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The possibility to operate current diesel engines in dual-fuel mode with the addition of an alternative fuel is fundamental to accelerate the energy transition to achieve carbon neutrality. The simulation of the dual- fuel combustion process with 0D/1D combustion models is fundamental for the performance prediction, but still particularly challenging, due to chemical interactions of the mixture. The authors defined a novel data-driven workflow for the development of combustion reaction mechanisms and used it to generate a dual-fuel mechanism for Ammonia and Diesel Primary Reference Fuels (DPRF) suitable for efficient combustion simulations in heavy duty engines, with variable cetane number Diesel fuels. A baseline reaction mechanism was created by merging the detailed ammonia mechanism by Glarborg et al. with reaction pathways for n- hexadecane and 2,2,4,4,6,8,8-heptamethylnonane from a well-established multi-component fuel mechanism.

Gasoline Direct Injection (GDI) fuel injectors are fouled when carbon deposits build-up on the injector tip, impeding fuel droplet atomization and dispersion. These issues, if left untreated, can lead to losses in engine power and fuel economy, as well as increased emissions of particulate matter (PM). Bottled aftermarket gasoline detergents are commonly used to remove deposits and restore injector performance. A performance analysis of three classes of bottled gasoline additives was performed, focusing on products that do not contain nitrogen-based detergents; products containing nitrogen-based detergents; and a new class of gasoline detergent formulations designed specifically for GDI injector fouling.

High-pressure internal combustion engines promise high efficiency, but a proper injection strategy to minimize heat losses and pollutant emissions remain a challenge. Previous studies have concluded that two injectors, placed at the piston bowl's rim, simultaneously improve the mixing and reduce the heat losses. The two-injector configuration further improves air utilization while keeping hot zones away from the cylinder walls. This study investigates how the two-injector concept delivers even higher efficiency by providing additional control of spray -and injection angles. Three-dimensional Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes simulations examined several umbrella angles, spray-to-spray angles, and injection orientations by comparing the two-injector cases with a reference one-injector case. The study focused on heat transfer reduction, where the two-injector approach reduces the heat transfer losses by up to 14.3 % compared to the reference case.

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.

Engine knock is an abnormal phenomenon, which places barriers for modern Spark-Ignition (SI) engines to achieve higher thermal efficiency and better performance. In order to trigger more controllable knock events for study while keeping the knock intensity at restricted range, various spark strategies (e.g. spark timing, spark number, spark location) are applied to investigate on their influences on knock combustion characteristics and pressure oscillations. The experiment is implemented on a modified single cylinder Compression-Ignition (CI) engine operated at SI mode with port fuel injection (PFI). A specialized liner with 4 side spark plugs and 4 pressure sensors is used to generate various flame propagation processes, which leads to different auto-ignition onsets and knock development. Based on multiple channels of pressure signals, a band-pass filter is applied to obtain the pressure oscillations with respect to different spark strategies.

With increasingly stringent emissions regulations, the use of pre-chamber combustion systems is gaining popularity in Internal Combustion Engines (ICE). The advantages of pre-chambers are well established, such as improving fuel economy by increasing the lean limit and reducing emissions, particularly NOX. In pre-chamber combustion, flame jets shoot out from the pre-chamber orifices into the main chamber, generating several ignition points that promote a rapid burn rate of the lean mixture (excess-air ratio (λ) >1) in the main chamber. This work studies the effects of using two different fuels in the main chamber and assesses the lean limit, the combustion efficiency (ηc), and the emissions of a single-cylinder heavy-duty engine equipped with a narrow-throat active pre-chamber. Ethanol (C2H5OH) was tested in the main chamber while keeping the pre-chamber fueled with methane (CH4), and the results were then compared to using methane as the sole fuel.

A new concept utilizing multiple fuel injectors was proven effective at reducing heat transfer losses by directing spray plumes further away from the combustion chamber walls. In this concept, two injectors are mounted close to the rim of the piston bowl and point in opposite directions to generate swirling in-cylinder bulk motion. Moreover, a new flat-bowl piston design was also proposed in combination with the multiple fuel injectors for even larger improvements in thermal efficiency. However, all tests were performed at low-to-medium load conditions with no significant EGR. Modern engine concepts, such as the double compression-expansion engine (DCEE), have demonstrated higher thermal efficiency when operated at high-load conditions with a large amount of EGR for NOx control. Thus, this study aims to assess the effectiveness of the multiple-fuel-injector system under such conditions. In this study, a number of 3-D CFD simulations are performed using the RANS technique in CONVERGE.

Isobaric combustion has demonstrated a great potential to reach high thermodynamic efficiency in the advanced Double Compression Expansion Engine (DCEE) concept. It appears as one of few viable choices for applications with high-pressure combustion. At these conditions, releasing heat at a constant pressure minimizes the peak in-cylinder pressure and, hence, mitigates excessive mechanical stress on the engine. This study focuses on the effect of fuels on the multiple-injection isobaric combustion. A single-cylinder heavy-duty engine was utilized to test and compare the isobaric combustion with pure isooctane and n-heptane fuels. The engine was equipped with an optical piston to allow a bottom-view of the combustion chamber. The interactions of multiple injections and the combustion behavior were studied using high-speed acquisition of chemiluminescence. The examined isobaric cases have a peak pressure of 70 bar.

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.

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.

In a previous study, it was shown that isobaric combustion cycle, achieved by multiple injection strategy, is more favorable than conventional diesel cycle for the double compression expansion engine (DCEE) concept. In spite of lower effective expansion ratio, the indicated efficiencies of isobaric cycles were approximately equal to those of a conventional diesel cycle. Isobaric cycles had lower heat transfer losses and higher exhaust losses which are advantageous for DCEE since additional exhaust energy can be converted into useful work in the expander. In this study, the performance of low-pressure isobaric combustion (IsoL) and high-pressure isobaric combustion (IsoH) in terms of gross indicated efficiency, energy flow distribution and engine-out emissions is compared to the conventional diesel combustion (CDC) but at a relatively lower compression ratio of 11.5. The experiments are conducted in a Volvo D13C500 single-cylinder heavy-duty engine using standard EU diesel fuel.

The effect of compression ratio (CR) and intake air temperature on the combustion characteristics of fuels with different octane ratings were investigated on a single-cylinder heavy duty engine. The study focused on Primary Reference Fuels (PRFs) and commercial grade diesel with octane numbers ranging from 0 to 100. The engine was configured at a CR of 11.5:1, which is lower than typical heavy-duty compression ignition CI engines. This aims to compare the fuels’ burning regime with recently reported measurements at CR17:1. Experiments were performed at different intake air temperatures of 20 to 80 °C and net indicated mean effective pressure (IMEPNet) of 5 to 20 bar. The injection rates have been characterized to determine the hydraulic delay of the injector and thus define the actual ignition delay time. At low loads, diesel-like fuels were found to burn in partially premixed combustion (PPC) mode whereas high octane fuels did not ignite.

Heat losses are known to decrease the efficiency of CI engines largely. Here, multiple injectors have been suggested to shrink these losses through reduction of spray wall impingement. Studies on multiple injectors have proven the concept’s heat transfer reduction but also highlighted the difficulty of using a standard piston bowl. This study proposes a two-injector concept combined with a flat bowl to reduce heat losses further. To change the spray pattern, the two injectors are injecting in a swirling motion while placed at the rim of the bowl. Four injection timings have been investigated using Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes simulations. This computational method quantified the amount of heat loss reduction possible. A conventional single injector concept is compared to two injector concepts with a standard and flat bowl. A Double Compression Expansion Engine (DCEE) concept, based on a modified Volvo D13 single-cylinder engine, was the base for all simulations.

Variable compression ratio (VCR) technology has long been recognized as a method for improving the automobile engine performance, efficiency, fuel economy with reduced emission. This paper presents a design of hydraulically actuated piston based on the VCR piston proposed by the British Internal Combustion Engine Research Institute (BICERI). In this design, the compression height of the piston automatically changes in response to engine cylinder pressure by controlling the lubrication oil flow via valves in the piston. In addition, numerical models including piston kinetic model, oil hydraulic model, compression ratio model and etc., have been established to evaluate the piston properties. The oil flow characteristics between two chambers in VCR piston have been investigated and the response behaviors of VCR engine and normal engine, such as compression pressure and peak cylinder pressure, are compared at different engine loads.

The efficiency of an internal combustion engine is highly dependent on the peak pressure at which the engine operates. A new compound engine concept, the double compression expansion engine (DCEE), utilizes a two-stage compression and expansion cycle to reach ultrahigh efficiencies. This engine takes advantage of its high-integrity structure, which is adapted to high pressures, and the peak motored pressure reaches up to 300 bar. However, this makes the use of conventional combustion cycles, such as the Seiliger-Sabathe (mixed) or Otto (isochoric) cycles, not feasible as they involve a further pressure rise due to combustion. This study investigates the concept of isobaric combustion at relatively high peak pressures and compares this concept with traditional diesel combustion cycles in terms of efficiency and emissions. Multiple consecutive injections through a single injector are used for controlling the heat release rate profile to achieve isobaric heat addition.

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.

The Double compression expansion engine (DCEE) concept has exhibited a potential for achieving high brake thermal efficiencies (BTE). The effect of different engine components on system efficiency was evaluated in this work using GT Power simulations. A parametric study on piston insulation, convection heat transfer multiplier, expander head insulation, insulation of connecting pipes, ports and tanks, and the expander intake valve lift profiles was conducted to understand the critical parameters that affected engine efficiency. The simulations were constrained to a constant peak cylinder pressure of 300 bar, and a fixed combustion phasing. The results from this study would be useful in making technology choices that will help realise the potential of this engine concept.

The concept of double compression, and double expansion engine (DCEE) for improving the efficiency of piston reciprocating engines was introduced in SAE Paper 2015-01-1260. This engine configuration has separate high, and low pressure units thereby effectively reducing friction losses for high effective compression ratios. The presence of an additional expander stage also theoretically allows an extra degree of freedom to manipulate the combustion heat release rate so as to achieve better optimum between heat transfer, and friction losses. This paper presents a 1-D modeling study of the engine concept in GT-Power for assessing the sensitivity of engine losses to heat release rate. The simulations were constrained by limiting the maximum pressure to 300 bar.

Partially Premixed Combustion (PPC) is a promising combustion concept ,based on judicious tuning of the charge stratification, to meet the increasing demands of emission legislation and to improve fuel efficiency. Longer ignition delays of PPC in comparison with conventional diesel combustion provide better fuel/air mixture which decreases soot and NOx emissions. Moreover, a proper injection timing and strategy for PPC can improve the combustion stability as a result of a higher level of fuel stratification in comparison with the Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) concept. Injection timing is the major parameter with which to affect the level of fuel and combustion stratification and to control the combustion phasing and the heat release behavior. The scope of the present study is to investigate the fluid flow characteristics of PPC at different injection timings.

Partially Premixed Combustion (PPC) is a promising combustion concept with high thermodynamic efficiency and low emission level, and also with minimal modification of standard engine hardware. To use PPC in a production oriented engine, the optimal intake charge conditions for PPC should be included in the analysis. The experiments in this paper investigated and confirmed that the optimal intake conditions of net indicated efficiency for PPC are EGR between 50% and 55% as possible and the lambda close to 1.4. Heat-transfer energy and exhaust gas waste-energy contribute to the majority of the energy loss in the engine. The low EGR region has high heat-transfer and low exhaust gas enthalpy-waste, while the high EGR region has low heat-transfer and high exhaust gas waste-enthalpy. The optimal EGR condition is around 50% where the smallest energy loss is found as a trade-off between heat transfer and exhaust-gas enthalpy-waste.