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The use of hydrogen as a fuel supplement for lean-burn engines at higher compression ratios has been studied extensively in recent years, with good promise of performance and efficiency gains. With the advances in reformer technology, the use of a gaseous fuel stock, comprising of substantially higher fractions of hydrogen and other flammable reformate species, could provide additional improvements. This paper presents the performance and emission characteristics of a gas mixture of equal volumes of hydrogen, CO, and methane. It has recently been reported that this gas mixture can be produced by reforming of ethanol at comparatively low temperature, around 300C. Experiments were performed on a 1.8-liter passenger-car Nissan engine modified for single-cylinder operation. Special pistons were made so that compression ratios ranging from CR= 9.5 to 17 could be used. The lean limit was extended beyond twice stoichiometric (up to lambda=2.2).

A model for calculating the residual gas fraction in spark ignition engines has been formulated. The model accounts explicitly for the contribution due to the back flow of exhaust gas to the cylinder during the valve overlap period. The model has been calibrated with in-cylinder hydrocarbon measurements at different values of intake pressure, engine speed, and valve overlap timings.

A flame sheet model for NO production in multi-dimensional diesel simulation has been developed. It explicitly addresses that because of the finite computational cell resolution, the local temperature within the diffusion flame is substantially higher than the cell averaged temperatures. Thus using the latter values will under-predict NO production. The methodology uses a flame sheet library for the NO production. Computations using this model are compared to experimental data for a Cummins N14 engine. The results show that the NO production is predominantly from within the flame sheets; the bulk production accounts for less than 5% of the total production.