Search Results

HCCI (Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition) engine is able to achieve low NOx and particulate emissions as well as high efficiency. However, its operation range is limited by the knocking at high load, which is the consequence of excessively rapid pressure rises. It has been suggested that making thermal or fuel inhomogeneities can be used to solve this problem, since these inhomogeneities have proved to create different auto-ignition timing zones. It has also been suggested that EGR (Exhaust Gas Recirculation) has a potential to reduce pressure rise rate. But according to a past report, it was concluded that under the same fueling ratio and CA50 with different initial temperature and EGR ratio, the maximum PRR is almost constant. The purpose of this study is to investigate the fundamental effects of EGR. First, I considered EGR homogeneous charge case. In this case, the effects of EGR and its components like CO₂, H₂O or N₂ on HCCI combustion process is argued.

In HCCI Engine, the HCCI combustion characteristics come under the influence of change of compression speed corresponding to the engine speed. The purpose of this study is to investigate mechanism of influence of engine speed on HCCI combustion characteristics by using numerical analysis. At first, the influence of engine speed was showed. And then, in order to clarify the mechanism of influence of engine speed, results of kinetic computations were analyzed to investigate the elementary reaction path for heat release at transient temperatures by using contribution matrix.

In the HCCI (Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition) engine, a mixture of fuel and air is supplied to the cylinder and auto-ignition occurs resulting from compression. This method can expand the lean flammability limit, realizing smokeless combustion and also having the potential for realizing low NOx and high efficiency. The optimal ignition timing is necessary in order to keep high thermal efficiency. The Ignition in the HCCI engine largely depends on the chemical reaction between the fuel and the oxidizer. Physical methods in conventional engines cannot control it, so a chemical method is demanded. Combustion duration is maintained properly to avoid knocking. In addition, the amount of HC and CO emissions must be reduced. The objective of this study is to clarify the following through calculations with detailed chemical reactions and through experiment with the 2-stroke HCCI engine: the chemical reaction mechanism, and HC and CO emission mechanisms.

To analyze the combustion mechanism of the so-called Active Thermo-Atmosphere Combustion (ATAC) in a two-stroke S.I. engine, a measuring system to obtain images of radical luminescence in the combustion chamber was developed. The ATAC engine tested was equipped with a quartz windows as the cylinder head. The instantaneous luminescence from radical species was observed using an image intensifier with a single band pass filter for both conventional and ATAC operating conditions. At ATAC operation, emissions from OH radicals were observed before heat release began, and after that, emissions from CH were observed. It was found that the ignition was initiated over the entire area of the combustion chamber and “bulk-like” and/or “non propagating” combustion occurred during ATAC engine operation.

High pressure fuel injection and a micro-hole nozzle were used with a rapid compression machine to study soot and nitrogen oxide reduction by creating a uniform and lean fuel distribution in the combustion chamber. The rapid compression machine was optically accessible, which allowed high-speed photography and subsequent two-color flame temperature and soot concentration measurements to be made. In addition, band spectrum radical luminescence images were also observed.

The research shows the experimental results for a free piston linear engine according to operation conditions of the linear engine and the structure of linear generator for generating electric power. The powerpack used in this paper consists of the two-stroke free piston linear engine, linear generators and air compressors. Each parameter of fuel input heat, equivalence ratio, spark timing delay, electrical resistance and air gap length were set up to identify the combustion characteristics and to examine the performance of linear engine. The linear engine was fueled with propane. In the course of all linear engine operations, intake air was inputted under the wide open throttle state. Air and fuel mass flow rate were varied by using mass flow controller and these were premixed by pre-mixing device. Subsequently, pre-mixture was directly supplied into each cylinder.

This work has been investigated the potential of in-cylinder EGR stratification for reducing the pressure rise rate of DME HCCI engines, and the coupling of both thermal stratification and fuel stratification. The numerical analyses were done by using five-zone version of CHEMKIN-II kinetics rate code, and kinetic mechanics for DME. The effects of inert components were used for the presence of EGR in calculation. Three cases of EGR stratification were tested on both thermal stratification and fuel stratification at the fixed initial temperature, pressure and fueling rate at BDC. In order to explore the appropriate stratification of EGR, EGR width was employed from zero to thirty percent. Firstly, EGR homogeneity case which means EGR width zero was examined. Secondly, EGR is located densely in hotter zone for combining with thermal stratification or in richer zone for a combination with fuel stratification. Lastly, the case was judged inversely with the second case.

The exhaust gas composition was analyzed by gas chromatography, and combustion completion was investigated in a 2-stroke Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) engine. The experiment was performed using n-Butane as a typical pure fuel to easily identify the origin of exhaust gas components. The effect of maximum gas temperature on combustion completion was investigated by both the experiment and the calculation. From the measurements of unburned n-Butane emission, the thickness of the quenching layer was estimated.

The operating range is restricted by knocking and misfiring in a homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) engine. In an HCCI engine, the autoignition does not always mean the high combustion efficiency because the operating range to achieve high combustion efficiency is very narrowly restricted by knocking and high THC, CO emissions. In this study, we have investigated the operating conditions to achieve high combustion efficiency and low CO emission in a four-stroke HCCI engine using experimental analysis and elementary reactions calculation. It is shown that the combustion efficiency reaches higher than 90%, and the CO emission can be reduced considerably when the in-cylinder maximum gas temperature is over 1600K.

In this study, attention was paid to the method of mixing fuel to solve one of problems of the HCCI engine, which is the avoidance of knocking. The objectives of the work reported in this paper were to research the characteristics of HCCI combustion of the Methane/DME/air pre-mixture in the experiment and to check the oxidation reaction in two cases: when DME was used as an ignition accelerator for the Methane/air pre-picture, and when Hydrogen was used as ignition accelerator. Furthermore, from these results reference was made about basic specifications required fuel for an HCCI engine.

Accurate measurements of combustion gas temperature and the coefficient of heat transfer between the gas and the combustion chamber wall of internal combustion engine in cyclic operations are difficult at present. Hence the only method available for determination of states of thermal load and heat loss to the combustion chamber wall in a cycle is to measure the instantaneous temperature on the combustion chamber wall surface accurately and precisely using proper thin-film thermocouples, then to calculate the instantanenous heat flux flowing into the wall surface by means of numerical analysis. However, it is necessary to pay adequate attention to the effects of thermophysical properties of the thermocouple materials on the measured values, since any thermocouple consists of several kinds of materials which are different from those of portions to be measured.

HCCI (Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition) engine is expected to a new engine to be high efficiency and low emission. But it is difficult to control ignition timing and combustion duration, because ignition and combustion mainly depend on oxidation process of fuel. In this study, the focus is to clear the combustion mechanism of auto-ignition engine. By calculating chemical kinetics of elementary reactions, effects of compression speed, equivalence ratio, initial temperature and compression ratio on auto-ignition were investigated. And also, behaviors of chemical species under auto-ignition process were cleared.

The time of, and location where ignition first occurs in a diesel fuel spray were investigated in a rapid compression machine (RCM) using the two–dimensional techniques of silicone oil particle scattering imaging (SSI), and the planar laser induced fluorescence (LIF) of formaldehyde. Formaldehyde has been hypothesized to be one of the stable intermediate species marking the start of oxidation reactions in a transient spray under compression ignition conditions. In this study, the LIF images of the formaldehyde formed in a diesel fuel spray during ignition process have been successfully obtained for the first time by exciting formaldehyde with the 3rd harmonic of the Nd:YAG laser. SSI images of the vaporizing spray, and the LIF images of formaldehyde were obtained together with the corresponding time record of combustion chamber pressures at initial ambient temperatures ranging from 580 K to 790 K.

When the compression ratio of the spark ignition engine is set high as a method of improving the fuel efficiency of passenger cars, it is often combined with the direct fuel injection system for knock mitigation. In port injection, there are also situations where the fuel is guided into the cylinder while the vaporization is insufficient, especially at the cold start. If the fuel is introduced into the cylinder in a liquid state, the temperature in the cylinder will change due to sensible heat and latent heat of the fuel during vaporization. Further, if the fuel is unevenly distributed in the cylinder, the effect of the specific heat is added, and the local temperature difference is expanded through the compression process. In this research, an experiment was conducted using a rapid compression machine for the purpose of discussing the effect of the temperature-pressure time history of fuel on ignition delay time.

This study investigated effects of gas inhomogeneity induced by droplets of fuels and oils on the auto ignition timing and temperature in the direct-injection spark ignition (DISI) engine by means of detailed numerical calculation using multi zone model. Recent researchers pointed out that droplets are made of fuels and oils which mix on the cylinder liner and released from the cylinder liner [1]. During the compression stroke released droplets reach the auto ignition temperature before flame propagation induced by spark ignition. It is called Pre-ignition. In combustion chamber, there is inhomogeneity caused by temperature and mixture distribution. In this study, the effects of gas inhomogeneity produced by droplet on the auto ignition timing and temperature have been investigated using Multi-Zone model of CHEMKIN-PRO by changing initial temperature and initial equivalence ratio. Especially, the volume of first ignition zone is focused on.

To approach realization of Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) combustion without external combustion ignition trigger, it is necessary to construct HCCI engine control system. In this study, HCCI research engine equipped with the EGR passage for external EGR and the two-stage exhaust cam for exhaust rebreathed. This system can control the mixing ratio of four gases (air, fuel, rebreathed EGR gas, external EGR gas) of in-cylinder by operating four throttles and fuel injection duration while maintaining acceptable pressure rise rate (PRR) and cycle-to-cycle variation of Indicated Mean Effective Pressure (IMEP), closed-loop control system designed by applying feedback variables (equivalence ratio, combustion-phasing, IMEP) for feedback control. Those control inputs (four throttles and fuel injection) has correlation mutually, control inputs cause interference, response become low and hunching occurs.

HCCI (Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition) engine has a problem which causes knocking when the maximum PRR (Pressure Rise Rate) reaches a certain level because it takes the form of combustion of simultaneous multi-point ignition by compression of the air-fuel pre-mixture. This study focused on stratified charge of fuel in combustion chamber. This method disperses the timing of local ignition. The distribution of fuel concentration is measured by using LIF (Laser Induced Fluorescence). As a result, the maximum PRR is reduced by stratified charge of fuel. In addition, it is confirmed that the dispersion of combustion timing depends on the dispersion of fuel concentration.

The characteristics of cycle-to-cycle variations of indicated mean effective pressure (IMEP) with combustion-phasing retard have been investigated experimentally and computationally in an homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) engine using dimethyl ether (DME). The experiments were conducted in a single-cylinder HCCI research engine equipped with an exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) passage for external EGR and a two-stage exhaust cam for rebreathed EGR. To understand the chemical effects of rebreathed EGR, which is assumed to contribute to the autoignition enhancement, the computations were performed with a single-zone model of CHEMKIN using a chemical-kinetic mechanism developed by combining DME mechanism and NOx submechanism.

A simulation study was conducted to examine the transition from SI combustion to HCCI combustion in a two-stroke free piston engine fuelled with propane. Operation of the free piston engine was simulated based on the combination of three mathematical models including a dynamic model, a linear alternator model and a thermodynamic model. The dynamic model included an analysis of the piston motion, based on Newton's second law. The linear alternator model included an analysis of electromagnetic force, which was considered to be a resistance force for the piston motion. The thermodynamic model was used to analysis thermodynamic processes in the engine cycle, including scavenging, compression, combustion, and expansion processes. Therein, the scavenging process was assumed to be a perfect process. These mathematical models were combined and solved by a program written in Fortran.

Ignition by Nanosecond Repetitively Pulsed Discharges (NRPD) at EXponential Increase of Minimum Ignition Energy (MIE-EXI) region under super lean SI engine conditions was studied. Fundamental experiments were conducted with a turbulent ignition test chamber with twin counter-rotating fans. The MIE-EXI region by arc discharge appeared over 6500 rpm of fan speed. In the MIE-EXI region (7000 rpm), successful ignition was achieved by establishing coupled ignition kernels with NRPD at 15 kHz although ignition was unsuccessful at 1 kHz. Results show that ignition by NRPD has potential advantages for lean burn applications. Preliminary engine test results with NRPD were also demonstrated.