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It is well known that indirect injection (IDI) diesel engines have better exhaust performance but lower fuel economy than direct-injection (DI) diesel engines. In recent years, fuel efficiency has been strongly demanded to reduce global warming. Therefore, the IDI engine is required to reduce fuel consumption. According to past research, fuel injection control can be one of the means to improve fuel efficiency in the IDI system. This paper tried to apply two-stage fuel injection as one of the fuel injection control methods to improve fuel efficiency while suppressing exhaust emissions. Particularly, since it is considered necessary to reduce the amount of injection during the ignition delay period in the sub-chamber with the IDI type, two-stage injection with a small amount of pilot injection was applied.

Spray development and fuel-air mixture formation are important process early in diesel combustion. Moreover, wall impingement of spray and spray interaction also affect combustion process greatly. The spray interaction happens in multi-hole injector. This study investigated influence of spray combustion accompanied with wall impingement and spray interaction on heat release history. The experiment observed initial spray development by shadowgraph technique using a constant volume spray chamber. The injectors were a single-hole injector and multi-hole injectors with the hole-number of 8, 6 and 4. The combustion experiment observed flame development. The spatial distribution of the flame temperature and the soot oxidation were analyzed by the flame images. Results of the unburned spray images revealed the difference of mixture formation and initial combustion between single-hole and multi-hole sprays.

The aim of this study is to clarify the mixture formation in the combustion chamber of our developed natural gas engine incorporating the sub-chamber injection system, in which natural gas is directly injected into a combustion sub-chamber in order to completely separate rich mixture in the sub-chamber, suitable for ignition, from ultra-lean mixture in the main chamber. Mixture distributions in chambers with and without sub-chamber were numerically simulated at a variety of operating conditions. The commercial software of Fluent 16.0 was used to conduct simulations based on Reynolds averaged Navier-Stokes equations in an axial 2 dimensional numerical domain considering movements of piston. Non-reactive flow in the combustion chamber was simulated before the ignition timing at an engine speed of 2000 rpm. The turbulence model employed here is standard k-ε model. Air-fuel ratio is set with a lean condition of 30.

Three-dimensional direct numerical simulations of methane-air turbulent premixed flame propagating in homogenous isotropic turbulence are conducted to investigate local and global flame structure in thin reaction zones. GRI-Mech 3.0 is used to represent methane-air reactions. The equivalence ratio of unburned mixture is 0.6 and 1.0. For a better understanding of the local flame structure in thin reaction zones, distributions of mass fractions of major species, heat release rate and temperature are investigated. To clarify effects of turbulence on the local and global flame structures, the statistical characteristics of flame elements are also revealed.

A direct numerical simulation of turbulent premixed flames in a constant volume vessel is conducted to understand flame-wall interactions and heat loss characteristics under the pressure rising condition. The contribution of the burnt region to the total heat flux is more significant compared to the reaction region. The velocity profiles indicate inward and outward motions. The profile of the turbulent kinetic energy is damped by the wall, and no distinct turbulence production is observed. Since the turbulence is weakened in the burnt region, the effect of near wall turbulence to the total wall heat flux is considered to be limited.

This study tries to reduce SOF (Soluble Organic Fraction) emissions at low load by improving spray characteristics of rape-seed oil and avoiding wall-impingement of the spray to the piston wall in a real direct-injection diesel engine applying rape-seed oil directly. High swirling air motion and squish flow caused by the piston configurations are taken as measures. Further, flat bottom shape of the piston is applied. Results show that emissions can be improved by the support of air motions. High swirl with toroidal piston is effective to reduce SOF emissions. Re-entrant piston with flat bottom shape offers the best emission performance. Raising gas temperature is also effective to reduce SOF emissions at low load.