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The high-pressure isobaric combustion has been proposed as the most suitable combustion mode for the double compre4ssion expansion engine (DCEE) concept. Previous experimental and simulation studies have demonstrated an improved efficiency compared to the conventional diesel combustion (CDC) engine. In the current study, isobaric combustion was achieved using a single injector with multiple injections. Since this concept involves complex phenomena such as spray to spray interactions, the computational models were extensively validated against the optical engine experiment data, to ensure high-fidelity simulations. The considered optical diagnostic techniques are Mie-scattering, fuel tracer planar laser-induced fluorescence (PLIF), and natural flame luminosity imaging. Overall, a good agreement between the numerical and experimental results was obtained.

Heavy-duty vehicles face increasing demands of emission regulations. Reduced carbon-dioxide (CO2) emission targets motivate decreased fuel consumption for fossil fuel engines. Increased engine efficiency contributes to lower fuel consumption and can be achieved by lower heat transfer, friction and exhaust losses. The double compression expansion engine (DCEE) concept achieves higher efficiency, as it utilizes a split-cycle approach to increase the in-cylinder pressure and recover the normally wasted exhaust energy. However, the DCEE concept suffers heat losses from the high-pressure approach. This study utilizes up to three injectors to reduce the wall-gas temperature gradient rendering lower convective heat losses. The injector configuration consists of a standard central injector and two side-injectors placed at the rim of the bowl. An increased distance from side-injector to the wall delivered lower heat losses by centralizing hot gases in the combustion chamber.

This paper shows the potential benefits of implementing four configurations of reed valves at the inlet of the two-stroke compressor used in the double compression expansion engine (DCEE) concept or 8-stroke engines over the conventional poppet valves used in 4-stroke internal combustion engines. To model the reed and poppet valve configurations, the discharge coefficient was estimated from RANS computational fluid dynamics simulations using ANSYS Fluent 2020 R1, with a pressure difference up to 0.099 bar. The calculated discharge coefficients for each case were then fed in a zero-one dimension model using GT-Power to understand the valve performance i.e. the volumetric efficiency of the compressor cylinder and the mean indicated pressure during the compression process at 1200 rpm.

The focus of this study is to aid the development of the isobaric combustion engine by investigating multiple injection strategies at moderately high pressures. A three-dimensional (3D) commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code, CONVERGE, was used to conduct simulations. The validation of the isobaric combustion case was carried out through the use of a single injector with multiple injections. The computational simulations were matched to the experimental data using methods outlined in this paper for different multiple injection cases. A sensitivity analysis to understand the effects of different modeling components on the quantitative prediction was carried out. First, the effects of the kinetic mechanisms were assessed by employing different chemical mechanisms, and the results showed no significant difference in the conditions under consideration.

Towards a fundamental understanding of the ignition characteristics of pre-chamber (PC) combustion engines, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations were conducted using CONVERGE. To assist the initial design of the KAUST pre-chamber engine experiments, the primary focus of the present study was to assess the impact of design parameters such as throat diameter, nozzle diameter, and nozzle length. The well-stirred reactor combustion model coupled with a methane oxidation mechanism reduced from GRI 3.0 was used. A homogeneous charge of methane and air with λ = 1.3 on both the PC and main chamber (MC) was assumed. The geometrical parameters were shown to affect the pre-chamber combustion characteristics, such as pressure build-up, radical formation, and heat release as well as the composition of the jets penetrating and igniting the main chamber charge. In addition, the backflow of species pushed inside the pre-chamber due to the flow reversal (FR) event was analyzed.

To provide insights into the fundamental characteristics of pre-chamber combustion engines, the ignition of lean premixed CH4/air due to hot gas jets initiated by a passive narrow throated pre-chamber in a heavy-duty engine was studied computationally. A twelve-hole pre-chamber geometry was investigated using CONVERGETM software. The numerical model was validated against the experimental results. To elucidate the main-chamber ignition mechanism, the spark plug location and spark timing were varied, resulting in different pressure gradient during turbulent jet formation. Different ignition mechanisms were observed for turbulent jet ignition of lean premixed CH4/air, based on the geometry effect. Ignition behavior was classified into the flame and jet ignition depending on the significant presence of hot active radicals. The jet ignition, mainly due to hot product gases was found to be advanced by the addition of a small concentration of radicals.

Earlier studies on efficiency improvement in CI engines have suggested that heat transfer losses contribute largely to the total energy losses. Fuel impingement on the cylinder walls is typically associated with high heat transfer. This study proposes a two-injector concept to reduce heat losses and thereby improve efficiency. The two injectors are placed at the rim of the bowl to change the spray pattern. Computational simulations based on the Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes approach have been performed for four different fuel injection timings in order to quantify the reduction in heat losses for the proposed concept. Two-injector concepts were compared to reference cases using only one centrally mounted injector. All simulations were performed in a double compression expansion engine (DCEE) concept using the Volvo D13 single-cylinder engine. In the DCEE, a large portion of the exhaust energy is re-used in the second expansion, thus increasing the thermodynamic efficiency.

Partially premixed combustion (PPC) is an operating mode that lies between the conventional compression ignition (CI) mode and homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) mode. The combustion in this mixed mode is complex as it is neither diffusion-controlled (CI mode) nor governed solely by chemical kinetics (HCCI mode). In this study, CFD simulations were performed to evaluate flame index, which distinguishes between zones having a premixed flame and non-premixed flame. Experiments performed in the optical engine supplied data to validate the model. In order to realize PPC, the start of injection (SOI) was fixed at −40 CAD (aTDC) so that a required ignition delay is created to premix air/fuel mixture. The reference operating point was selected to be with 3 bar IMEP and 1200 rpm. Naphtha with a RON of 77 and its corresponding PRF surrogate were tested. The simulations captured the general trends observed in the experiments well.

The experimental in-cylinder combustion process was compared with the numerical simualtion for naphtha fuel under conventional compression ignition (CI) and partially premixed combustion (PPC) conditions. The start of injection timing (SOI) with the single injection strategy was changed from late of −10 CAD aTDC to early of −40 CAD aTDC. The three-dimensional full cycle engine combustion simulation was performed coupling with gas phase chemical kinetics by the CFD code CONVERGE™. The flame index was used for evaluating the combustion evolution of premixed flame and diffusion flame. The results show that the flame index could be used as an indicator for in-cylinder homogeneity evaluation. Hydroperoxyl shows a similar distribution with the premixed combustion. Formaldehyde could be used as an indicator for low temperature combustion.

Full cycle simulations of KAUST optical diesel engine were conducted in order to provide insights into the details of fuel spray, mixing, and combustion characteristics at different start of injection (SOI) conditions. Although optical diagnostics provide valuable information, the high fidelity simulations with matched parametric conditions improve fundamental understanding of relevant physical and chemical processes by accessing additional observables such as the local mixture distribution, intermediate species concentrations, and detailed chemical reaction rates. Commercial software, CONVERGE™, was used as the main simulation tool, with the Reynolds averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) turbulence model and the multi-zone (SAGE) combustion model to compute the chemical reaction terms. SOI is varied from late compression ignition (CI) to early partially premixed combustion (PPC) conditions.

This article presents a study related to application of pre-chamber ignition system in heavy duty natural gas engine which, as previously shown by the authors, can extend the limit of fuel-lean combustion and hence improve fuel efficiency and reduce emissions. A previous study about the effect of pre-chamber volume and nozzle diameter on a single cylinder 2 liter truck-size engine resulted in recommendations for optimal pre-chamber geometry settings. The current study is to determine the dependency of those settings on the engine size. For this study, experiments are performed on a single cylinder 9 liter large bore marine engine with similar pre-chamber geometry and a test matrix of similar and scaled pre-chamber volume and nozzle diameter settings. The effect of these variations on main chamber ignition and the following combustion is studied to understand the scalability aspects of pre-chamber ignition. Indicated efficiency and engine-out emission data is also presented.

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 effect of pre-chamber volume and nozzle diameter on performance of pre-chamber ignition device in a heavy duty natural gas engine has previously been studied by the authors. From the analysis of recorded pre- and main chamber pressure traces, it was observed that a pre-chamber with a larger volume reduced flame development angle and combustion duration while at a given pre-chamber volume, smaller nozzle diameters provided better ignition in the main chamber. The structure of pre-chamber jet and its mixing characteristics with the main chamber charge are believed to play a vital role, and hence CFD simulations are performed to study the fluid dynamic aspects of interaction between the pre-chamber jet and main chamber charge during the period of flame development angle, i.e. before main chamber ignition. It has been observed that jets from a larger pre-chamber penetrates through the main chamber faster due to higher momentum and generates turbulence in the main chamber earlier.

The relatively new combustion concept known as partially premixed combustion (PPC) has high efficiency and low emissions. However, there are still challenges when it comes to fully understanding and implementing PPC. Thus a predictive combustion tool was used to gain further insight into the combustion process in late cycle mixing. The modeling tool is a stochastic reactor model (SRM) based on probability density functions (PDF). The model requires less computational time than a similar study using computational fluid dynamics (CFD). A novel approach with a two-zone SRM was used to capture the behavior of the partially premixed or stratified zones prior to ignition. This study focuses on PPC mixing conditions and the use of an efficient analysis approach.

This paper describes the development of a novel data model for storing and sharing data obtained from engine experiments, it then outlines a methodology for automatic model development and applies it to a state-of-the-art engine combustion model (including chemical kinetics) to reduce corresponding model parameter uncertainties with respect engine experiments. These challenges are met by adopting the latest developments in the semantic web to create a shared data model resource for the IC engine development community. The relevant data can be extracted and then used to set-up simulations for parameter estimation by passing it to the relevant application models. A methodology for incorporating experimental and model uncertainties into the model optimization procedure is presented.

The current research focuses in understanding how inlet pressure, EGR, combustion phasing, engine speed and pilot main ratio are affecting the main parameters of the combustion (e.g. efficiency, NOx, soot, maximum pressure rise rate) in the novel concept of injecting high octane number fuels in partially premixed combustion. The influence of the above mentioned parameters was studied by performing detailed sweeps at 32 bar fuel MEP (c.a. 16-18 bar gross IMEP); three different kinds of gasoline were tested (RON: 99, 89 and 69). The experiments were ran in a single cylinder heavy duty engine; Scania D12. At the end of these sweeps the optimized settings were computed in order to understand how to achieve high efficiency, low emissions and acceptable maximum pressure rise rate.

In the study presented in this paper, experimental data from a pneumatic hybrid has been compared to the results from a simulation of the engine in GT-Power. The engine in question is a single-cylinder Scania D12 diesel engine, which has been converted to work as a pneumatic hybrid. The base engine model, provided by Scania, is made in GT-Power and it is based on the same engine configuration as the one used during real engine testing. During pneumatic hybrid operation the engine can be used as a 2-stroke compressor for generation of compressed air during vehicle deceleration and during vehicle acceleration the engine can be operated as a 2-stroke air-motor driven by the previously stored pressurized air. There is also a possibility to use the stored pressurized air in order to supercharge the engine when there is a need for high torque, like for instance at take off after a standstill or during an overtake maneuver.

The paper describes a novel method for calculating the residual gas fraction and the trapping efficiency in a 2 stroke engine. Assuming one dimensional compressible flow through the inlet and exhaust ports, the method estimates the instantaneous mass flowing in and out from the combustion chamber; later the residual gas fraction and trapping efficiency are estimated combining together the perfect displacement and perfect mixing scavenging models. It is assumed that when the intake port opens, the fresh mixture is pushing out the burned charge without any mixing and after a multiple of the time needed for the largest eddy to perform one rotation, the two gasses are instantly mixed up together and expelled. The result is a very simple algorithm that does not require much computational time and is able to estimate with high level of precision the trapping efficiency and the residual gas fraction in 2 stroke engines.

The present paper shows the validation of a self tuning heat release method with no need to model heat losses, crevice losses and blow by. Using the pressure and volume traces the method estimates the polytropic exponents (before, during and after the combustion event), by the use of the emission values and amount of fuel injected per cycle the algorithm calculates the total heat release. These four inputs are subsequently used for computing the heat release trace. The result is a user independent algorithm which results in more objective comparisons among operating points and different engines. In the present paper the heat release calculated with this novel method has been compared with the one computed using the Woschni correlation for modeling the heat transfer. The comparison has been made using different fuels (PRF0, PRF80, ethanol and iso-octane) making sweeps in relative air-fuel ratio, engine speed, EGR and CA 50.

A previously presented robust and fast diagnostic NOx model was modified into a predictive model. This was done by using simple yet physically-based models for fuel injection, ignition delay, premixed heat release rate and diffusion combustion heat release rate. The model can be used both for traditional high temperature combustion and for high-EGR low temperature combustion. It was possible to maintain a high accuracy and calculation speed of the NOx model itself. The root mean square of the relative model error is 16 % and the calculation speed is around one second on a PC. Combustion characteristics such as ignition delay, CA50 and the general shape of the heat release rate are well predicted by the combustion model. The model is aimed at real time NOx calculation and optimization in a vehicle on the road.