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Low temperature combustion (LTC) may allow simultaneous reduction of nitrogen oxides (NOx) and soot with acceptable compromise in the efficiency of a diesel engine. Recently oxygenate biodiesel fuels were tested to resolve the problem of CO emission at higher exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) rates in LTC operation. In this paper 3-D simulation is performed by KIVA with soybean biodiesel blends of D100 and BD20 for a heavy duty test engine. The oxygen fraction in intake gas is controlled between 7% and 19% to simulate EGR in LTC operation. A surrogate mechanism is constructed by combining the skeletal mechanisms of methyl butanoate (MB) and n-heptane for low and high temperature chemistry. It consists of 76 species and 243 reaction steps with detailed NOx chemistry. The conditional moment closure (CMC) model is employed to address coupling between turbulence and chemistry.

Nowadays, automobile manufacturers are focusing on reducing exhaust-gas emissions because of their harmful effects on humans and the environment, such as global warming due to greenhouse gases. Direct injection combustion is a promising technology that can significantly improve fuel economy compared to conventional port fuel injection spark ignition engines. However, previous studies indicate that relatively high levels of nitrogen oxide (NOx) emission were produced with gasoline fuel in a spray-guided-type combustion system as a result of the stratified combustion characteristics. Because a lean-burn engine cannot employ a three-way catalyst, NOx emissions can be an obstacle to commercializing a lean-burn direct injection engine. Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) fuel was proposed as an alternative for reducing NOx emission because it has a higher vapor pressure than gasoline and decreases the local rich mixture region as a result of an improved mixing process.

A systematic methodology has been employed to develop the Duratec 3.5L EcoBoost combustion system, with focus on the optimization of the combustion system including injector spray pattern, intake port design, piston geometry, cylinder head geometry. The development methodology was led by CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) modeling together with a testing program that uses optical, single-cylinder, and multi-cylinder engines. The current study shows the effect of several spray patterns on air-fuel mixing, in-cylinder flow development, surface wetting, and turbulence intensity. A few sets of injector spray patterns are studied; some that have a wide total cone angle, some that have a narrow cone angle and a couple of optimized injector spray patterns. The effect of the spray pattern at part load, full load and cold start operation was investigated and the methodology for choosing an optimized injector is presented.

A transport equation residual model incorporating refined G-equation and detailed chemical kinetics combustion models has been developed and implemented in the ERC KIVA-3V release2 code for Gasoline Direct Injection (GDI) engine simulations for better predictions of flame propagation. In the transport equation residual model a fictitious species concept is introduced to account for the residual gases in the cylinder, which have a great effect on the laminar flame speed. The residual gases include CO2, H2O and N2 remaining from the previous engine cycle or introduced using EGR. This pseudo species is described by a transport equation. The transport equation residual model differentiates between CO2 and H2O from the previous engine cycle or EGR and that which is from the combustion products of the current engine cycle.

The combustion and exhaust emission characteristics of a DME fueled HCCI engine were investigated. Different fuel injection strategies were tested under various injection quantities and timings with exhaust gas recirculation (EGR). The combustion phase in HCCI was changed by an in-cylinder direct injection and EGR, due to changes in the in-cylinder temperature and mixture homogeneity. The gross indicated mean effective pressure (IMEPgross) increased and the hydrocarbon (HC) and carbon monoxide (CO) emissions decreased as the equivalence ratio was augmented. The IMEPgross with direct injection was greater than with the port injection due to retarded ignition timing resulting from latent heat of direct injected DME fuel. It was because that most of burn duration was completed before top dead center owing to higher ignitability for DME with high cetane number. However, HC and CO emissions were similar for both injection locations.

A detailed comparison of cylinder pressure derived combustion performance and engine-out emissions is made between an all-metal single-cylinder light-duty diesel engine and a geometrically equivalent engine designed for optical accessibility. The metal and optically accessible single-cylinder engines have the same nominal geometry, including cylinder head, piston bowl shape and valve cutouts, bore, stroke, valve lift profiles, and fuel injection system. The bulk gas thermodynamic state near TDC and load of the two engines are closely matched by adjusting the optical engine intake mass flow and composition, intake temperature, and fueling rate for a highly dilute, low temperature combustion (LTC) operating condition with an intake O2 concentration of 9%. Subsequent start of injection (SOI) sweeps compare the emissions trends of UHC, CO, NOx, and soot, as well as ignition delay and fuel consumption.

A single-cylinder, light-duty, diesel engine was used to investigate the effect of changes in intake pressure (boost) on engine performance and emissions in low-temperature combustion (LTC) regimes. Two different LTC strategies were examined: a dilution-controlled regime characterized by high rates of exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) with early-injection (roughly 30° BTDC), and a late-injection (near TDC) regime employing moderate EGR levels. For both strategies, moderate (8 bar IMEP) and low (3 bar IMEP) load conditions were tested at intake pressures of 1.0, 1.5, and 2.0 bar. For both LTC strategies, increased intake pressure reduces emissions of unburned hydrocarbons (UHC) and CO, with corresponding improvements in combustion efficiency and indicated specific fuel consumption (ISFC), particularly at high load. Depending on the operating condition, UHC and CO emissions can stem from either over-lean or over-rich mixtures.

High-speed video imaging in a swirl-supported (Rs = 1.7), direct-injection heavy-duty diesel engine operated with moderate-to-high EGR rates reveals a distinct correlation between the spatial distribution of luminous soot and mean flow vorticity in the horizontal plane. The temporal behavior of the experimental images, as well as the results of multi-dimensional numerical simulations, show that this soot-vorticity correlation is caused by the presence of a greater amount of soot on the windward side of the jet. The simulations indicate that while flow swirl can influence pre-ignition mixing processes as well as post-combustion soot oxidation processes, interactions between the swirl and the heat release can also influence mixing processes. Without swirl, combustion-generated gas flows influence mixing on both sides of the jet equally. In the presence of swirl, the heat release occurs on the leeward side of the fuel sprays.

This paper describes the CFD modeling work conducted for the development and research of a Vortex Induced Stratification Combustion (VISC) system that demonstrated superior fuel economy benefits. The Ford in-house CFD code and simulation methodology were employed. In the VISC concept a vortex forms on the outside of the wide cone angle spray and transports fuel vapor from the spray to the spark plug gap. A spray model for an outward-opening pintle injector used in the engine was developed, tested, and implemented in the code. Modeling proved to be effective for design optimization and analysis. The CFD simulations revealed important physical phenomena associated with the spray-guided combustion system mixing preparation.

Exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) and lean burn utilize the diluents into the engine cylinder to control combustion leading to enhanced fuel economy and reduced emissions. However, the occurrence of excessive cyclic variation with high diluent rates, brings about an undesirable combustion instability within the engine cylinder resulting in the deterioration of both engine performance and emissions. Proper stratification of mixture and diluents could improve the combustion stability under high diluent environment. EGR stratification within the cylinder was made by adopting a fast-response solenoid valve in the midst of EGR line and controlling its timing and duty. With EGR in both homogeneous mode and stratified mode, in-cylinder pressure and emissions were measured. The thermodynamic heat release analysis showed that the burning duration was decreased in case of stratified EGR. It was found that the stratification of EGR hardly affected the emissions.

Progress on the development and validation of a CFD model for diesel engine combustion and flow is described. A modified version of the KIVA code is used for the computations, with improved submodels for liquid breakup, drop distortion and drag, spray/wall impingement with rebounding, sliding and breaking-up drops, wall heat transfer with unsteadiness and compressibility, multistep kinetics ignition and laminar-turbulent characteristic time combustion models, Zeldovich NOx formation, and soot formation with Nagle Strickland-Constable oxidation. The code also considers piston-cylinder-liner crevice flows and allows computations of the intake flow process in the realistic engine geometry with two moving intake valves. Significant progress has been made using a modified RNG k-ε turbulence model, and a multicomponent fuel vaporization model and a flamelet combustion model have been implemented.

Progress on the development and validation of a CFD model for diesel engine combustion and flow is described. A modified version of the KIVA code is used for the computations, with improved submodels for liquid breakup, drop distortion and drag, spray/wall impingement with rebounding, sliding and breaking-up drops, wall heat transfer with unsteadiness and compressibility, multistep kinetics ignition and laminar-turbulent characteristic time combustion models, Zeldovich NOx formation, and soot formation with Nagle Strickland-Constable oxidation. The code also considers piston-cylinder-liner crevice flows and allows computations of the intake flow process in the realistic engine geometry with two moving intake valves. Significant progress has been made using a modified RNG k-ε turbulence model, and a multicomponent fuel vaporization model and a flamelet combustion model have been implemented.