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In recent years, the increase of gasoline fuel injection pressure is a way to improve thermal efficiency and lower engine-out emissions in GDI homogenous combustion concept. The challenge of controlling particulate formation as well in mass and number concentrations imposed by emissions regulations can be pursued improving the mixture preparation process and avoiding mixture inhomogeneity with ultra-high injection pressure values up to 100 MPa. The increase of the fuel injection pressure in GDI homogeneous systems meets the demand for increased injector static flow, while simultaneously improves the spray atomization and mixing characteristics with consequent better combustion performance. Few studies quantify the effects of high injection pressure on transient gasoline spray evolution. The aim of this work was to simulate with OpenFOAM the spray morphology of a commercial gasoline injected in a constant volume vessel by a prototypal GDI injector.

The transient heat transfer behavior of an automotive catalytic converter has been simulated with OpenFOAM in 1D. The model takes into consideration the gas-solid convective heat transfer, axial wall conduction and heat capacity effects in the solid phase, but also the chemical reactions of CO oxidation, based on simplified Arrhenius and Langmuir-Hinshelwood approaches. The associated parameters are the results of data in literature tuned by experiments. Simplified cases of constant flow rates and gas temperatures in the catalyst inflow have been chosen for a comprehensive analysis of the heat and mass transfer phenomena. The impact of inlet flow temperatures and inlet flow rates on the heat up characteristics as well as in the CO emissions have been quantified. A dimensional analysis is proposed and dimensionless temperature difference and space-time coordinates are introduced.

In the last years, as a response to the more and more restrictive emission legislation, new devices (SRC, DOC, NOx-trap, DPF) have been progressively introduced as standard components of modern after-treatment system for Diesel engines. In addition, the adoption of electrical heating is nowadays regarded with interest as an effective solution to promote the light-off of the catalyst at low temperature, especially at the start-up of the engine and during the low load operation of the engine typical of the urban drive. In this work, a state-of-the-art 48 V electrical heated catalyst is considered, in order to investigate its effect in increasing the abatement efficiency of a standard DOC. The electrical heating device considered is based on a metallic support, arranged in a spiral layout, and it is heated by the Joule effect due to the passage of the electrical current.

Modeling ignition kernel development in spark ignition engines is crucial to capturing the sources of cyclic variability, both with RANS and LES simulations. Appropriate kernel modeling must ensure that energy transfer from the electrodes to the gas phase has the correct timing, rate and locations, until the flame surface is large enough to be represented on the mesh by the G-Equation level-set method. However, in most kernel models, geometric details driving kernel growth are missing: either because it is described as Lagrangian particles, or because its development is simplified, i.e., down to multiple spherical flames. This paper covers the geometric aspects of kernel development, which makes up the core of a Triangulated Lagrangian Ignition Kernel model. One (or multiple, if it restrikes) spark channel is initialized as a one-dimensional Lagrangian particle thread.

Modeling plume interaction and collapse for direct-injection gasoline sprays is important because of its impact on fuel-air mixing and engine performance. Nevertheless, the aerodynamic interaction between plumes and the complicated two-phase coupling of the evaporating spray has shown to be notoriously difficult to predict. With the availability of high-speed (100 kHz) Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) experimental data, we compare velocity field predictions between plumes to observe the full temporal evolution leading up to plume merging and complete spray collapse. The target “Spray G” operating conditions of the Engine Combustion Network (ECN) is the focus of the work, including parametric variations in ambient gas temperature. We apply both LES and RANS spray models in different CFD platforms, outlining features of the spray that are most critical to model in order to predict the correct aerodynamics and fuel-air mixing.

Objective of this work is the incorporation of the flame stretch effects in an Eulerian-Lagrangian model for premixed SI combustion in order to describe ignition and flame propagation under highly inhomogeneous flow conditions. To this end, effects of energy transfer from electrical circuit and turbulent flame propagation were fully decoupled. The first ones are taken into account by Lagrangian particles whose main purpose is to generate an initial burned field in the computational domain. Turbulent flame development is instead considered only in the Eulerian gas phase for a better description of the local flow effects. To improve the model predictive capabilities, flame stretch effects were introduced in the turbulent combustion model by using formulations coming from the asymptotic theory and recently verified by means of DNS studies. Experiments carried out at Michigan Tech University in a pressurized, constant-volume vessel were used to validate the proposed approach.

Cycle-to-cycle variation in combustion phasing and combustion rate cause knock to occur differently in every cycle. This is found to be true even if the end gas thermo-chemical time history is the same. Three cycles are shown that have matched combustion phasing, combustion rate, and time of knock onset, but have knock intensity that differs by a factor of six. Thus, the prediction of knock intensity must include a stochastic component. It is shown that there is a relationship between the maximum possible knock intensity and the unburned fuel energy at the time of knock onset. Further, for a small window of unburned energy at knock onset, the probability density function of knock intensity is self similar when scaled by the 95th percentile of the cumulative distribution, and log-normal in shape.

In Equation 10, there should be a plus sign between the first summation term and the quantity in brackets. The acceleration of the participant's vehicle was varied from −0.04 m/s2 to +0.06 m/s2 linearly as a function of the angle of the gas pedal with a 0.1-second delay.

The flow field resulting from injecting a gas jet into a crossflow confined in a narrow square duct has been studied under steady regime using schlieren imaging and laser Doppler velocimetry (LDV). This transparent duct is intended to simulate the intake port of an internal combustion engine fueled by gaseous mixture, and the jet is issued from a round nozzle. The schlieren images show that the relative small size of the duct would confine the development of the transverse jet, and the interaction among jet and sidewalls strongly influences the mixing process between jet and crossflow. The mean velocity and turbulence fields have been studied in detail through LDV measurements, at both center plane and several cross sections. The well-known flow feature formed by a counter rotating vortex pair (CVP) has been observed, which starts to appear at the jet exit section and persists far downstream contributing to enhancing mixing process.

A correct prediction of the initial stages of the combustion process in SI engines is of great importance to understand how local flow conditions, fuel properties, mixture stratification and ignition affect the in-cylinder pressure development and pollutant formation. However, flame kernel growth is governed by many interacting processes including energy transfer from the electrical circuit to the gas phase, interaction between the plasma channel and the flow field, transition between different combustion regimes and gas expansion at very high temperatures. In this work, the authors intend to present a comprehensive, multi-dimensional model that can be used to predict the initial combustion stages in SI engines. In particular, the spark channel is represented by a set of Lagrangian particles where each one of them acts as a single flame kernel.

The OpenFOAM® CFD methodology is nowadays employed for simulation in internal combustion engines and a lot of work has been done for an appropriate description of all complex phenomena. At the moment in the RANS turbulence models available in the OpenFOAM® toolbox the turbulence modulation is not yet included, and the present work analyzes the predictive capabilities of the code in simulating high injection pressure fuel sprays after modeling the influence of the dispersed phase on the turbulence structure. Different experiments were employed for the validation. At first, non-evaporating diesel spray was considered in a constant volume and quiescent vessel. The validation was performed via the available experimental spray evolution in terms of penetrations and spatial/temporal fuel distributions. Then the Sandia combustion chamber was chosen for diesel spray simulation in non-reacting conditions.

In this work a detailed model to simulate the transient behavior of catalytic converters is presented. The model is able to predict the unsteady and reacting flows in the exhaust ducts, by solving the system of conservation equations of mass, momentum, energy and transport of reacting chemical species. The en-gine and the intake system have not been included in the simulation, imposing the measured values of mass flow, gas temperature and chemical composition as a boundary condition at the inlet of the exhaust system. A detailed analysis of the diffusion stage triggering is proposed along with simplifications of the physics, finalized to the reduction of the calculation time. Submodels for water condensation and its following evaporation on the monolith surface have been taken into account as well as oxygen storage promoted by ceria oxides.

Nowadays a great attention is paid to the level and quality of noise radiated from the tailpipe end of intake and exhaust systems, to control the gas dynamic noise emitted by the engine as well as the characteristics of the cabin interior sound. The muffler geometry can be optimized consequently, to attenuate or remark certain spectral components of the engine noise, according to the result expected. Evidently the design of complex silencing systems is a time-consuming operation, which must be carried out by means of concurrent experimental measurements and numerical simulations. In particular, 1D and multiD linear/non-linear simulation codes can be applied to predict the silencer behavior in the time and frequency domain. This paper describes the development of a 1D-multiD integrated approach for the simulation of complex muffler configurations such as reverse chambers with inlet and outlet pipe extensions and perforated silencers with the addition of sound absorbing material.

The air entrainment in a transient diesel spray was studied using laser Doppler anemometry to provide information on the effect of gas density and temperature. The spray was injected vertically into a confined quiescent atmosphere and the entrained mass flow rate was evaluated by measuring the air velocity component normal to a cylindrical geometric surface surrounding the spray, and extending to about 200 nozzle diameters (50 mm). The experimental results, relative to a density range from 0.84 to 7.02 kg/m3 and a temperature range from 293 to 473 K, indicate that the non dimensional entrainment rate, averaged in time over the main injection period, depends on the distance from the nozzle and both gas density and temperature. A first analysis, based on the available data, allowed to quantify the dependence and provided a correlation with such variables.

The design of recovery steam generators for incineration plants encounters certain specific problems, related to the nature of the exhausted gases, which, if not properly faced, can strongly condition the conduction of the whole system. Two problems, namely, demand for particular attention: the corrosion at high temperature and the formation of organochlorine compounds, in presence of ashes and/or deposits for definite temperature intervals. These phenomena can be controlled and minimized, whenever possible, by limiting to the greatest extent the regions where the temperatures of the metallic walls and of the ashes and/or deposits are within the critical interval.

Formation of pulsed plasma jets, or puffs, was examined using several visualization techniques. Self-light streak photography was first employed to record salient global features of the development and structure of the jet. This provided information on the motion of the luminous gas particles in its core, revealing that plasma jets can have two distinct modes, being either totally subsonic or embodying a supersonic efflux manifested by the recorded streaks of Mach discs. At a fixed power pulse of electrical energy discharge in the plenum chamber, the outcome depends on the constriction imposed by an orifice at its outlet. Whereas the difference between the two types of jets was quite small, penetration in the subsonic case was found to be definitely larger than in supersonic.

A computer program which rapidly calculates the equilibrium mole fractions and the partial derivatives of the mole fractions with respect to temperature, pressure and equivalence ratio for the products of combustion of any hydrocarbon fuel and air is described. A subroutine is also given which calculates the gas constant, enthalpy, internal energy and the partial derivatives of these with respect to temperature, pressure and equivalence ratio. Some examples of the uses of the programs are also given.

A detailed mathematical model of the thermodynamic events of a crankcase scavenged, two-stroke, SI engine is described. The engine is divided into three thermodynamic systems: the cylinder gases, the crankcase gases, and the inlet system gases. Energy balances, mass continuity equations, the ideal gas law, and thermodynamic property relationships are combined to give a set of coupled ordinary differential equations which describe the thermodynamic states encountered by the systems of the engine during one cycle of operation. A computer program is used to integrate the equations, starting with estimated initial thermodynamic conditions and estimated metal surface temperatures. The program iterates the cycle, adjusting the initial estimates, until the final conditions agree with the beginning conditions, that is, until a cycle results.

The infrared radiation method of compression and end-gas temperature measurement was applied to the problem of measuring gas temperatures up to the time of knock. Pressure data were taken for each run on a CFR engine with mixtures of isooctane and n-heptane under both knocking and nonknocking conditions. Main engine parameters studied were the intake pressure, intake temperature, and engine speed. The rate and extent of chemical energy release were calculated from the temperature and pressure histories using an energy balance. The computed rates of chemical energy release were correlated to a chain-type kinetic model

A digital computer and special program were used, along with new thermodynamic data, to recalculate and extend the scope and range of the classic combustion gas charts of Hottel and co-workers. A series of hydrocarbon and nonhydrocarbon fuels was treated over a range of fuel-air ratios, with temperatures extended up to 7200 R and pressures up to 15,000 psia. This, the first paper of a series, incorporates the resulting charts for isooctane at four mixture ratios ranging from 20% lean to 40% rich. Auxiliary charts for inducted mixture properties determination and a set of sample calculations are also included.