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Incomplete-combustion and misfire are the hurdles in internal combustion engines to run on ultra-lean mixture, whereas high thermal efficiency has been achieved at lean mixture. The burning characteristics of n-heptane with 0% and 30% hydrogen additions were studied at 393K-453K and 100kPa-300kPa up to near lean burn limits, λ=0.8-2.0. The flame appeared in spherical shape only by 37-mJ ignition energy (IE) at λ=0.8-1.5, while further lean mixture, ≥1.6, could be ignited only by 3000-mJ with the distorted flame shape. The flame buoyed in the mixture when burning velocity calculated by kinetic mechanism was equal or less than 19.83 cm/s at the initial conditions of λ=1.8, 393K and 100kPa. The thermal instability under impact of initial pressure and temperature was higher at lean mixture than at stoichiometric mixture.

A three-dimensional model of a diesel engine exhaust port was established. The reliability of modeling method and the exhaust port model were verified by the steady-flow test, PIV test and pressure field test. Based on the exhaust port model, the influence of the key section parameters such as inlet area S1, throat area S2, and outlet area S3 on the flow capacity of the exhaust port was studied. The results show that, under different pressure difference and exhaust back pressure conditions, the mass flow rate increases first and then converges with the increase of the area ratio of outlet and inlet or the area ratio of throat and inlet. With the increase of the relative pressure difference, the optimal area ratio of outlet and inlet decreases and converges to 1.02, but the optimal area ratio of throat and inlet increases and converges to 1.13.

A three-dimensional model of a diesel engine intake port was established and was verified by steady-flow test. Based on this model, the influence of intake valve lift on the flow capacity of intake port was studied and a design method of maximum valve lift was put forward. The results show that, under different intake pressure and relative pressure difference conditions, the discharge coefficient increases first and then converges with the increase of valve lift. Under the same valve lift condition, with the increase of relative pressure difference, the discharge coefficient decreases slightly in subsonic state and decreases sharply from subsonic state to supersonic state, but the mass flow rate increases slightly. The optimum ratio of valve lift and valve seat diameter is related to relative pressure difference, it increases first and then keeps constant with the increase of relative pressure difference.

Particulate matter emissions are becoming a big issue for GDI engines as the emission regulations being more stringent. Methanol has been considered to be an important alternative fuel to reduce soot emissions. To understand the effect of methanol addition on soot and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) formation, the 2-D distributions of soot volume fraction and different size PAHs relative concentrations in methanol/gasoline laminar diffusion flames were measured by TC-LII and PLIF techniques. The effect of methanol was investigated under the conditions of the same carbon flow and the same flame height. The methanol volume fraction was set as M0/20/40/60/80. The results showed that the natural luminescent flame lift-off height and soot lift-off height increases consistently with the increasing methanol content due to the increase of outlet velocity of fuel vapor.

The electronic unit pump system, which is widely applied to the heavy-duty diesel engine, belongs to the pulsating high-pressure fuel injection system, and the fuel pressure fluctuations have an essential influence on the spray and combustion in the internal combustion engine. Besides, pressure fluctuations are always aroused by the motion of actuators, such as the injector or other control valves, so it is also an advantage for fault diagnosis and feedback control to ascertain the relationship between the pressure fluctuation and the motion of the actuator. In this study, experiments and 1D-simulation were carried on to investigate the fuel pressure fluctuation characteristics and their correlations with the transient motion of the needle valve in the injector.

Methanol has been regarded as a potential transportation fuel due to its advanced combustion characteristics and flexible source. However, it is suffering from misfire and high HC emissions problems under cold start and low load conditions either on methanol SI engine or on methanol/diesel dual fuel engine. Hydrogen is a potential addition that can enhance the combustion of methanol due to its high flammability and combustion stability. In the current work, the effect of hydrogen fraction on the laminar flame characteristics of methanol- hydrogen-air mixture under varied equivalence ratio was investigated on a constant volume combustion chamber system coupled with a schlieren setup. Experiments were performed over a wide range of equivalence ratio of the premixed charge, varied from 0.8 to 1.4, as well as different hydrogen fraction, 0%, 5%, 10%, 15% and 20% (n/n). All tests were carried out at fixed temperature and pressure of 400K and 0.1MPa.

CNG-diesel dual fuel combustion mode has been regarded as a practical operation strategy because it not only can remain high thermal efficiency but also make full use of an alternative fuel, natural gas. However, it is suffering from misfire and high HC emissions under cold start and low load conditions. As known, hydrogen has high flammability. Thus, a certain proportion of hydrogen can be added in the natural gas (named HCNG) to improve combustion performance. In this work, the effect of hydrogen volume ratio on combustion characteristics was investigated on an optically accessible single-cylinder CNG-diesel engine using a Phantom v7.3 color camera. HCNG was compressed into the tank under different hydrogen volume ratios varied from 0% to 30%, while the energy substitution rate of` HCNG remained at 70%.

As known, the constant injection mass is a criterion for measuring the thermal efficiency of diesel engines. In this study, the effects of nozzle hole diameter on diesel free-spray characteristics were investigated in constant injection mass condition. The experiment was performed in a constant volume combustion chamber equipped with a high pressure common-rail injector that can change nozzles. Three single-hole axis nozzles with different hole diameters were used. High speed camera and Schlieren visualization set-up were used to capture the spray behaviors of liquid phase and vapor phase respectively. For liquid phase spray, the higher nozzle hole diameter, the higher were the liquid phase spray penetration rate and the saturated liquid phase spray penetration length. The saturated liquid phase spray penetration length wound not grow but oscillate around different mean values at the steady stage.

Droplets impacting onto the heated surface is a typical phenomenon either in CI engines or in GDI SI engines, which is regarded significant for their air-fuel mixing. Meanwhile, alcohols including ethanol and butanol, has been widely studied as internal combustion engine alternative fuels due to their excellent properties. In this paper, under different component ratio conditions, the ethanol-butanol droplet impacting onto the heated aluminum surface has been studied experimentally. The falling height of the droplets were set at 5cm. A high-speed camera, set at 512×512pixels, 5000 fps and 20 μs of exposure time, was used to visualize the droplet behavior impinging onto the hot aluminum surface. The impact regimes of the binary droplet were identified. The result showed that the Leidenfrost temperature of droplets was affected by the ratio of ethanol to butanol. The higher the content of butanol in the droplet, the higher the Leidenfrost temperature.

Soot emission, known as PM (particulate matter), is becoming a big issue for GDI engines as the emission regulations being increasingly stricter. It is found that ethanol, as an oxygenated bio-fuel, can reduce the soot emission when added to gasoline. In order to fully understand the effect of ethanol on soot reducing, the soot characteristics of ethanol/gasoline blends were studied on laminar diffusion flames. In this experiment, the blending ratio of ethanol/gasoline was set as E0/20/40/60/80. Considering the carbon content decreasing due to ethanol addition, carbon mass flow rate was remained constant. The two-dimensional distributions of soot volume fraction were measured quantitatively by using two-color laser induced incandescence technique. The results showed that ethanol is able to decrease the soot significantly, but the effect of ethanol on soot reduction is weakened with the increasing ethanol ratio.

Dual-fuel combustion combining a premixed charge of compressed natural gas (CNG) and a pilot injection of diesel fuel offer the potential to reduce diesel fuel consumption and drastically reduce soot emissions. In this study, dual-fuel combustion using methane ignited with a pilot injection of No. 2 diesel fuel, was studied in a single cylinder diesel engine with optical access. Experiments were performed at a CNG substitution rate of 70% CNG (based on energy) over a wide range of equivalence ratios of the premixed charge, as well as different diesel injection strategies (single and double injection). A color high-speed camera was used in order to identify and distinguish between lean-premixed methane combustion and diffusion combustion in dual-fuel combustion. The effect of multiple diesel injections is also investigated optically as a means to enhance flame propagation towards the center of the combustion chamber.

The combustion characteristics of gasoline-diesel dual-fuel in an electronic-controlled high pressure common rail optical engine were investigated under different diesel injection timings and gasoline/diesel ratios by a high-speed photography method. The experimental results show that the dual-fuel combustion process is influenced by diesel combustion and gasoline homogenous combustion, respectively, with bright yellow flames and blue flames observed in the combustion chamber. At a gasoline/diesel ratio of 0.91, the injection timing affects the ignition timing and combustion modes significantly. When the diesel injection timing is before −25° after top dead center (ATDC), advancing the injection timing tends to prolong the ignition delay and the gasoline-diesel dual-fuel combustion is similar to the pre-mixed charge compression ignition (PCCI) combustion with a rapid single-stage heat release.

When the EFI system is used in a specific engine, lots of experiments are needed to optimize the control data (MAP). This work is time and financial consuming. This paper aims to develop a computer-based simulation and test system, which can produce the initial control MAP with good accuracy, and calibrate the ECU on-line. So the experiments are reduced and calibration is accelerated. In order to improve the accuracy of the initial control data, the mathematical models are built not only based on theoretical equations, but also on the control data of typical operation points, which is obtained by the on- line calibration of specific engines. This system can also perform some special calibrations, like "constant pulse width" and "square wave modulation."

In order to reduce the vibration energy transferred from engine to the chassis of a vehicle and improve the riding comfortability of the vehicle, a new semi-active controlled hydraulic mount is developed which could adjust the vibration isolating effect at wide frequency range. The dynamic characteristic of the new mount could be changed through adjusting the cross-sectional area of its inertia channel. The control strategy of the mount is based on a great deal of engine tests. Test results of the semi-active mount on an engine test bench show that it could optimize the isolation effect according to engine''s working condition.