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Flow field asymmetry can lead to an asymmetric mixture preparation in Diesel engines. To understand the evolution of this asymmetry, it is necessary to characterize the in-cylinder flow over the full compression stroke. Moreover, since bowl-in-piston cylinder geometries can substantially impact the in-cylinder flow, characterization of these flows requires the use of geometrically correct pistons. In this work, the flow has been visualized via a transparent piston top with a realistic bowl geometry, which causes severe experimental difficulties due to the spatial and temporal variation of the optical distortion. An advanced optical distortion correction method is described to allow reliable particle image velocimetry (PIV) measurements through the full compression stroke. Based on the ensemble-averaged velocity results, flow asymmetry characterized by the swirl center offset and the associated tilting of the vortex axis is quantified.

In the current work, a series-hybrid vehicle has been constructed that utilizes a dual-fuel, Reactivity Controlled Compression Ignition (RCCI) engine. The vehicle is a 2009 Saturn Vue chassis and a 1.9L turbo-diesel engine converted to operate with low temperature RCCI combustion. The engine is coupled to a 90 kW AC motor, acting as an electrical generator to charge a 14.1 kW-hr lithium-ion traction battery pack, which powers the rear wheels by a 75 kW drive motor. Full vehicle testing was conducted on chassis dynamometers at the Vehicle Emissions Research Laboratory at Ford Motor Company and at the Vehicle Research Laboratory at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. For this work, the US Environmental Protection Agency Highway Fuel Economy Test was performed using commercially available gasoline and ultra-low sulfur diesel. Fuel economy and emissions data were recorded over the specified test cycle and calculated based on the fuel properties and the high-voltage battery energy usage.

While Low Temperature Combustion (LTC) strategies such as Reactivity Controlled Compression Ignition (RCCI) exhibit high thermal efficiency and produce low NOx and soot emissions, low load operation is still a significant challenge due to high unburnt hydrocarbon (UHC) and carbon monoxide (CO) emissions, which occur as a result of poor combustion efficiencies at these operating points. Furthermore, the exhaust gas temperatures are insufficient to light-off the Diesel Oxidation Catalyst (DOC), thereby resulting in poor UHC and CO conversion efficiencies by the aftertreatment system. To achieve exhaust gas temperature values sufficient for DOC light-off, combustion can be appropriately phased by changing the ratio of gasoline to diesel in the cylinder, or by burning additional fuel injected during the expansion stroke through post-injection.

The application of close-coupled post injections in diesel engines has been proven to be an effective in-cylinder strategy for soot reduction, without much fuel efficiency penalty. But due to the complexity of in-cylinder combustion, the soot reduction mechanism of post-injections is difficult to explain. Accordingly, a simulation study using a three dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model, coupled with the SpeedChem chemistry solver and a semi-detailed soot model, was carried out to investigate post-injection in a constant volume combustion chamber, which is more simple and controllable with respect to the boundary conditions than an engine. A 2-D axisymmetric mesh of radius 2 cm and height 5 cm was used to model the spray. Post-injection durations and initial oxygen concentrations were swept to study the efficacy of post-injection under different combustion conditions.

The present experimental engine efficiency study explores the effects of intake pressure and temperature, and premixed and global equivalence ratios on gross thermal efficiency (GTE) using the reactivity controlled compression ignition (RCCI) combustion strategy. Experiments were conducted in a heavy-duty single-cylinder engine at constant net load (IMEPn) of 8.45 bar, 1300 rev/min engine speed, with 0% EGR, and a 50% mass fraction burned combustion phasing (CA50) of 0.5°CA ATDC. The engine was port fueled with E85 for the low reactivity fuel and direct injected with 3.5% 2-ethylhexyl nitrate (EHN) doped into 91 anti-knock index (AKI) gasoline for the high-reactivity fuel. The resulting reactivity of the enhanced fuel corresponds to an AKI of approximately 56 and a cetane number of approximately 28. The engine was operated with a wide range of intake pressures and temperatures, and the ratio of low- to high-reactivity fuel was adjusted to maintain a fixed speed-phasing-load condition.

An experimental study has been conducted to provide insight into heat transfer to the piston of a light-duty single-cylinder research engine under Conventional Diesel (CDC), Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI), and Reactivity Controlled Compression Ignition (RCCI) combustion regimes. Two fast-response surface thermocouples embedded in the piston top measured transient temperature. A commercial wireless telemetry system was used to transmit thermocouple signals from the moving piston. A detailed comparison was made between the different combustion regimes at a range of engine speed and load conditions. The closed-cycle integrated and peak heat transfer rates were found to be lower for HCCI and RCCI when compared to CDC. Under HCCI operation, the peak heat transfer rate showed sensitivity to the 50% burn location.

One in-cylinder strategy for reducing soot emissions from diesel engines while maintaining fuel efficiency is the use of close-coupled post injections, which are small fuel injections that follow the main fuel injection after a short delay. While the in-cylinder mechanisms of diesel combustion with single injections have been studied extensively and are relatively well understood, the in-cylinder mechanisms affecting the performance and efficacy of post injections have not been clearly established. Here, experiments from a single-cylinder heavy-duty optical research engine incorporating close- coupled post injections are modeled with three dimensional (3D) computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations. The overall goal is to complement experimental findings with CFD results to gain more insight into the relationship between post-injections and soot. This paper documents the first stage of CFD results for simulating and analyzing the experimental conditions.

Measurements of ignition behavior, homogeneous reactor simulations employing detailed kinetics, and quantitative in-cylinder imaging of fuel-air distributions are used to delineate the impact of temperature, dilution, pilot injection mass, and injection pressure on the pilot ignition process. For dilute, low-temperature conditions characterized by a lengthy ignition delay, pilot ignition is impeded by the formation of excessively lean mixture. Under these conditions, smaller pilot mass or higher injection pressures further lengthen the pilot ignition delay. Similarly, excessively rich mixtures formed under relatively short ignition delay conditions typical of conventional diesel combustion will also prolong the ignition delay. In this latter case, smaller pilot mass or higher injection pressures will shorten the ignition delay. The minimum charge temperature required to effect a robust pilot ignition event is strongly dependent on charge O2 concentration.

A single-cylinder light-duty diesel engine was used to investigate dual fuel reactivity controlled compression ignition (RCCI) operated with two different fuel combinations: gasoline/diesel fuel and methanol/diesel fuel. The engine was operated over a range of conditions, from 1500 to 2300 rpm and 3.5 to 17 bar gross IMEP. Using the stock re-entrant piston bowl geometry, both fuel combinations were able to achieve low NOx and PM emissions with a peak gross indicated efficiency of 48%. However, at light load conditions both gasoline and methanol yielded poorer combustion efficiencies. Previous studies have shown that the high-levels of piston induced mixing that are created by the stock piston are not required, and in fact are detrimental due to increased heat transfer losses, for premixed combustion. Thus a modified piston featuring a shallow, flat piston bowl with nearly no squish land was also investigated.

In a recent study, quantitative measurements were presented of in-cylinder spatial distributions of mixture equivalence ratio in a single-cylinder light-duty optical diesel engine, operated with a non-reactive mixture at conditions similar to an early injection low-temperature combustion mode. In the experiments a planar laser-induced fluorescence (PLIF) methodology was used to obtain local mixture equivalence ratio values based on a diesel fuel surrogate (75% n-heptane, 25% iso-octane), with a small fraction of toluene as fluorescing tracer (0.5% by mass). Significant changes in the mixture's structure and composition at the walls were observed due to increased charge motion at high swirl and injection pressure levels. This suggested a non-negligible impact on wall heat transfer and, ultimately, on efficiency and engine-out emissions.

In-cylinder blending of gasoline and diesel to achieve Reactivity Controlled Compression Ignition (RCCI) has been shown to reduce NOX and particulate matter (PM) emissions while maintaining or improving brake thermal efficiency as compared to conventional diesel combustion (CDC). The RCCI concept has an advantage over many advanced combustion strategies in that the fuel reactivity can be tailored to the engine speed and load allowing stable low-temperature combustion to be extended over more of the light-duty drive cycle load range. Varying the premixed gasoline fraction changes the fuel reactivity stratification in the cylinder providing further control of combustion phasing and pressure rise rate than the use of EGR alone. This added control over the combustion process has been shown to allow rapid engine operating point exploration without direct modeling guidance.

Premixed charge compression ignition (PCI) strategies offer the potential for simultaneously low NOx and soot emissions with diesel-like efficiency. However, these strategies are generally confined to low loads due to inadequate control of combustion phasing and heat-release rate. One PCI strategy, dual-fuel reactivity-controlled compression ignition (RCCI), has been developed to control combustion phasing and rate of heat release. The RCCI concept uses in-cylinder blending of two fuels with different auto-ignition characteristics to achieve controlled high-efficiency clean combustion. This study explores fuel reactivity stratification as a method to control the rate of heat release for PCI combustion. To introduce fuel reactivity stratification, the research engine is equipped with two fuel systems. A low-pressure (100 bar) gasoline direct injector (GDI) delivers iso-octane, and a higher-pressure (600 bar) common-rail diesel direct-injector delivers n-heptane.

An investigation of high speed direct injection (DI) compression ignition (CI) engine combustion fueled with gasoline (termed GDICI for Gasoline Direct-Injection Compression Ignition) in the low temperature combustion (LTC) regime is presented. As an aid to plan engine experiments at full load (16 bar IMEP, 2500 rev/min), exploration of operating conditions was first performed numerically employing a multi-dimensional CFD code, KIVA-ERC-Chemkin, that features improved sub-models and the Chemkin library. The oxidation chemistry of the fuel was calculated using a reduced mechanism for primary reference fuel combustion. Operation ranges of a light-duty diesel engine operating with GDICI combustion with constraints of combustion efficiency, noise level (pressure rise rate) and emissions were identified as functions of injection timings, exhaust gas recirculation rate and the fuel split ratio of double-pulse injections.

Several diffusion combustion scaling models were experimentally tested in two geometrically similar single-cylinder diesel engines with a bore diameter ratio of 1.7. Assuming that the engines have the same in-cylinder thermodynamic conditions and equivalence ratio, the combustion models primarily change the fuel injection pressure and engine speed in order to attain similar performance and emissions. The models tested include an extended scaling model, which scales diffusion flame lift-off length and jet spray penetration; a simple scaling model, which only scales spray penetration at equal mean piston speed; and a same speed scaling model, which holds crankshaft rotational velocity constant while also scaling spray penetration. Successfully scaling diffusion combustion proved difficult to accomplish because of apparent differences that remained in the fuel-air mixing and heat transfer processes.

Single-cylinder engine experiments were used to investigate a fuel reactivity controlled compression ignition (RCCI) concept in both light- and heavy-duty engines and comparisons were made between the two engine classes. It was found that with only small changes in the injection parameters, the combustion characteristics of the heavy-duty engine could be adequately reproduced in the light-duty engine. Comparisons of the emissions and performance showed that both engines can simultaneously achieve NOx below 0.05 g/kW-hr, soot below 0.01 g/kW-hr, ringing intensity below 4 MW/m2, and gross indicated efficiencies above 50 per cent. However, it was found that the peak gross indicated efficiency of the baseline light-duty engine was approximately 7 per cent lower than the heavy-duty engine. The energy balances of the two engines were compared and it was found that the largest factor contributing to the lower efficiency of the light-duty engine was increased heat transfer losses.

The soot distribution as function of ambient O₂ mole fraction in a heavy-duty diesel engine was investigated at low load (6 bar IMEP) with laser-induced incandescence (LII) and natural luminosity. A Multi-YAG laser system was utilized to create time-resolved LII using 8 laser pulses with a spacing of one CAD with detection on an 8-chip framing camera. It is well known that the engine-out smoke level increases with decreasing oxygen fraction up to a certain level where it starts to decrease again. For the studied case the peak occurred at an O₂ fraction of 11.4%. When the oxygen fraction was decreased successively from 21% to 9%, the initial soot formation moved downstream in the jet. At the lower oxygen fractions, below 12%, no soot was formed until after the wall interaction. At oxygen fractions below 11% the first evidence of soot is in the recirculation zone between two adjacent jets.

The objective of this investigation is to optimize a light-duty diesel engine in order to minimize soot, NOx, carbon monoxide (CO), unburned hydrocarbon (UHC) emissions and peak pressure rise rate (PPRR) while improving fuel economy in a low oxygen environment. Variables considered are the injection timings, fractional amount of fuel per injection, half included spray angle, swirl, and stepped-bowl piston geometry. The KIVA-CHEMKIN code, a multi-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) program with detailed chemistry is used and is coupled to a multi-objective genetic algorithm (MOGA) along with an automated grid generator. The stepped-piston bowl allows more options for spray targeting and improved charge preparation. Results show that optimal combinations of the above variables exist to simultaneously reduce emissions and fuel consumption. Details of the spray targeting were found to have a major impact on the combustion process.

This study explores an Adaptive Injection Strategy (AIS) that employs multiple injections at both low and high pressures to reduce spray-wall impingement, control combustion phasing, and limit pressure rise rates in a Premixed Compression Ignition (PCI) engine. Previous computational studies have shown that reducing the injection pressure of early injections can prevent spray-wall impingement caused by long liquid penetration lengths. This research focuses on understanding the performance and emissions benefits of low and high pressure split injections through experimental parametric sweeps of a 0.48 L single-cylinder test engine operating at 2000 rev/min and 5.5 bar nominal IMEP. This study examines the effects of 2nd injection pressure, EGR, swirl ratio, and 1st and 2nd injection timing, for both single heat release and two-peak high temperature heat release cases. In order to investigate the AIS concept experimentally, a Variable Injection Pressure (VIP) system was developed.

The goal of this research is to investigate the physical parameters of stoichiometric operation of a diesel engine under a light load operating condition (6∼7 bar IMEP). This paper focuses on improving the fuel efficiency of stoichiometric operation, for which a fuel consumption penalty relative to standard diesel combustion was found to be 7% from a previous study. The objective is to keep NOx and soot emissions at reasonable levels such that a 3-way catalyst and DPF can be used in an aftertreatment combination to meet 2010 emissions regulation. The effects of intake conditions and the use of group-hole injector nozzles (GHN) on fuel consumption of stoichiometric diesel operation were investigated. Throttled intake conditions exhibited about a 30% fuel penalty compared to the best fuel economy case of high boost/EGR intake conditions. The higher CO emissions of throttled intake cases lead to the poor fuel economy.

A multi-objective genetic algorithm coupled with the KIVA3V release 2 code was used to optimize the piston bowl geometry, spray targeting, and swirl ratio levels of a high speed direct injected (HSDI) diesel engine for passenger cars. Three modes, which represent full-, mid-, and low-loads, were optimized separately. A non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm II (NSGA II) was used for the optimization. High throughput computing was conducted using the CONDOR software. An automated grid generator was used for efficient mesh generation with variable geometry parameters, including open and reentrant bowl designs. A series of new spray models featuring reduced mesh dependency were also integrated into the code. A characteristic-time combustion (CTC) model was used for the initial optimization for time savings. Model validation was performed by comparison with experiments for the baseline engine at full-, mid-, and low-load operating conditions.