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In-cylinder post flame oxidation of unburned hydrocarbons from crevices in a lean burn spark ignition engine has been examined for natural gas and mixtures of natural gas and a hydrogen containing producer gas. For this purpose a model was developed to describe the mixing of cold unburned reactants from crevices and hot burned bulk gas and to describe the oxidation of the unburned fuel. The post oxidation was described by a single step chemical reaction mechanism instead of detailed chemical kinetics in order to reduce the calculation time. However, the exploited Arrhenius expressions used to describe the chemical reactions were deduced from a detailed reaction mechanism. Different detailed reaction mechanisms were compared with results from combustion reactor experiments. Experiments and simulations were compared at different pressures and excesses of air similar to the conditions present during in-cylinder post oxidation.

Lean burn operation is often used for improving the efficiency of SI engines. However, as a draw back, this method leads to a higher emissions of Unburned Hydro-Carbons, UHC, compared to stoichiometric combustion. In order to gain a better understanding of what is causing the higher UHC emission at lean burn condition, engine experiments have been carried out on a four-cylinder natural gas fueled SI engine. The concentration of UHC in the exhaust manifold and the HC concentration in the vicinity of the spark plug have been measured during the experiments using a Fast Response FID (FFID) analyzer. Using a model describing the outflow from the cylinder during the exhaust stroke and the measured UHC concentration in the manifold near the exhaust valve, the UHC emissions from the individual cycles have been determined. The investigation showed that under lean burn conditions, cycle by cycle variation had a significant importance on the total UHC emission from the engine.

Engine experiments have been conducted on a gas fueled SI engine. The engine was fueled with natural gas and mixtures of natural gas and hydrogen containing producer gas in order to examine the effect of addition of producer gas on the combustion process and the engine-out emissions. The experiments showed that addition of producer gas decreased the UHC emission at conditions leaner than λ=1.40. The CO emission was increased by addition of producer gas. This was mainly caused by unburned fuel CO from the producer gas. No effect of producer gas on the NOx emission was detected. Formaldehyde, which is suspected to cause odor problems from natural gas fired engine based power plants, was measured using FTIR. The investigation showed that the formaldehyde emission was decreased significantly by addition of producer gas to natural gas.

A thermodynamic analysis based on a pressure-time history measured during the combustion in a SI engine is a commonly used tool used for analyzing the combustion process. Both one-zone and two-zone models have been applied for this purpose. One of the major sources of the emission of unburned hydrocarbons from SI engines is the presence of crevices in the combustion chamber where a part of the unburned fuel-air mixture is trapped during the compression and the combustion. In this paper a three-zone heat release model including the effect of crevices is presented. The model is based on a thermodynamic analysis of three connected zones consisting of burned gas, unburned gas and gas trapped in crevices. Engine experiments have been carried out on a natural gas SI engine. The results from these experiments have been analyzed by the model.

Experiments have been conducted on a gas fueled spark ignition engine using natural gas and two hydrogen containing fuels. The hydrogen containing fuels are Reformulated Natural Gas (RNG) and a mixture of 50% (Vol.) natural gas and 50% (Vol.) producer gas. The producer gas is a synthetic gas with the same composition as a gas produced by gasification of biomass. The hydrocarbon emission, measured as the percentage of hydrocarbons in the fuel, which passes unburned through the engine, was for the mixture of natural gas and producer gas up to 50% lower than the UHC emissions using natural gas as fuel. The UHC emission from the experiments using reformulated natural gas was 15% lower at lean conditions. Furthermore, both hydrogen-containing fuels have a leaner lean burn limit than natural gas. The combustion processes from the experiments have been analyzed using a three-zone heat release model, which is taking the effect of crevices into account.

Experimental investigations with a combustion bomb have been carried out with mixtures of methane and producer gas produced by thermal gasification of biomass. The investigations showed that the lamin ar flame speed increased and the amount of UHC decreased for increasing amount of producer gas in the fuel. Application of mathematical models for calculations of quench distances near the bomb walls and post oxidation reactions has led to the conclusion that the amount of unburned fuel is reduced primarily due to a promotion of post oxidation processes. Engine experiments have been carried out applying mixtures of natural gas and gasification gas as fuel for different air-fuel ratios. These investigation showed that substituting 16% (Vol.) of the natural gas by producer gas resulted in a decrease of 50% (Vol.) of the UHC from the combustion for lean mixtures.