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The diesel particulate filter (DPF) is an effective technology for particulate matter (PM) and particle number (PN) reduction. On heavy-duty diesel engines, the passive regeneration by Diesel Oxidation catalysts (DOC) and catalyzed DPFs (CDPF) is widely used for its simplicity and low cost, which is generally combined with the active regeneration of exhaust fuel injection. This study investigated a DOC-CDPF system with exhaust fuel injection upstream of the DOC. The system was integrated with a 7-liter diesel engine whose engine-out PM emission was below the Euro IV level and tested on an engine dynamometer. PM and PN concentrations were measured based on the Particle Measurement Programme (PMP), and the number/size spectrum for particles was obtained by a Differential Mobility Spectrometer (DMS). The filtration efficiency of DPF on PN was higher than 99% in ESC test, while the efficiency on PM was only 58%.

Diesel particulate filter (DPF) is indispensable for diesel engines to meet the increasingly stringent emission regulations. Both the peak temperature and the maximum temperature gradient of the DPF during active regeneration should be well controlled in order to enhance the reliability and durability of the filter. In this paper, the temperature field of the DPF during active regeneration with hydrocarbon (HC) injection was investigated with engine bench tests and numerical simulation. For the experimental study, 24 thermocouples were inserted into the DPF channels to measure the inner temperature of the filter to capture its temperature field, and the circumferential, axial and radial distribution of the filter temperature was analyzed to understand the DPF temperature field behavior during active regeneration.

Combustion behaviour and emissions characteristics of different blending ratios of diesel and gasoline fuels (Dieseline) were investigated in a light-duty 4-cylinder compression-ignition (CI) engine operating on partially premixed compression ignition (PPCI) mode. Experiments show that increasing volatility and reducing cetane number of fuels can help promote PPCI and consequently reduce particulate matter (PM) emissions while oxides of nitrogen (NOx) emissions reduction depends on the engine load. Three different blends, 0% (G0), 20% (G20) and 50% (G50) of gasoline mixed with diesel by volume, were studied and results were compared to the diesel-baseline with the same combustion phasing for all experiments. Engine speed was fixed at 1800rpm, while the engine load was varied from 1.38 to 7.85 bar BMEP with the exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) application.

HCCI combustion was studied in a 4-stroke gasoline engine with a direct injection system. The electronically controlled two-stage gasoline injection and spark ignition system were adopted to control the mixture formation, ignition timing and combustion rate in HCCI engine. The engine could be operated in HCCI combustion mode in a range of load from 1 to 5 bar IMEP and operated in SI combustion mode up to load of 8 bar IMEP. The HCCI combustion characteristics were investigated under different A/F ratios, engine speeds, starts of injection, as well as spark ignition enabled or not. The test results reveal the HCCI combustion features as a high-pressure gradient after ignition and has advantages in high thermal efficiency and low NOx emissions over SI combustion. At the part load of 1400rpm and IMEP of 3.5bar, ISFC in HCCI mode is 25% lower and NOx emissions is 95% lower than that in SI mode.

In this paper, the impacts of Aromatic and Olefin on the formation of poly-aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in the gasoline direct injection (GDI) engine were experimentally and numerically investigated. The objective of this study is to describe the formation process of the soot precursors including one ring to four ring aromatics (A1-A4). In order to better understand the effects of the fuel properties on the formations of PAHs. Three types of fuels, namely base gasoline, gasoline with higher aromatics content, and gasoline with higher olefin content were experimentally studied. At the same time, these aspects were also numerically investigated in the CHEMKIN code by using premixed laminar flame model and surrogated fuels. The results show that higher aromatics content in gasoline will lead to much higher PAHs formation. Similar trend was also found in the gasoline with higher olefin content.

The design and optimization of a modern spray-guided gasoline direct injection engine require a thorough understanding of the fuel spray characteristics and atomization process. The fuel spray Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modeling technology can be an effective means to study and predict spray characteristics, and as a consequence, to drastically reduce experimental work during the engine development process. For this reason, an accurate numerical simulation of the spray evolution process is imperative. Different models based on aerodynamically-induced breakup mechanism have been implemented to simulate spray atomization process in earlier studies, and the effect of turbulence from the injector nozzle is recently being concerned increasingly by engine researchers. In this study, a turbulence-induced primary breakup model coupled with aerodynamic instability is developed.

In this paper blends of diesel and gasoline (dieseline) fuelled Partially Premixed Compression Ignition (PPCI) combustion and the comparison to conventional diesel combustion is investigated. The tests are carried out using a light duty four cylinder Euro IV diesel engine. The engine condition is maintained at 1800 rpm, 52 Nm (equivalent IMEP around 4.3 bar). Different injection timings and different amounts of EGR are used to achieve the PPCI combustion. The results show that compared to the conventional diesel combustion, the smoke and NOx emissions can be reduced by more than 95% simultaneously with dieseline fuelled PPCI combustion. The particle number total concentration can be reduced by 90% as well as the mean diameter (from 54 nm for conventional diesel to 16 nm for G50 fuelled PPCI). The penalty is a slightly increased noise level and lower indicated efficiency, which is decreased from 40% to 38.5%.

Wide Distillation Fuel (WDF) refers to the fuels with a distillation range from initial boiling point of gasoline to final boiling point of diesel. Recent experimental results have shown WDF by blending 50% gasoline and 50% diesel (G50) exhibits much lower soot emissions than diesel at medium load with similar thermal efficiency. However, the engine performances fueled by G50 at both low load end and high load end are still unknown. In this study, the combustion and emission characteristics of G50 and diesel are compared over a wide load range from 0.2 MPa IMEP to 1.4 MPa IMEP at a light-duty diesel engine. The results shown that at 0.2 MPa IMEP, G50 exhibits low combustion stability and thermal efficiency. With the increase of load, the poor combustion quality of G50 is improved. G50 can achieve soot-free combustion up to 1.0 MPa IMEP, while diesel cannot.

Polyoxymethylene dimethyl ethers (PODEn) have high cetane number, high oxygen content and high volatility, therefore can be added to gasoline to optimize the performance and soot emission of Gasoline Compression Ignition (GCI) combustion. High speed imaging was used to investigate the spray and combustion process of gasoline/PODEn blends (PODEn volume fraction 0%-30%) under various ambient conditions and injection strategies in a constant volume vessel. Results showed that with an increase of PODEn proportion from 10% to 30%, liquid-phase penetration of the spray increased slightly, ignition delay decreased from 3.8 ms to 2.0 ms and flame lift off length decreased 29.4%, causing a significant increase of the flame luminance. For blends with 20% PODEn, when ambient temperature decreased from 893 K to 823 K, the ignition delay increased 1.3 ms and the flame luminance got lower.

Fuel spray atomization process is known to play a key role in affecting mixture formation, combustion efficiency and soot emissions in direct injection engines. The fuel spray Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modeling technology can be an effective means to study and predict spray characteristics such as penetration, droplet size and droplet velocity, and as a consequence, to drastically reduce experimental work during the engine development process. For this reason, an accurate numerical simulation of the spray evolution process is imperative. Different approaches and various models based on aerodynamically induced breakup mechanism have been implemented to simulate spray atomization process in earlier studies, and the effects of turbulence and cavitation from the injector nozzle is recently being concerned increasingly by engine researchers. In this study, an enhanced turbulence and cavitation induced primary breakup model combining aerodynamic breakup mechanism is developed.