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Partially Premixed Combustion (PPC) is a promising combustion concept ,based on judicious tuning of the charge stratification, to meet the increasing demands of emission legislation and to improve fuel efficiency. Longer ignition delays of PPC in comparison with conventional diesel combustion provide better fuel/air mixture which decreases soot and NOx emissions. Moreover, a proper injection timing and strategy for PPC can improve the combustion stability as a result of a higher level of fuel stratification in comparison with the Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) concept. Injection timing is the major parameter with which to affect the level of fuel and combustion stratification and to control the combustion phasing and the heat release behavior. The scope of the present study is to investigate the fluid flow characteristics of PPC at different injection timings.

High-pressure internal combustion engines promise high efficiency, but a proper injection strategy to minimize heat losses and pollutant emissions remain a challenge. Previous studies have concluded that two injectors, placed at the piston bowl's rim, simultaneously improve the mixing and reduce the heat losses. The two-injector configuration further improves air utilization while keeping hot zones away from the cylinder walls. This study investigates how the two-injector concept delivers even higher efficiency by providing additional control of spray -and injection angles. Three-dimensional Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes simulations examined several umbrella angles, spray-to-spray angles, and injection orientations by comparing the two-injector cases with a reference one-injector case. The study focused on heat transfer reduction, where the two-injector approach reduces the heat transfer losses by up to 14.3 % compared to the reference case.

HCCI combustion can be enabled by many types of liquid and gaseous fuels. When considering what fuels will be most suitable, the emissions also have to be taken into account. This study focuses on the emissions formation originating from different fuel components. A systematic study of over 40 different gasoline surrogate fuels was made. All fuels were studied in a CFR engine running in HCCI operation. Many of the fuels were blended to achieve similar RON's and MON's as gasoline fuels, and the components (n-heptane, iso-octane, toluene, and ethanol) were chosen to represent the most important in gasoline; nparaffins, iso-paraffins, aromatics and oxygenates. The inlet air temperature was varied from 50°C to 150°C to study the effects on the emissions. The compression ratio was adjusted for each operating point to achieve combustion 3 degrees after TDC. The engine was run at an engine speed of 600 rpm, with ambient intake air pressure and with an equivalence ratio of 0.33.

An ionization sensor has been used to study the combustion process in a six-cylinder lean burn, truck-sized engine fueled with natural gas and optimized for low emissions of nitric oxides. The final goal of the investigations is to study the prospects of using the ionization sensor for finding the optimal operating position with respect to low NOx emission and stable engine operation. The results indicate that unstable combustion can be detected by analyzing the coefficient of variation (CoV) of the detector current amplitude. Close relationships between this measure and the CoV of the indicated mean effective pressure have been found during an air-fuel ratio scan with fixed ignition advance.

Fumigation was studied in a 12 L six-cylinder heavy-duty engine. Port-injected ethanol was ignited with a small amount of diesel injected into the cylinder. The setup left much freedom for influencing the combustion process, and the aim of this study was to find operation modes that result in a combustion resembling that of a homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) engine with high efficiency and low NOx emissions. Igniting the ethanol-air mixture using direct-injected diesel has attractive properties compared to traditional HCCI operation where the ethanol is ignited by pressure alone. No preheating of the mixture is required, and the amount of diesel injected can be used to control the heat release rate. The two fuel injection systems provide a larger flexibility in extending the HCCI operating range to low and high loads. It was shown that cylinder-to-cylinder variations present a challenge for this type of combustion.

Increasing the anti-knock quality of gasoline fuels can enable higher efficiency in spark ignition engines. In this study, the blending anti-knock quality of dicyclopentadiene (DCPD), a by-product of ethylene production from naphtha cracking, with various gasoline fuels is explored. The blends were tested in an ignition quality tester (IQT) and a modified cooperative fuel research (CFR) engine operating under homogenous charge compression ignition (HCCI) and knock limited spark advance (KLSA) conditions. Due to current fuel regulations, ethanol is widely used as a gasoline blending component in many markets. In addition, ethanol is widely used as a fuel and literature verifying its performance. Moreover, because ethanol exhibits synergistic effects, the test results of DCPD-gasoline blends were compared to those of ethanol-gasoline blends. The experiments conducted in this work enabled the screening of DCPD auto-ignition characteristics across a range of combustion modes.

The focus has recently been directed towards the engine out soot from Diesel engines. Running an engine in PPC (Partially Premixed Combustion) mode has a proven tendency of reducing these emissions significantly. In addition to combustion strategy, several studies have suggested that using alcohol fuels aid in reducing soot emissions to ultra-low levels. This study analyzes and compares the characteristics of PM emissions from naphtha gasoline PPC, ethanol PPC, methanol PPC and methanol diffusion combustion in terms of soot mass concentration, number concentration and particle size distribution in a single cylinder Scania D13 engine, while varying the intake O2. Intake temperature and injection pressure sweeps were also conducted. The fuels emitting the highest mass concentration of particles (Micro Soot Sensor) were gasoline and methanol followed by ethanol. The two alcohols tested emitted nucleation mode particles only, whereas gasoline emitted accumulation mode particles as well.

Using diluted methane/air mixtures in internal combustion engines has a potential of reducing emissions and increasing efficiency. However, the ignition systems used today show difficulties igniting lean mixtures. For this purpose a new high frequency (HF) ignition system using pulse generators and a resonance circuit to achieve a controlled number of sparks during a controlled period of time has been developed. A first prototype of this high frequency system has been tested in a flow-reactor and compared to a conventional ignition system. Results show that the high frequency system improves the flame development under lean conditions compared to the conventional system. Higher frequencies have higher capability of igniting lean mixtures than lower frequencies. Lower spark frequencies were found to travel faster across the electrodes than high frequencies and also compared to the conventional system.

Partially Premixed Combustion (PPC) is a combustion concept which aims to provide combustion with low smoke and NOx with high efficiency. Extending the ignition delay to enhance the premixing, avoiding spray-driven combustion and controlling the combustion temperature to optimum levels through use of suitable lambda and EGR levels, have been recognized as key factors to achieve such combustion. Fuels with high ignitability resistance have been proven to be a good mean to extend the ignition delay. In this work pure ethanol has been used as a PPC fuel. The objective of this research was to investigate a suitable injection strategy for PPC combustion fueled with ethanol. Extensive experimental investigations were performed on a single-cylinder heavy-duty engine. The number of injections for each cycle, timing of the injections and the ratio between different injection pulses was varied one at a time and the combustion behavior was investigated at medium and low loads.

Engine knock is an abnormal phenomenon, which places barriers for modern Spark-Ignition (SI) engines to achieve higher thermal efficiency and better performance. In order to trigger more controllable knock events for study while keeping the knock intensity at restricted range, various spark strategies (e.g. spark timing, spark number, spark location) are applied to investigate on their influences on knock combustion characteristics and pressure oscillations. The experiment is implemented on a modified single cylinder Compression-Ignition (CI) engine operated at SI mode with port fuel injection (PFI). A specialized liner with 4 side spark plugs and 4 pressure sensors is used to generate various flame propagation processes, which leads to different auto-ignition onsets and knock development. Based on multiple channels of pressure signals, a band-pass filter is applied to obtain the pressure oscillations with respect to different spark strategies.

Natural gas quality, in terms of the volume fraction of higher hydrocarbons, strongly affects the auto-ignition characteristics of the air-fuel mixture, the engine performance and its controllability. The influence of natural gas composition on engine operation has been investigated both experimentally and through chemical kinetic based cycle simulation. A range of two component gas mixtures has been tested with methane as the base fuel. The equivalence ratio (0.3), the compression ratio (19.8), and the engine speed (1000 rpm) were held constant in order to isolate the impact of fuel autoignition chemistry. For each fuel mixture, the start of combustion was phased near top dead center (TDC) and then the inlet mixture temperature was reduced. These experimental results have been utilized as a source of data for the validation of a chemical kinetic based full-cycle simulation.

Combination of flow field measurements, shown in this paper, give new information on the effect of engine run parameters to formation of different flow fields inside piston bowl. The measurements were carried out with particle image velocimetry (PIV) technique in optical engine. Good set of results was achieved even though the feasibility of this technique in diesel engines is sometimes questioned. Main challenge in diesel engines is background radiation from soot particles which is strong enough to conceal the PIV signal. Window staining in diesel engine is also a problem, since very high particle image quality is needed for velocity analysis. All measurements were made in an optical heavy-duty diesel engine. Optical design of engine was Bowditch type [1]. The engine was charged and equipped with exhaust gas recirculation (EGR). The exhaust gas level was monitored by oxygen concentration and the level was matched to former soot concentration measurements.

Temperature stratification plays an important role in HCCI combustion. The onsets of auto-ignition and combustion duration are sensitive to the temperature field in the engine cylinder. Numerical simulations of HCCI engine combustion are affected by the use of wall boundary conditions, especially the temperature condition at the cylinder and piston walls. This paper reports on numerical studies and experiments of the temperature field in an optical experimental engine in motored run conditions aiming at improved understanding of the evolution of temperature stratification in the cylinder. The simulations were based on Large-Eddy-Simulation approach which resolves the unsteady energetic large eddy and large scale swirl and tumble structures. Two dimensional temperature experiments were carried out using laser induced phosphorescence with thermographic phosphors seeded to the gas in the cylinder.

The fuel distribution in an air assist direct injection engine was measured with Planar Laser Induced Fluorescence, PLIF. The engine was fueled with isooctane and 3-pentanon was used as the fuel tracer. The optical engine was of the prolonged piston type, with a quartz ring in the upper part of the cylinder. Both the fuel injector and the spark plug were centrally located in the cylinder head. Two different pistons were examined: flat piston and bowl in piston. Results show that the differences in fuel stratification are very large for the flat piston compared to the piston with a bowl.

Partially premixed combustion (PPC) is intended to improve fuel efficiency and minimize the engine-out emissions. PPC is known to have the potential to reduce emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx) and soot, but often at the expense of increased emissions of unburned hydrocarbons (HC) and carbon monoxide (CO). PPC has demonstrated remarkable fuel flexibility and can be operated with a large variety of liquid fuels, ranging from low-octane, high-cetane diesel fuels to high-octane gasolines and alcohols. Several research groups have demonstrated that naphtha fuels provide a beneficial compromise between functional load range and low emissions. To increase the understanding of the influence of individual fuel components typically found in commercial fuels, such as alkenes, aromatics and alcohols, a systematic experimental study of 15 surrogate fuel mixtures of n-heptane, isooctane, toluene and ethanol was performed in a light-duty PPC engine using a design of experiment methodology.

The Technical University of Denmark, DTU, has constructed, built and tested a gasifier [1, 11] that is fueled with wood chips and achieves a 93% conversion efficiency from wood to producer gas. By combining the gasifier with an internal combustion engine and a generator, a co-generative system can be realized that produces electricity and heat. The gasifier uses the waste heat from the engine for drying and pyrolysis of the wood chips while the produced gas is used to fuel the engine. To achieve high efficiency in converting biomass to electricity it necessitates an engine that is adapted to high efficiency operation using the specific producer gas from the DTU gasifier. So far the majority of gas engines of today are designed and optimized for SI-operation on natural gas.

Experiments are performed in optical engines in order to understand the combustion process in standard engines. In spite of this, little work has been done to verify that the results from optical engines are representative for a standard engine. The wall heat losses in optical engines are lower than in all-metal engines due to the lower heat conductivity of optical parts and a less efficient cooling system. Furthermore, optical engines often have larger crevice volumes due to a lower position of the piston rings. The present investigation studies how these differences affect the heat release and emissions in optical HSDI diesel engines. Five different engine configurations are studied: an optical engine of Bowditch design with two different squish heights, the same engine fitted with a metal piston, the same engine with all quartz parts replaced with metal components and, finally, a standard diesel engine. It is found that the use of optical parts affect the combustion process.

Pre-chamber combustion (PCC) allows an extension on the lean limit of an internal combustion engine (ICE). This combustion mode provides lower NOx emissions and shorter combustion durations that lead to a higher indicated efficiency. In the present work, a narrow throat pre-chamber was tested, which has a unique nozzle area distribution in two rows of six nozzle holes each. Tests were carried out in a modified heavy-duty engine for optical visualization. Methane was used as fuel for both the pre-chamber and the main chamber. Seven operating points were tested, including passive pre-chamber mode as a limit condition, to study the effect of pre- and main-chamber fuel addition on the pre-chamber jets and the main chamber combustion via chemiluminescence imaging. A typical cycle of one of the tested conditions is explained through the captured images. Observations of the typical cycle reveal a predominant presence of only six jets (from the lower row), with well-defined jet structures.

It has been proven that partially premixed combustion (PPC) has the capability of high combustion efficiency with low soot and NOx emissions, which meet the requirements of increasingly restricted emission regulations. In order to obtain more homogenous combustion and longer ignition delay in PPC, different fuel injection strategies were employed which could affect the fuel air mixing and control the combustion. In the present work, a light duty optical diesel engine was used to conduct high speed particle image velocimetry (PIV) for single, double and triple injections with different timings. A quartz piston and a cylinder liner were installed in the Bowditch configuration to enable optical access. The geometry of the quartz piston crown is based on the standard diesel combustion chamber design for this commercial passenger car engine, including a re-entrant bowl shape.

The Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) is the third alternative for combustion in the Internal Combustion (IC) engines. Here, a homogeneous charge is used as in a spark ignited engine but the charge is compressed to auto-ignition as in a diesel. The characteristics of HCCI were compared to SI using a 1.6 liter single cylinder engine with compression ratio 21:1 in HCCI mode and 12:1 in SI mode. Three different fuels were used; isooctane, ethanol and natural gas. Some remarkable results were noted in the experiments: The indicated efficiency of HCCI was much better than for SI operation. Very little NOx was generated with HCCI, eliminating the need for a LeanNOx catalyst. However, HCCI generated more HC and CO than SI operation. Stable and efficient operation with HCCI could be obtained with λ=3 to λ=9 using isooctane or ethanol. Natural gas, with a higher octane number, required a richer mixture to run in HCCI mode.