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An investigation of high speed direct injection (DI) compression ignition (CI) engine combustion fueled with gasoline injected using a triple-pulse strategy in the low temperature combustion (LTC) regime is presented. This work aims to extend the operation ranges for a light-duty diesel engine, operating on gasoline, that have been identified in previous work via extended controllability of the injection process. The single-cylinder engine (SCE) was operated at full load (16 bar IMEP, 2500 rev/min) and computational simulations of the in-cylinder processes were performed using a multi-dimensional CFD code, KIVA-ERC-Chemkin, that features improved sub-models and the Chemkin library. The oxidation chemistry of the fuel was calculated using a reduced mechanism for primary reference fuel combustion chosen to match ignition characteristics of the gasoline fuel used for the SCE experiments.

A detailed thermodynamic analysis was performed to demonstrate the fundamental efficiency advantage of an opposed-piston two-stroke engine over a standard four-stroke engine. Three engine configurations were considered: a baseline six-cylinder four-stroke engine, a hypothetical three-cylinder opposed-piston four-stroke engine, and a three-cylinder opposed-piston two-stroke engine. The bore and stroke per piston were held constant for all engine configurations to minimize any potential differences in friction. The closed-cycle performance of the engine configurations were compared using a custom analysis tool that allowed the sources of thermal efficiency differences to be identified and quantified.

Low pressure EGR offers greater effectiveness and flexibility for turbocharging and improved heat transfer compared to high pressure EGR systems. These characteristics have been shown to provide potential for further NOx, soot, and fuel consumption reductions in modern diesel engines. One of the drawbacks is reduced transient response capability due to the long EGR path. This can be largely mitigated by combining low pressure and high pressure loops in a hybrid EGR system, but the changes in transient response must be considered in the design of an effective control strategy. The effect of low pressure EGR on transient emissions was evaluated using two different combustion strategies over a variety of transient events. Low pressure EGR was found to significantly lengthen the response time of intake oxygen concentration following a transient event, which can have a substantial effect on emissions formation.

The objective of this study is to increase fundamental understanding of the effects of fuel composition and properties on low temperature combustion (LTC) and to identify major properties that could enable engine performance and emission improvements, especially under high load conditions. A series of experiments and computational simulations were conducted under LTC conditions using 67% EGR with 9.5% inlet O₂ concentration on a single-cylinder version of the General Motors Corporation 1.9L direct injection diesel engine. This research investigated the effects of Cetane number (CN), volatility and total aromatic content of diesel fuels on LTC operation. The values of CN, volatility, and total aromatic content studied were selected in a DOE (Design of Experiments) fashion with each variable having a base value as well as a lower and higher level. Timing sweeps were performed for all fuels at a lower load condition of 5.5 bar net IMEP at 2000 rpm using a single-pulse injection strategy.

The effect that thermally and compositionally stratified flowfields have on the spatial progression of iso-octane-fueled homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) combustion were directly observed using highspeed chemiluminescence imaging. The stratified in-cylinder conditions were produced by independently feeding the intake valves of a four-valve engine with thermally and compositionally different mixtures of air, vaporized fuel, and argon. Results obtained under homogeneous conditions, acquired for comparison to stratified operation, showed a small natural progression of the combustion from the intake side to the exhaust side of the engine, a presumed result of natural thermal stratification created from heat transfer between the in-cylinder gases and the cylinder walls. Large differences in the spatial progression of the HCCI combustion were observed under stratified operating conditions.

The objective of this research is a detailed investigation of multiple injections in a highly-dilute diesel low temperature combustion (LTC) regime. This research concentrates on understanding the performance and emissions benefits of multiple injections via experiments and simulations in a 0.48L signal cylinder light-duty engine operating at 2000 r/min and 5.5 bar IMEP. Controlled experiments in the single-cylinder engine are then combined with three computational tools, namely heat release analysis of measured cylinder pressure, a phenomenological spray model using in-cylinder thermodynamics [1], and KIVA-3V Chemkin CFD computations recently tested at LTC conditions [2]. This study examines the effects of fuel split distribution, injection event timing, rail pressure, and boost pressure which are each explored within a defined operation range in LTC.

This paper investigates flow and combustion in a full-cycle simulation of a four-stroke, three-valve HCCI engine by visualizing the flow with pathlines. Pathlines trace massless particles in a transient flow field. In addition to visualization, pathlines are used here to trace the history, or evolution, of flow fields and species. In this study evolution is followed from the intake port through combustion. Pathline analysis follows packets of intake charge in time and space from induction through combustion. The local scalar fields traversed by the individual packets in terms of velocity magnitude, turbulence, species concentration and temperatures are extracted from the simulation results. The results show how the intake event establishes local chemical and thermal environments in-cylinder and how the species respond (chemically react) to the local field.

The development of the Diesel Exhaust Filtration Analysis system (DEFA), which utilizes a rectangular wafer of the same substrate material as used in a full-scale Diesel Particulate Filter (DPF), is presented in this paper. Washcoat variations of the wafer substrate (bare, washcoat, and catalyzed washcoat) were available for testing. With this setup, the complications of flow and temperature distribution that arise in the full-scale DPF can be significantly minimized while critical parameters that affect the filtration performance can be fully controlled. Cold flow experiments were performed to test the system's reliability, and determine the permeability of each wafer type. A Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) package was utilized to ensure the flow uniformity inside the filter holder during the cold flow test.

Multi-zone CFD simulations with detailed kinetics were used to model iso-octane HCCI experiments performed on a single-cylinder research engine. The modeling goals were to validate the method (multi-zone combustion modeling) and the reaction mechanism (LLNL 857 species iso-octane) by comparing model results to detailed exhaust speciation data, which was obtained with gas chromatography. The model is compared to experiments run at 1200 RPM and 1.35 bar boost pressure over an equivalence ratio range from 0.08 to 0.28. Fuel was introduced far upstream to ensure fuel and air homogeneity prior to entering the 13.8:1 compression ratio, shallow-bowl combustion chamber of this 4-stroke engine. The CFD grid incorporated a very detailed representation of the crevices, including the top-land ring crevice and head-gasket crevice. The ring crevice is resolved all the way into the ring pocket volume. The detailed grid was required to capture regions where emission species are formed and retained.

There is a significant global effort to study low temperature combustion (LTC) as a tool to achieve stringent emission standards with future light duty diesel engines. LTC utilizes high levels of dilution (i.e., EGR > 60% with <10%O2 in the intake charge) to reduce overall combustion temperatures and to lengthen ignition delay, This increased ignition delay provides time for fuel evaporation and reduces in-homogeneities in the reactant mixture, thus reducing NOx formation from local temperature spikes and soot formation from locally rich mixtures. However, as dilution is increased to the limits, HC and CO can significantly increase. Recent research suggests that CO emissions during LTC result from the incomplete combustion of under-mixed fuel and charge gas occurring after the premixed burn period [1, 2]1. The objective of the present work was to increase understanding of the HC/CO emission mechanisms in LTC at part-load.

An analysis of the soot formation and oxidation process in a conventional direct-injection (DI) diesel flame was conducted using numerical simulations. An improved multi-step phenomenological soot model that includes particle inception, particle coagulation, surface growth and oxidation was used to describe the soot formation and oxidation process. The soot model has been implemented into the KIVA-3V code. Other model Improvements include a piston-ring crevice model, a KH/RT spray breakup model, a droplet wall impingement model, a wall-temperature heat transfer model, and the RNG k-ε turbulence model. The Shell model was used to simulate the ignition process, and a laminar-and-turbulent characteristic time combustion model was used for the post-ignition combustion process. Experimental data from a heavy-duty, Cummins N14, research DI diesel engine operated with conventional injection under low-load conditions were selected as a benchmark.

An integrated system model containing sub-models for a diesel engine, NOx and soot emissions, and a diesel particulate filter (DPF) has been used to simulate stead-state engine operating conditions. The simulation results have been used to investigate the effect of DPF loading and passive regeneration on engine performance and emissions. This work is the continuation of previous work done to create an overall diesel engine/exhaust system integrated model. As in the previous work, a diesel engine, exhaust system, engine soot emissions, and diesel particulate filter (DPF) sub-models have been integrated into an overall model using Matlab Simulink. For the current work new sub-models have been added for engine-out NOx emissions and an engine feedback controller. The integrated model is intended for use in simulating the interaction of the engine and exhaust aftertreatment components.

A two dimensional CFD model has been developed to study the mechanism of soot deposition on the porous wall surface in a Diesel Particulate Filter (DPF). The goal is to improve understanding of the soot deposition and its interaction with the hydrodynamic behaviour of the device. The KIVA3V CFD code and pre-processor were modified to simulate a single channel in a DPF. The code was extended to solve the conservation equations in porous media materials, to account for the sticking of particles on a porous surface and to evaluate the increasing resistance to the flow as the soot inside the trap accumulates. The code is already configured to track Lagrangian particles and these were modified to represent the soot particles in the flow. The code pre-processor was modified to allow definition of a double-symmetric geometry and to specify porous cells.

An overall diesel engine and aftertreatment system model has been created that integrates diesel engine, exhaust system, engine emissions, and diesel particulate filter (DPF) models using MATLAB Simulink. The 1-D engine and exhaust system models were developed using WAVE. The engine emissions model combines a phenomenological soot model with artificial neural networks to predict engine out soot emissions. Experimental data from a light-duty diesel engine was used to calibrate both the engine and engine emissions models. The DPF model predicts the behavior of a clean and particulate-loaded catalyzed wall-flow filter. Experimental data was used to validate this sub-model individually. Several model integration issues were identified and addressed. These included time-step selection, continuous vs. limited triggering of sub-models, and code structuring for simulation speed. Required time-steps for different sub models varied by orders of magnitude.

Multiple injection strategies have been revealed as an efficient means to reduce diesel engine NOx and soot emissions simultaneously, while maintaining or improving its thermal efficiency. Empirical soot models widely adopted in engine simulations have not been adequately validated to predict soot formation with multiple injections. In this work, a multiple-step phenomenological (MSP) soot model that includes particle inception, surface growth, oxidation, and particle coagulation was revised to better describe the physical processes of soot formation in diesel combustion. It was found that the revised MSP model successfully reproduces measured soot emission dependence on the start-of-injection timing, while the two-step empirical and the original MSP soot models were less accurate. The revised MSP model also predicted reasonable soot and intermediate species spatial profiles within the combustion chamber.

Low-temperature combustion concepts that utilize cooled EGR, early/retarded injection, high swirl ratios, and modest compression ratios have recently received considerable attention. To understand the combustion and, in particular, the soot formation process under these operating conditions, a modeling study was carried out using the KIVA-3V code with an improved phenomenological soot model. This multi-step soot model includes particle inception, surface growth, surface oxidation, and particle coagulation. Additional models include a piston-ring crevice model, the KH/RT spray breakup model, a droplet wall impingement model, a wall heat transfer model, and the RNG k-ε turbulence model. The Shell model was used to simulate the ignition process, and a laminar-and-turbulent characteristic time combustion model was used for the post-ignition combustion process.

Multi-dimensional computational efforts using comprehensive and skeletal kinetics have been made to investigate the cool flame region in HCCI combustion. The work was done in parallel to an experimental study that showed the impact of the negative temperature coefficient and the cool flame on the start of combustion using different fuels, which is now the focus of the simulation work. Experiments in a single cylinder CFR research engine with n-butane and a primary reference fuel with an octane number of 70 (PRF 70) were modeled. A comparison of the pressure and heat release traces of the experimental and computational results shows the difficulties in predicting the heat release in the cool flame region. The behavior of the driving radicals for two-stage ignition is studied and is compared to the behavior for a single-ignition from the literature. Model results show that PRF 70 exhibits more pronounced cool flame heat release than n-butane.

A modeling study has been conducted in order to characterize the heat transfer in an automotive diesel exhaust system. The exhaust system model, focusing on 2 exhaust pipes, has been created using a transient 1-D engine flow network simulation program. Model results are in excellent agreement with experimental data gathered before commencement of the modeling study. Predicted pipe exit stream temperatures are generally within one percent of experimental values. Sensitivity analysis of the model was the major focus of this study. Four separate variables were chosen for the sensitivity analysis. These being the external convective heat transfer coefficient, external emissivity, mass flow rate of exhaust gases, and amplitude of incoming pressure fluctuations. These variables were independently studied to determine their contribution to changes in exhaust gas stream temperature and system heat flux. There are two primary benefits obtained from conducting this analysis.

A method of determining the total hemispherical in-cylinder radiant heat transfer of a direct injection diesel engine was developed using the Two Color theory. A radiant probe was installed in the head of a single cylinder test engine version of a Cummins N14 diesel engine to facilitate the optical measurement. Two probes, installed one at a time, were used to provide the data to calculate the hemispherical radiant heat flux. Each of the probes had a different field of view but both had a near-hemispherical field of view and used a window material that exhibits a cosine-normalized response. The radiant probes were designed to be self-cleaning and remained free of soot deposits during engine operation at high load. The test engine was operated at 1200 and 1500 RPM and at 50, 75, and 100% load for each engine speed. At each operating combination of engine speed and load, measurements were made at several injection timings.

A zero-dimension model of spray development and particulate emissions for direct-injection combustion was developed. The model describes the major characteristics of the injection plume including: spray angle, liquid penetration, lift-off length, and temperatures of regions within the spray. The model also predicts particulate mass output over a span of combustion cycles, as well as a particulate mass-history over a single combustion event. The model was developed by applying established conceptual models for direct injection combustion to numerical relations, to develop a mathematical description of events. The model was developed in a Matlab Simulink environment to promote modularity and ease of use.