold room. The room temperature covered a range from 21 ° C to -10 ° C. The cycle-by-cycle data analysis was made and results plotted on the developed maps. The experimental results correlated fairly well with the model prediction. Based on the analysis, a new strategy for cold starting can be developed to reduce combustion instability and white smoke emissions.

Combustion instability is investigated during the cold starting of a single cylinder, direct injection, 4-stroke-cycle, air-cooled diesel engine. The experiments covered fuels of different properties at different ambient air temperatures and injection timings. The analysis showed that the pattern of misfiring (skipping) is not random but repeatable. The engine may skip once (8-stroke-cycle operation) or twice (12-stroke-cycle operation) or more times. The engine may shift from one mode of operation to another and finally run steadily on the 4-stroke cycle. All the fuels tested produced this type of operation at different degrees. The reasons for the combustion instability were analyzed and found to be related to speed, residual gas temperature and composition, accumulated fuel and ambient air temperature.

An experimental study was carried out to visualize the spray and combustion inside an AVL single-cylinder research diesel engine converted for optical access. The injection system was a hydraulically-amplified electronically-controlled unit injector capable of high injection pressure up to 180 MPa and injection rate shaping. The injection characteristics were carefully characterized with injection rate meter and with spray visualization in high-pressure chamber. The intake air was supplied by a compressor and heated with a 40kW electrical heater to simulate turbocharged intake condition. In addition to injection and cylinder pressure measurements, the experiment used 16-mm high-speed movie photography to directly visualize the global structures of the sprays and ignition process. The results showed that optically accessible engines provide very useful information for studying the diesel combustion conditions, which also provided a very critical test for diesel combustion models.

The effect of biodiesel on the Particulate emissions is gaining significant attention particularly with the drive for the use of alternative fuels. The particulate matter (PM), especially having a diameter less than 50 nm called the Nanoparticles or Nucleation mode particles (NMPs), has been raising concerns about its effect on human health. To better understand the effect of biodiesel and its blends on particulate emissions, steady state tests were conducted on a small-bore single-cylinder high-speed direct-injection research diesel engine. The engine was fueled with Ultra-Low Sulfur Diesel (ULSD or B-00), a blend of 20% soy-derived biodiesel and 80% ULSD on volumetric basis (B-20), B-40, B-60, B-80 and 100% soy-derived biodiesel (B-100), equipped with a common rail injection system, EGR and swirl control systems at a load of 5 bar IMEP and constant engine speed of 1500 rpm.

Fuel wall impingement commonly occurs in small-bore diesel engines. Particularly during engine starting, when wall temperatures are low, the evaporation rate of fuel film remaining from previous cycles plays a significant role in the autoignition process that is not fully understood. Pre-injection chemiluminescence (PIC), resulting from low-temperature oxidation of evaporating fuel film and residual gases, was measured over 3200 μsec intervals at the end of the compression strokes, but prior to fuel injection during a series of starting sequences in an optical diesel engine. These experiments were conducted to determine the effect of this parameter on combustion phasing and were conducted at initial engine temperatures of 30, 40, 50 and 60°C, at swirl ratios of 2.0 and 4.5 at 1000 RPM. PIC was determined to increase and be highly correlated with combustion phasing during initial cycles of the starting sequence.

This paper presents an experimental investigation conducted to determine the parameters that control the behavior of autoignition in a small-bore, single-cylinder, optically-accessible diesel engine. Depending on operating conditions, three types of autoignition are observed: a single ignition, a two-stage process where a low temperature heat release (LTHR) or cool flame precedes the main premixed combustion, and a two-stage process where the LTHR or cool flame is separated from the main heat release by an apparent negative temperature coefficient (NTC) region. Experiments were conducted using commercial grade low-sulfur diesel fuel with a common-rail injection system. An intensified CCD camera was used for ultraviolet imaging and spectroscopy of chemiluminescent autoignition reactions under various operating conditions including fuel injection pressures, engine temperatures and equivalence ratios.

This paper deals with the analysis of heat release characteristics of an insulated turbocharged, six cylinder, DI contemporary diesel engine. The engine is fully insulated with thin thermal barrier coatings. Effect of insulation on the heat release was experimentally verified. Tests were carried over a range of engine speeds at 100%, 93%, 75% and 50% of rated torque. Fuel injection system was instrumented to obtain injection pressure characteristics. The study shows that rate of heat release, particularly in the major portion of the combustion, is higher for the insulated engine. Improvement in heat release and performance are primarily attributed to reduction in heat transfer loss due to the thin thermal barrier coating. Injection pressure at the rated speed and torque was found to be 138 MPa and there was no degradation of combustion process in the insulated engine. Improvements in BSFC at 93% load are 3.25% and 6% at 1600 and 2600 RPM, respectively.

This paper investigates theoretically the benefits of the Miller cycle diesel engine with and without low heat rejection on thermodynamic efficiency, brake power, and fuel consumption. It further illustrates the effectiveness of thin thermal barrier coatings to improve the performance of military and commercial IC engines. A simple model which includes a friction model is used to estimate the overall improvement in engine performance. Miller cycle is accomplished by closing the intake valve late and the engine components are coated with PSZ for low heat rejection. A significant improvement in brake power and thermal efficiency are observed.

One of the most challenging problems in diesel engines is to reduce unburned HC emissions that appear as (white smoke) during cold starting. In this paper the research is carried out on a 4-cylinder diesel engine with a common rail fuel injection system, which is able to deliver multiple injections during cold start. The causes of combustion failure at lower temperature limits are investigated theoretically by considering the rate of heat release. The results of this clearly indicate that in addition to low cranking engine speed, heat transfer and blow-by losses at lower ambient temperatures, fuel injection events would contribute to the failure of combustion. Also, combustion failure takes place when the compression temperature is lower than some critical value. Based on these results, split-main injection strategy was applied during engine cold starting and validated by experiments in a cold room at lower ambient temperatures.

A long-distance microscope with pulse-laser as optical shutter up to 25kHz was used to magnify the diesel spray at the nozzle hole vicinity onto 35-mm photographic film through a still or a high-speed drum camera. The injectors examined are high-pressure valve-covered-orifice (VCO) nozzles, from unit injector and common rail injection systems. For comparison, a mini-sac injector from a hydraulic unit injector is also investigated. A phase-Doppler particle analyzer (PDPA) system with an external digital clock was also used to measure the droplet size, velocity and time of arrival relative to the start of the injection event. The visualization results provide very interesting and dynamic information on spray structure, showing spray angle variations, primary breakup processes, and spray asymmetry not observed using conventional macroscopic visualization techniques.

Ultraviolet chemiluminescence has been observed in a diesel engine cyclinder during compression, but prior to fuel injection under engine starting conditions. During a portion of the warm-up sequence, the intensity of this emission exhibits a strong correlation to the phasing of the subsequent combustion. Engine exhaust measurements taken from a continuously misfiring, motored engine confirm the generation of formaldehyde (HCHO) in such processes. Fractions of this compound are expected to be recycled as residual to participate in the following combustion cycle. Spectral measurements taken during the compression period prior to fuel injection match the features of Emeleus' cool flame HCHO bands that have been observed during low temperature heat release reactions occurring in lean HCCI combustion. That the signal from the OH* bands is weak implies a buildup of HCHO during compression.

The future of maintaining a superior mobile military ground vehicle fleet rests in high power density propulsion systems. As the U.S. Government desires to convert its powerplant base to heavy fuel operation, there arises the opportunity to incorporate new advanced materials into these heavy fuel engines. These newer materials serve the purpose of decreasing powerplant weight and develop new component designs to take advantage of improved strength and temperature capability of those materials. In addition, the military continues the effort for a non-watercooled Low Heat Rejection (LHR) diesel engine. This type of engine demands the use of ceramic and advanced ceramic composite material hardware. Furthermore, today's higher pressure fuel injection systems, coupled with reduced air/fuel ratio as a means of increasing horsepower to size and weight, will require thermal protection or change in material specification for many of the engine's components.

Contrary to the thick thermal barrier coating approach used in adiabatic diesel engines, the authors have investigated the merits of thin coatings. Transient heat transfer analysis indicates that the temperature swings experienced at combustion chamber surfaces depend primarily on material thermophysical properties, i.e., conductivity, density, and specific heat. Thus, cyclic temperature swings should be alike whether thick or thin (less than 0.25 mm) coatings are applied, Furthermore, thin coatings would lead to lower mean component temperatures and would be easier to apply than thick coatings. The thinly-coated engine concept offers several advantages including improved volumetric efficiency, lower cylinder liner wall temperatures, improved piston-liner tribological behavior, and improved erosion-corrosion resistance and thus greater component durability.