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Diesel-fueled heavy-duty vehicles (HDVs) can be retrofitted with conversion kits to operate as dual-fuel vehicles in which partial diesel usage is offset by a gaseous fuel such as compressed natural gas (CNG). The main purpose of installing such a conversion kit is to reduce the operating cost of HDVs. Additionally, replacing diesel partially with a low-carbon fuel such as CNG can potentially lead to lower carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in the tail-pipe. The main issue of CNG-diesel dual-fuel vehicles is the methane (CH4, the primary component of CNG) slip. CH4 is difficult to oxidize in the exhaust after-treatment (EAT) system and its slip may offset the advantage of lower CO2 emissions of natural gas combustion as CH4 is a strong greenhouse gas (GHG). The objective of this study is to compare the emissions of an HDV with a CNG conversion kit operating in diesel and dual-fuel mode during highway operation.

Compression ignition engines used in heavy-duty applications are typically powered by diesel fuel. The high energy density and feedstock abundance provide a continuing source for the immense energy demand. However, the heavy-duty transportation sector is challenged with lowering greenhouse gas and combustion by-product emissions, including carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and particulate matter. The continuing development of engine management and combustion strategies has proven the ability to meet current regulations, particularly with higher fuel injection pressure. Nonetheless, a transition from diesel to a renewable alternative fuel source will play a significant role in reducing greenhouse gases while maintaining the convenience and energy density inherent in liquid fuels. Dimethyl ether is a versatile fuel that possesses combustion properties suitable for compression ignition engines and physical properties helpful for clean combustion.

The combustion and emission characteristics of dual-fuel combustion were investigated using dimethyl ether direct injection and premixed low-carbon fuels. Dimethyl ether was used as the direct injection fuel for its high reactivity and low propensity to form particulate matter. Ethanol and Propane, two fuels of low reactivity, were premixed in the intake port. An injection timing sweep of varying premixed energy shares and engine loads was tested. Combustion analysis was conducted based on in-cylinder pressure measurements while detailed speciation of engine-out emissions was performed via FTIR. The proper injection advance and premixed energy share can realize low NOx and high combustion efficiency. Ethanol showed stronger impact to DME ignition delay as compared with propane.

Compression ignition internal combustion engines provide unmatched power density levels, making them suitable for numerous applications including heavy-duty freight trucks, marine shipping, and off-road construction vehicles. Fossil-derived diesel fuel has dominated the energy source for CI engines over the last century. To mitigate the dependency on fossil fuels and lessen anthropogenic carbon released into the atmosphere within the transportation sector, it is critical to establish a fuel source which is produced from renewable energy sources, all the while matching the high-power density demands of various applications. Dimethyl ether (DME) has been used in non-combustion applications for several decades and is an attractive fuel for CI engines because of its high reactivity, superior volatility to diesel, and low soot tendency. A range of feedstock sources can produce DME via the catalysis of syngas.

Advanced combustion engines, as power sources, dominate all aspects of the transportation sector. Stringent emission and fuel efficiency standards have promoted the research interest in advanced combustion strategies and alternative fuels. Owing to the comparable energy density to the existing fossil fuels and renewable production, alcohol and ether fuels may be a suitable replacement, or an additive to the gasoline/diesel fuels to meet the future emission standards with minimal modification to current engine geometry. Furthermore, lean and diluted combustion are well-researched pathways for efficiency improvement and reduction of engine-out emissions of modern engines. However, lean-burn or EGR dilution can introduce combustion inefficiencies in the form of excessive hydrocarbon, carbonyl species and carbon monoxide emissions.

The heterogeneous nature of direct injection (DI) combustion yields high combustion efficiencies but harmful emissions through the formation of high nitrogen oxide (NOx) and smoke emissions. In response, extensive empirical and computational research has focused on balancing the NOx-smoke trade-off to limit diesel DI combustion emissions. Dimethyl ether (DME) fuel is applicable in DI compression ignition engines and its high fuel oxygen produces near-smoke-free emissions. Moreover, the addition of a premixed fuel can improve mixture homogeneity and minimize the DI fuel energy demands lessening injection durations. For this technique, a low reactivity fuel such as ethanol is essential to avoid early autoignition in high compression ratio engines. In this work, empirical experiments of dual fuel operation have been conducted using premixed ethanol with high-pressure direct injection DME.

Use of natural gas-diesel dual-fuel (NDDF) combustion in compression ignition engines is a method of reducing the net greenhouse gas (GHG) and particulate matter (PM) emissions of these engines. Compressed natural gas (NG) is injected into the intake manifold of the engine and the air-NG mixture is ignited by a direct injection of diesel in the cylinder. One of the main challenges with NDDF combustion is the methane (primary component of NG) slip at low and medium loads, which reduces the engine efficiency and offsets the advantage of lower carbon dioxide emissions of the NG combustion. In order to address this issue, an intake manifold insert is devised with the objective to alter the intake flow profile into the engine and ultimately reduce the methane slip. This is a novel strategy for an NDDF engine since modifying the in-cylinder flow profile can intensify the mixing between diesel and air-NG mixture in order to improve the NG utilization in the cylinder.

The use of renewable fuels in place of conventional hydrocarbon fuels can minimize the carbon footprint of internal combustion engines. DME has been treated as a suitable surrogate to diesel fuel because of its high reactivity and soot-less combustion characteristics. The lower energy density of DME fuel demands a higher fuel supply rate to match the engine loads compared to diesel, which was achieved through prolonged injection duration and larger nozzle holes. When used as a pilot fuel to control the combustion behavior in a dual-fuel application, the fuel energy delivery rate becomes less critical allowing the use of a standard diesel common-rail injector for DME direct injection. In this work, the combustion of DME-Ethanol dual-fuel reactivity-controlled compression ignition was experimentally investigated.

In North America, heavy-duty diesel engines for on-road use have to meet strict regulations for their emissions of nitric oxide and nitrogen dioxide (cumulatively referred to as ‘NOx’) besides other criteria pollutants. Over the next decade, regulations for NOx emissions are expected to becoming more stringent in North America. One of the major technical barriers for achieving in-use NOx emissions commensurate with the levels determined from in-laboratory test procedures required by regulations is controlling NOx emissions during cold start and engine idling. Since the exhaust gas temperature can be low during these conditions, the effectiveness of the exhaust after-treatment (EAT) system may be reduced. Under colder climate conditions like in Canada, the impact may be even more significant.

With the increasing demand of emission reductions from the automotive industry, advanced after-treatment strategies have been investigated to overcome the challenges associated with meeting increasingly stringent emission regulations. Ongoing investigations on low temperature combustion (LTC) strategies are being researched to meet future emission regulations, however, the lowered exhaust temperature presents an even greater issue for exhaust after-treatment due to the change in combustion modes. Catalyst temperature is critical for the catalytic ability to maintain effective conversion efficiency of regulated emissions. The use of periodic flow reversal has shown benefits of maintaining catalyst temperature by alternating the exhaust flow direction through the catalytic converter, reducing the catalyst sensitivity to inlet gas temperature fluctuations.

Low temperature combustion (LTC) has been proved to overcome the trade-off between NOx and soot emissions in direct injection compression ignition engines. However, the lowered NOx emissions are accompanied by high hydrocarbon and CO emissions. Moreover, the NOx emissions under LTC has much higher NO2 concentrations compared with traditional high temperature combustion conditions. Experimental investigations have been carried out to show the hydrocarbon impact on NOx emissions and NO-NO2 conversion under various engine operation conditions, but the mechanism is less understood. The article includes numerical studies of the impact of hydrocarbons in the in-cylinder conversion of NO to NO2 during low temperature conditions in a compression ignition engine. In the present work, a stochastic reactor model with detailed chemical kinetics is utilized to investigate the reaction pathways during the NOx reduction and NO2 conversion processes.

The ever-stringent emission regulations are major challenges for the diesel fueled engines in automotive industry. The applications of advanced after-treatment technologies as well as alternative fuels [1] are considered as promising methodology to reduce exhaust emission from compression ignition (CI) engines. Using dimethyl ether (DME) as an alternative fuel has been extensively studied by many researchers and automotive manufactures since DME has demonstrated enormous potential in terms of emission reduction, such as low CO emission, and soot and sulfur free. However, the effect of employing DME in a lean NOX trap (LNT) based after-treatment system has not been fully addressed yet. In this work, investigations of the long breathing LNT system using DME as a reductant were performed on a heated after-treatment flow bench with simulated engine exhaust condition.

Natural gas (NG)-diesel dual-fuel combustion can be a suitable solution to reduce the overall CO2 emissions of heavy-duty vehicles using diesel engines. One configuration of such a dual-fuel engine can be port injection of NG to form a combustible air-NG mixture in the cylinder. This mixture is then ignited by a direct injection of diesel. Other potential advantages of such an engine include the flexibility of switching back to diesel-only mode, reduced hardware development costs and lower soot emissions. However, the trade-off is lower brake thermal efficiency (BTE) and higher hydrocarbon emissions, especially methane, at low load and/or high engine speed conditions. Advancing the diesel injection timing tends to improve the BTE but may cause the NOx emissions to increase.

Increasingly stringent emission standards have promoted the interest in alternate fuel sources. Because of the comparable energy density to the existing fossil fuels and renewable production, alcohol fuels may be a suitable replacement, or an additive to the gasoline/diesel fuels to meet the future emission standards with minimal modification to current engine geometry. In this research, the combustion characteristics of neat n-butanol are analyzed under spark ignition operation using a single cylinder SI engine. The fuel is injected into the intake manifold using a port-fuel injector. Two modes of charge dilution were used in this investigation to test the limits of stable engine operation, namely lean burn using excess fresh air and exhaust gas recirculation (EGR). The in-cylinder pressure measurement and subsequently, heat release analysis are used to investigate the combustion characteristics of the fuel under low load SI engine operation.

The control of combustion phasing in homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) combustion is investigated with neat n-butanol in this work. HCCI is a commonly researched combustion mode, owing to its improved thermal efficiency over conventional gasoline combustion, as well as its lower nitrogen oxide (NOx) and particulate matter emissions compared to those of diesel combustion. Despite these advantages, HCCI lacks successful widespread implementation with conventional fuels, primarily due to the lack of effective combustion phasing control. In this preliminary study, chemical kinetic simulations are conducted to study the auto-ignition characteristics of n-butanol under varied background pressures, temperatures, and dilution levels using established mechanisms in CHEMKIN software. Increasing the pressure or temperature lead to a shorter ignition delay, whereas increasing the dilution by the application of exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) leads to a longer ignition delay.

Multi-spark discharge (MSD) ignition is widely used in high-speed internal combustion engines such as racing cars, motorcycles and outboard motors in attempts to achieve multiple sparks during each ignition. In contrast to transistor coil ignition (TCI) system, MSD system can be greatly shortened the charging time in a very short time. However, when the engine speed becomes higher, the ignition will be faster, electrical energy stored in the ignition system will certainly become less, especially for MSD system. Once the energy released into the spark plug gap can’t be guaranteed sufficiently, ignition will become more difficult, and it will get worse in some harsh environment such as strong turbulence or lean fuel conditions. With these circumstances, the risks of misfire and partial combustion will increase, which can deteriorate the power outputs and exhaust emissions of internal combustion engine.

Reduction of nitrogen oxides (NOx) in lean burn and diesel fueled Compression Ignition (CI) engines is one of the major challenges faced by automotive manufacturers. Lean NOx Trap (LNT) and urea-based Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) exhaust after-treatment systems are well established technologies to reduce NOx emissions. However, each of these technologies has associated advantages and disadvantages for use over a wide range of engine operating conditions. In order to meet future ultra-low NOx emission norms, the use of both alternative fuels and advanced after-treatment technology may be required. The use of an alcohol fuel such as n-butanol or ethanol in a CI engine can reduce the engine-out NOx and soot emissions. In CI engines using LNTs for NOx reduction, the fuel such as diesel is utilized as a reductant for LNT regeneration.

The ever-growing demand to meet the stringent exhaust emission regulations have driven the development of modern gasoline engines towards lean combustion strategies and downsizing to achieve the reduction of exhaust emission and fuel consumption. Currently, the inductive ignition system is still the dominant ignition system applied in Spark Ignited (SI) engines. It is popular due to its simple design, low cost and robust performance. The new development in spark ignition engines demands higher spark energy to be delivered by the inductive ignition system to overcome the unfavorable ignition conditions caused by the increased and diluted in-cylinder charge. To meet this challenge, better understanding of the inductive ignition system is required. The development of a first principle model for simulation can help in understanding the working mechanism of the system in a better way.

This empirical work investigates the impacts of thermodynamic parameters, such as pressure and temperature, and fuel properties, such as fuel Cetane number and aromatic contents on ignition delay in diesel engines. Systematic tests are conducted on a single-cylinder research engine to evaluate the ignition delay changes due to the fuel property differences at low, medium and high engine loads under different EGR dilution ratios. The test fuels offer a range of Cetane numbers from 28 to 54.2 and aromatic contents volume ratios from 19.4% to 46.6%. The experimental results of ignition delays are used to derive an ignition delay model modified from Arrhenius’ expression. Following the same format of Arrhenius’ equation, the model incorporates the pressure and temperature effects, and further includes the impacts of intake oxygen concentration, fuel Cetane number and aromatic contents volume ratio on the ignition delay.

In order to meet the future carbon dioxide legislation, advanced clean combustion engines are tending to employ low temperature diluted combustion strategies along with intensified cylinder charge motion. The diluted mixtures are made by means of excess air admission or exhaust gas recirculation. A slower combustion speed during the early flame kernel development because of the suppressed mixture reactivity will reduce the reliability of the ignition process and the overall combustion stability. In an effort to address this issue, an ignition strategy using a multi-pole spark igniter is tested in this work. The igniter uses three electrically independent spark gaps to allow three spatially distributed spark discharges. The multi-pole spark strategy displayed more advanced combustion phasing and lower phasing variability compared to single spark discharges.