Search Results

In the present paper the combustion process in a modern second generation Common Rail Diesel engine for light duty application is experimentally and numerically investigated. An improved version of the KIVA3V-Release 2 code was used for the simulations. To model the combustion process, a detailed kinetic scheme involving 57 species and 290 equations, based on the n-heptane combustion, was used, interfacing the KIVA3V code with the CHEMKIN-II chemistry package. The full set of equations is concurrently solved in each computational cell by different solvers with the final aim of obtaining a locally adaptative code: local choices are undertaken in terms of time steps as well as in terms of the employed solvers. To reduce computational time, the code was parallelized: this parallelization is mainly focused on the chemical subroutines, considering that they are responsible for more than the 95% of the computing.

The effect of fuel injection strategy and charge dilution on NOx and soot emissions has been investigated with a modern DI diesel engine. Particulate mass has been measured by a standard smoke meter and soot particles have been characterized by means of time-resolved Laser Induced Incandescence (LII) at the exhaust of the engine. Two steady-state test points have been selected, representative of low and medium load conditions. The influence of the different engine management strategies has been assessed, highlighting the potential of unconventional operating modes to meet forthcoming emission limits.

Aim of the present paper was an evaluation of the importance of some engine parameters (intake gas flow and injection parameters) on the approach of Premixed Low Temperature Combustion (PLTC) conditions with the same efficiency of a conventional diesel cycle and ultra-low pollutant emissions. The results have demonstrated that the control of PLTC mode is very difficult and the engine parameters play a critical role on the exhaust pollutant emissions, indicating that further massive research activities are needed to reach reliable practical applications.

The paper describes some experiments carried out on two d.i. Diesel engines running with insulated pistons. Three different thermal barriers were tested; namely, a stainless steel cup, a Si3N4 cup and a stainless steel piston crown. The combustion process was characterized by heat release calculation and ignition delay measurements. The experiments showed that the indicated efficiency is not affected by thermal insulation adoption, Nox level increases while smoke level decreases consistently.

Two fuels having different aromatics content and different cetane numbers were tested in a direct injection diesel engine with thermally insulated pistons. Actually tests were carried out with a full aluminum piston, an aluminum piston modified to accept a stainless steel crown and a similar one coated with ceramic. Higher combustion noise and emissions were detected using the degraded fuel, having fixed the type of piston. Furthermore, the experiments showed that thermal barrier adoption has a positive effect on the combustion noise.

Comparisons are presented of computed and measured air flow fields in an open chamber diesel engine running at 1,000 and 2,000 rpm without combustion. Both Conchas spray and KIVA codes were tested. The effect of turbulence is represented using both K-ε and SGSD (Sub-grid Scale Differential) submodels. A Laser Doppler Velocimeter (LDV) was used to make velocity and turbulence measurements during the compression stroke. Reasonable agreement between numerical and experimental results for the engine examined was observed.

The formation and oxidation of soot, light and heavy hydrocarbons, CO, CO2 and NOx in a D.I. diesel engine have been studied by means of direct fast sampling and chemical analysis of the combustion products collected during the combustion cycle. Particular attention has been paid to the histories of each fuel hydrocarbon class analyzing the chemical transformations that the paraffins, and monoaromatic and polyaromatic compounds, contained in a diesel fuel oil, undergo during the combustion cycle. This approach is able to give information on the origin of soot and heavy hydrocarbon emission from a diesel engine. The concentration of the heavy hydrocarbons decreases during the early stages of the combustion cycle and their profile corresponds roughly to the fuel disappearance rate because of the chemical similarity with the fuel compounds.

The status of the research carried out at the Istituto Motori aimed to optimize the direct injection light duty combustion system with regard to pollutant emissions is described. The influence of combustion chamber design on air flow field was investigated by means of a two colors LDA system as well as by engine test bed. Three-dimensional computer simulations of injection and in- cylinder air motion have been run in order to analyze some experimental results. In particular two configurations of axisymmetric combustion chambers were examined and, results were compared with those obtained from a four-lobe microturbulence combustion chamber. Tests showed that some improvement in the NOx-particulate trade off can be obtained at part load at both high and low speeds.

The behaviour of two combustion chambers, a toroidal and a turbulent one, has been compared. The engine performance in terms of imep and exhaust emissions were measured. Laser Doppler Anemometry technique was used to characterize the fluids dynamic aspect of combustion system. The axial asymmetry introduced in combustion chamber shape causes strong differences in the air flow field at the end of compression stroke. The tangential velocity profile is flattened to that obtained with toroidal chamber. Moreover the rms values of tangential velocity measured in turbulent combustion chamber are about three times higher than that measured in the toroidal chamber. At low engine speed the turbulent chamber allows to operate with low NOx levels without penalties of smoke emissions and fuel consumption as happens by using conventional toroidal chamber.

This paper describes a preliminary characterization of in-cylinder spray and combustion behavior from a high-pressure common rail injection system. The engine used in the tests was a single-cylinder optical research diesel engine, adequately developed in a full-fired version, equipped with a common rail injection system. An elongated piston allows for the optical access to the combustion chamber for diagnostic applications. Characteristic of the optical engine is the availability to investigate different combustion system designs due to an interchangeable head-cylinder group. The system configuration tested in the present work corresponds to a four-cylinder engine of 1930 cc of displacement that is representative in the class of light duty d.i. diesel engine. Spray and combustion evolutions were visualized through a high-speed CCD camera synchronized with a copper vapor laser acting as light source.

In this paper some preliminary results on the emission performance of a modern CR DI diesel engine running on reformulated diesel fuels are discussed. The engine employed in the tests was a Fiat M724 1910cc, installed on Alfa Romeo 156 1.9 JTD. Modern injection systems can modify the spray structure with respect to a spray of a classical rotary injection pump so the well-consolidated knowledge on the correlation between fuel parameters and pollutant emissions may not be valid for the new generation of DI diesel engines. Two high quality fossil fuels and a synthetic fuel were selected for the tests. Tests were directed to analyze the relative influence on exhaust emissions between injection parameters and fuel quality. One engine test point (2000 rpm × 2 bar of b.m.e.p.) was chosen, with different setting of injection pressure, EGR ratio and pilot injection activation.

This paper reports on the first successful tests performed on a production D.I. Diesel engine using wood pyrolysis oil (WPO). As reported in literature, any attempt to directly replace Diesel fuel with WPO required extensive modifications to the engine injection system, in order to overcome the intrinsic limits of the oil (poor self-ignition, high acidity and viscosity): new materials, additional pilot injection systems, careful procedures of start-up and shutdown were needed to obtain acceptable operation. Aim of the present work was to assess the limits of utilization of WPO in a strictly stock engine. Therefore, while no modifications at all were carried out on the engine, the efforts were addressed to make the WPO compatible with light-duty Diesel engines. Several long-running tests were performed on a single-cylinder engine, with: blends of WPO with different percentage of oxygenated compounds micro-emulsions of WPO in Diesel fuel standard (commercial) Diesel fuel.

This paper presents the performances of a modern DI diesel engine, equipped with a Common Rail injection system, fed on blends of an advanced diesel fuel (base fuel) and Diethylene-Glycol-Dimethyl-Ether (Diglyme - C6H14O3). The base fuel was a reformulated diesel fuel with low aromatic and sulfur content. Three blends with different volumetric percentage of Diglyme (10, 20 and 30%) in the base fuel were prepared and tested. The engine was a FIAT M724, installed in a Alfa Romeo 156 1.9 JTD, with a Bosch Common Rail injection system (EDC-15C). At the exhaust of the engine, soot, NOx, HC, CO, and CO2 were measured. The experiments represent the potential of diesel reformulation technology with synthetic fuels coupled with the new diesel technology generation.