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To achieve higher brake thermal efficiency (BTE) and improve vehicle economy, the new development of dedicated hybrid engine (DHE), adopting the Atkinson or Miller cycle, has been becoming the current development trends. A base 1.5L natural aspiration (NA) engine with deep Atkinson cycle has been developed for dedicated hybrid vehicle application, which can achieve the highest BTE of 41.19%. In order to achieve higher BTE, several potential technologies which are easy for mass production application have been studied progressively, such as, higher compression ratio (CR), optimized exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) pick point, lower EGR temperature, higher EGR rate, higher RON number fuels, heat transfer reduction by polishing valve head, light boost, lower viscosity oil. The results show the combined technology application can achieve the highest engine BTE of 42.59%. This paper provides the studied technical routine and the achieved benefits step by step.

This paper describes a simulation guided design methodology for developing direct injection combustion systems of gasoline engines. The first step is the optimization of engine gas flow. The intake port is optimized by CFD simulations to compromise the engine breathing capacity and its tumble flow. Secondly, the piston crown shapes and the injection system designs (injection pressure, hole number, hole size and orientations) are optimized based on dedicated CFD simulation results. Thirdly, different injection strategies are used at different engine operating conditions to achieve best engine performance, such as split injections being used at cold starting and catalyst heating period to realize stratified charge combustion for fast catalyst light-off, and a single injection being used to achieve homogeneous mixture combustion at almost all other operating conditions.

Measurement on turbulent premixed CH4/H2/air flames was studied experimentally. Hydrogen blending ratio is defined as the ratio of hydrogen to fuel, while CO2 dilution ratio is defined as the mole fraction of CO2 to those of mixture. Hydrogen blending ratios up to 0.2 and CO2 dilution ratios up to 0.1 were studied. OH profile of the instantaneous flame front was detected using the OH-PLIF visualizations on a turbulent Bunsen burner. 500 OH-PLIF images were used to obtain the turbulent burning velocity and calculate flame surface density, and 280 images was used to calculate the local curvature radius.

Due to serious energy crisis and pollution problem, interest in research of the alternative fuels is increasing over the world. Alcohol fuels are always considered to be promising alternative fuels. Lower alcohols owning high octane number is good octane enhancer for SI (Spark ignition) engine, however is difficult to be used in CI (Compression Ignition) engines. Higher alcohols like pentanol with higher energy content, poor water solubility and higher cetane number are good choice for the CI engines. In this study, laminar flame behaviors of ethanol-air, n-butanol-air and n-pentanol-air mixtures at 393 K and 0.1 MPa are compared and analyzed with the spherical propagating flames. Comparison of the laminar flame speeds measured in the previous studies (Li et al.) show that laminar flame speed of ethanol is the fastest with slower flame speed of n-butanol and n-pentanol at lean mixture. At rich mixture, three alcohols present very close values.

Ignition delay times of Diethyl Ether (DEE) were measured behind reflected shock waves for the temperatures from 1050 to 1600 K, pressures of 1.2, 4 and 16 atm and equivalence ratios of 0.5 and 1.0. Result shows that the ignition delay times increase with the increase of the equivalence ratio and the decrease of the pressure. The only literature DEE mechanism (Yasunaga et al. model) was employed to simulate the experimental data and result shows that the model gives reasonable prediction on lean mixtures, while the prediction on stoichiometric mixtures is slightly higher. Sensitivity analysis was conducted to pick out the key reactions in the process of DEE ignition at high and low pressures, respectively. Reaction pathway analysis shows that the consumption of DEE is dominated by the H-abstraction reactions. Through linear analysis, a correlation for the DEE ignition data was obtained.

The specific heat ratio used in heat release calculation plays an important role and the mass fraction burned is also a crucial parameter in thermodynamics analysis for engine combustion. A research of high methane fraction natural gas was investigated in a constant volume combustion vessel at different initial conditions. Results show that with the increase of the initial pressure, the specific heat ratio is decreased, and the time of the mixture burned up is postponed, while the peak heat release ratio is increased. With the increase of the methane fraction, the parameters have the opposite behavior. With the increase of the initial temperature, the specific heat ratio is decreased, and the time when the mixture is burned up is accelerated, and the peak heat release ratio has no obviously difference. With the increase of the dilution ratio or the CO2/N2 ratio, the specific heat ratio is decreased, and the peak heat release heat ratio is decreased.

Ethanol is the most widely used renewable fuel in the world now. Compared to ethanol, butanol is another very promising renewable fuel for internal combustion engines. It is less corrosive, and has higher energy density, lower vapor pressure and lower solubility in water. However, the use of Acetone-Butanol-Ethanol (ABE), an intermediate product in ABE fermentation, presents a cost advantage over ethanol and butanol and has attracted much attention recently. In this study, three high-alcohol-content gasoline blends (85% vol. of ethanol, butanol and ABE, referred as E85, B85 and ABE85, respectively) were investigated in a port-injection spark-ignition engine. ABE has a component ratio of 3:6:1. In addition, pure gasoline was also tested as a baseline for comparison. All fuels were tested under the same conditions (1200 RPM, Φ = 0.83−1.25, BMEP = 3 bar).

Performance and particulate emissions of a modern common-rail and turbocharged diesel engine fueled with diesel and biodiesel fuels were comparatively studied. An electrical low-pressure impactor (ELPI) was employed to measure particle size distribution and number concentration. Two biodiesel fuels, BDFs (biodiesel from soybean oil) and BDFc (biodiesel from used cooking oil), as well as ultra-low sulfur diesel were used. The study shows that biodiesels give higher thermal efficiency than diesel. Biodiesels give obviously lower exhaust gas temperature than diesel under high engine speed. The differences in fuel consumption, thermal efficiency and exhaust gas temperature between BDFs and BDFc are negligible. The first peaks of heat release rate for biodiesels are lower than that of diesel, while the second peaks are higher and advanced for biodiesels. BDFs show slightly slower heat release than BDFc during the first heat release stage at low engine speed.

Experiments were conducted in a turbocharged, high-pressure common rail diesel engine to investigate particulate emissions from the engine fueled with biodiesel and diesel blends. An electrical low-pressure impactor (ELPI) was employed to measure the particle size distribution and number concentration. Heated dilution was used to suppress nuclei mode particles and focus on accumulation mode particles. The experiment was carried out at five engine loads and two engine speeds. Biodiesel fractions of 10%, 20%, 40%, 60% and 80% in volume were tested. The study shows that most of the particles are distributed with their diameters between 0.02 and 0.2 μm, and the number concentration becomes quite small for the particles with the diameters larger than 0.2 μm. With the increase of biodiesel fraction, engine speed and/or engine load, particle number concentration decreases significantly, while the particle size distribution varies little.

Changan Automobile Company recently develops a new 1.0L turbocharged GDI engine for its future vehicle as an affordable fuel-saving option. Fuel direct injection and turbo-charging are integrated to significantly improve fuel economy and power. Injection spray pattern plays an important role on GDI engine combustion system because of its critical influences on combustion and oil dilution. In this paper, four injector patterns were tested in an optical engine with Planar, double sided Laser Induced Fluorescence (LIF) with fuel & tracer and flame imaging methods to evaluate spray, mixture formation and combustion process in cylinder. Spray pattern and mixture formation are studied using LIF, while flame and combustion characteristics are studied by flame natural luminosity. The pictures of piston crown and glass liner are also evaluated for fuel spray impingement. Four types of multi-hole injectors are prepared.

In this study, the ignition delay times of DME/n-C4H10 fuel blends (neat DME, 50/50 and neat n-C4H10) diluted with argon were measured behind reflected shock waves. The experiments were performed in the temperature range of 1250 - 1600 K, at pressure of 2.0 MPa and equivalence ratios from 0.5 to 2.0. A latest kinetic mechanism NUIG Aramco Mech 1.3 was validated against the present ignition data and used to conducted chemical kinetic analysis. Different equivalence-ratio-dependent was exhibited at different temperature regimes for DME, n-C4H10, and their blend. Fuel flux analysis, sensitive analysis and mole fraction analysis were carried out for understanding the interaction between the ignition chemistries of DME and n-C4H10.

Natural gas has become an attractive alternative for diesel fuel due to its higher octane number, richer reserves and lower price. It has been utilized in compression ignition engines to obtain a higher thermal efficiency compared with spark ignition engines. However, its relatively higher auto-ignition temperature increases the difficulty of compression-ignition based on present hardware devices. One optimal ignition method is that a very small quantity of diesel fuel as the only ignition resource pilot-ignites the lean natural gas-air mixture. This micro diesel pilot-ignited natural gas premixed charge compression ignition (DPING-PCCI) combustion strategy is easy to implement without major hardware modifications, and can significantly reduce the NOx and particle mass emissions from diesel engines. Although the DPING-PCCI has so many advantages, it suffers from poor engine stability and high ultrafine particles emissions at part loads.

Ignition delay times of stoichiometric dimethyl ether (DME) and n-butane blends were measured in a shock tube at varied DME blending ratios, temperatures and pressures. Simulation work extended the pressure to 20 atm by using Chemkin and NUI C4_47 mechanism. The experimental ignition delay times of DME/n-butane were obtained at different DME blending ratios. Measured ignition delay times were compared to simulations based on NUI C4_47 mechanisms by Curran et al. The mechanism predicts the magnitude of ignition delay times well and a slightly higher activation energy. The ignition delay times increase linearly with the increase of 1000/T and the overall activation energy keeps almost the same value at the conditions in this study. Increasing pressure decreases exponentially the ignition delay time. Ignition delay time decreases linearly with the increase of DME blending ratio.

Due to its load control strategy via fresh charge quantity, pumping loss in a homogenous charge gasoline engine is a significant contributor to the high fuel consumption rate at light load. Exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) and lean burn technologies are the common means to reduce gasoline engine pumping loss for fuel economy improvement. Many previous publications compared the EGR and lean burn concepts. However, few of those were able to compare the EGR and lean burn concepts under the same in-cylinder dilution basis. Usually the un-swept in-cylinder residual gas fraction (RGF), which can be significant at very low loads, was ignored due to lack of appropriate method to determine it. Also the theoretical potential and practical limitations were rarely discussed. In this paper, a Naturally Aspirated (NA) gasoline engine was systematically tested for both the EGR and lean mixture concepts on an engine dyno. under the same speed and load conditions.

Ignition delay of undiluted syngas mixtures with different compositions of H₂, CO, CO₂, N₂ and air was measured using a shock tube. Experiments were conducted under various conditions of pressure of 0.2 and 1.0 MPa, temperature from 757 to 1280 K, and equivalence ratio of 0.3 and 1.0. The testing data set was analyzed based on methods including: Arrhenius-type correlation (to assess the effect of pressure, temperature, equivalence ratio, and fuel composition on ignition characteristics), use Davis's mechanism (to calculate ignition delay). The obtained results using Arrhenius-type correlation and Davis's mechanism showed a far difference from experimental values. A detailed analysis was conducted to evaluate the influence of perturbation from shock tube experiments on chemical induction time of the syngas. The ignition delays, considered the effect of non-ideal conditions, are shorter than ones which predicted with ideal conditions.

As a biomass-based renewable fuel, n-butanol has many superior properties, such as better miscibility in diesel, higher energy content and higher cetane number, which make it an attractive alternative or blending component to diesel fuel compared with its alcohol competitors, methanol and ethanol. Although n-butanol has so many advantages, literature on the effects of its addition on diesel engines are still not sufficient. In this study, the influences of n-butanol addition on the performance and emissions of a turbocharged common-rail diesel engine are investigated under different speed and load conditions. The fuel consumption rate and the gaseous emissions (CO, CO₂, HC, and NOx) are measured. Moreover, an electrical low pressure impactor (ELPI) is utilized to study the particulate matter (PM) number-size distributions under different conditions.

Ultrafine particles and NOx emissions of two kinds of biodiesels and their blends with diethyl ether (DEE) as an additive were compared under two engine speeds and three loads on a turbocharged, high-pressure, common rail diesel engine. A single spray injection and equivalence ratio distribution are used to explain the results. The study shows that biodiesel and biodiesel-DEE blend consume more fuels than diesel but slight variation in thermal efficiency. NOx emissions of waste cooking oil biodiesel are less than those of soybean biodiesel. At low and medium loads, DEE blending reduces the NOx emission. At all engine loads and speeds, the shape of ultrafine particle number distribution curve is unimodal, and fuel type slightly affects the shape of distribution curves. The number/mass distribution curves shift to fewer particles when operating on biodiesel and the curves further move to downward when DEE is added.

In this paper, 20%H₂ (20% hydrogen in natural gas-hydrogen blends, by volume) is selected as the test fuel, and the ignition timing and EGR ratio are adjusted to optimize the performance, combustion, and emissions of a natural gas-hydrogen engine. An experimental investigation on the effect of ignition timings, EGR ratios on combustion behaviors and emissions of a spark-ignition engine fuelled with natural-gas and hydrogen blends was conducted. When increasing the ignition timing at specified EGR ratio, engine power output will give its peak value at MBT timing. Large EGR introduction decreases engine power output and increases combustion duration. Effective thermal efficiency shows an increasing trend at the small EGR ratio and a decreasing trend with further increasing EGR ratio. With advancing the ignition timing, the flame development duration is increased, and the rapid combustion duration and total combustion duration are decreased.

The effect of injection pressure ranging from 100 to 300MPa on the ignition, flame development and soot formation characteristics of biodiesel fuel spray using a common rail injection system for direct injection (D.I.) diesel engine was investigated. Experiments were carried out in a constant volume vessel under conditions similar to the real engine condition using a single hole nozzle. Biodiesel fuels from two sources namely; palm oil (BDFp) and cooked oil (BDFc) with the commercial JIS#2diesel fuel were utilized in this research. The OH chemiluminescence technique was used to determine the ignition and the lift-off length of the combusting flame. The natural luminosity technique was applied to study the flame development and the two color pyrometry was applied for the soot formation processes. Ignition delay decreased as the injection pressure progressed from 100 to 300MPa. This was as a result of the enhanced mixing achieved at higher injection pressures.

This paper presents basic combustion behavior of a compressed natural gas directly injected into a cylinder with spark-ignition. Experiments were conducted in a rapid-compression machine (RCM) with the cylinder bore of 80 mm, the stroke of 180 mm and the compression ratio of 10 at TDC. A CNG was injected through specially designed injectors which were installed at the side of combustion chamber with three modes, twin injectors in parallel, twin injectors in opposed and single injector. Combustion products were also measured with an infra-red gas analyzer. Direct photographs were taken with a high-speed video for observation. Effect of fuel injection timing was examined at constant spark timing together with the influence of injection mode. Results show several beneficial combustion characteristics of direct injection combustion using CNG. Combining with the results of combustion products and photographic observation, the combustion mechanism is discussed.