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The high-pressure isobaric combustion has been proposed as the most suitable combustion mode for the double compre4ssion expansion engine (DCEE) concept. Previous experimental and simulation studies have demonstrated an improved efficiency compared to the conventional diesel combustion (CDC) engine. In the current study, isobaric combustion was achieved using a single injector with multiple injections. Since this concept involves complex phenomena such as spray to spray interactions, the computational models were extensively validated against the optical engine experiment data, to ensure high-fidelity simulations. The considered optical diagnostic techniques are Mie-scattering, fuel tracer planar laser-induced fluorescence (PLIF), and natural flame luminosity imaging. Overall, a good agreement between the numerical and experimental results was obtained.

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.

This paper shows the potential benefits of implementing four configurations of reed valves at the inlet of the two-stroke compressor used in the double compression expansion engine (DCEE) concept or 8-stroke engines over the conventional poppet valves used in 4-stroke internal combustion engines. To model the reed and poppet valve configurations, the discharge coefficient was estimated from RANS computational fluid dynamics simulations using ANSYS Fluent 2020 R1, with a pressure difference up to 0.099 bar. The calculated discharge coefficients for each case were then fed in a zero-one dimension model using GT-Power to understand the valve performance i.e. the volumetric efficiency of the compressor cylinder and the mean indicated pressure during the compression process at 1200 rpm.

Pre-chamber combustion (PCC) allows an extension on the lean limit of an internal combustion engine (ICE). This combustion mode provides lower NOx emissions and shorter combustion durations that lead to a higher indicated efficiency. In the present work, a narrow throat pre-chamber was tested, which has a unique nozzle area distribution in two rows of six nozzle holes each. Tests were carried out in a modified heavy-duty engine for optical visualization. Methane was used as fuel for both the pre-chamber and the main chamber. Seven operating points were tested, including passive pre-chamber mode as a limit condition, to study the effect of pre- and main-chamber fuel addition on the pre-chamber jets and the main chamber combustion via chemiluminescence imaging. A typical cycle of one of the tested conditions is explained through the captured images. Observations of the typical cycle reveal a predominant presence of only six jets (from the lower row), with well-defined jet structures.

Stringent emission regulations and the anticipated climate change call for a paradigm shift in the design of the conventional internal combustion engines. One way to combat this problem is oxy-fuel combustion in which the combustion products are mainly water vapor and carbon dioxide. Water vapor can be easily separated by condensation and carbon dioxide is then easily captured and stored. However, many technical challenges are associated with this mode of combustion. There are many challenges facing oxy-fuel combustion before it find its way to commercial production especially for internal combustion engines. One such challenge is the relatively high temperature of the oxy-fuel combustion. A solution to this problem is the recirculation of the generated CO2 to moderate the in-cylinder temperature. Therefore, careful study of the effect of recirculating the CO2 back to combustion chamber is needed before the implementation of such a concept.

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.

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.

Towards a fundamental understanding of the ignition characteristics of pre-chamber (PC) combustion engines, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations were conducted using CONVERGE. To assist the initial design of the KAUST pre-chamber engine experiments, the primary focus of the present study was to assess the impact of design parameters such as throat diameter, nozzle diameter, and nozzle length. The well-stirred reactor combustion model coupled with a methane oxidation mechanism reduced from GRI 3.0 was used. A homogeneous charge of methane and air with λ = 1.3 on both the PC and main chamber (MC) was assumed. The geometrical parameters were shown to affect the pre-chamber combustion characteristics, such as pressure build-up, radical formation, and heat release as well as the composition of the jets penetrating and igniting the main chamber charge. In addition, the backflow of species pushed inside the pre-chamber due to the flow reversal (FR) event was analyzed.

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.

Pre-chamber spark ignition (PCSI) combustion is an emerging lean-burn combustion mode capable of extending the lean operation limit of an engine. The favorable characteristic of short combustion duration at the lean condition of PCSI results in high efficiencies compared to conventional spark ignition combustion. Since the engine operation is typically lean, PCSI can significantly reduce engine-out NOx emissions while maintaining short combustion durations. In this study, experiments were conducted on a heavy-duty engine at lean conditions at mid to low load. Two major studies were performed. In the first study, the total fuel energy input to the engine was fixed while the intake pressure was varied, resulting in varying the global excess air ratio. In the second study, the intake pressure was fixed while the amount of fuel was changed to alter the global excess air ratio.

Isobaric combustion has been proven a promising strategy for high efficiency as well as low nitrogen oxides emissions, particularly in heavy-duty Diesel engines. Previous single-cylinder research engine experiments have, however, shown high soot levels when operating isobaric combustion. The combustion itself and the emissions formation with this combustion mode are not well understood due to the complexity of multiple injections strategy. Therefore, experiments with an equivalent heavy-duty Diesel optical engine were performed in this study. Three different cases were compared, an isochoric heat release case and two isobaric heat release cases. One of the isobaric cases was boosted to reach the maximum in-cylinder pressure of the isochoric one. The second isobaric case kept the same boost levels as the isochoric case. Results showed that in the isobaric cases, liquid fuel was injected into burning gases. This resulted in shorter ignition delays and thus a poor mixing level.

High-pressure isobaric combustion used in the double compression expansion engine (DCEE) concept was proposed to obtain higher engine brake thermal efficiency than the conventional diesel engine. Experiments on the metal engines showed that four consecutive injections delivered by a single injector can achieve isobaric combustion. Improved understanding of the detailed fuel-air mixing with multiple consecutive injections is needed to optimize the isobaric combustion and reduce engine emissions. In this study, we explored the fuel spray characteristics of the four-consecutive-injections strategy using high-speed imaging with background illumination and fuel-tracer planar laser-induced fluorescence (PLIF) imaging in a heavy-duty optical engine under non-reactive conditions. Toluene of 2% by volume was added to the n-heptane and served as the tracer. The fourth harmonic of a 10 Hz Nd:YAG laser was applied for the excitation of toluene.

Partially premixed combustion (PPC) is a low-temperature combustion concept that could deliver higher engine efficiency, as well as lower emissions. Gasoline-like fuel compression ignition (GCI) is beneficial for air/fuel mixing process under PPC mode because of the superior auto-ignition resistance to prolong ignition delay time. In current experiments, three surrogate fuels with same research octane number (RON77) but different octane sensitivities (OS), PRF77 (S = 0), TPRF77-a (S = 3) and TPRF77-b (S = 5), are tested in a full-transparent single cylinder AVL optical compression ignition (CI) engine at low load conditions. Aiming at investigating the fuel octane sensitivity effect on engine combustion behavior as well as emissions under GCI-PPC mode, engine parameters, and emission data during combustion are compared for the test fuels with a change of injection timing.

Global warming and the increasingly stringent emission regulations call for alternative combustion techniques to reduce CO2 emissions. Oxy-fuel combustion is one of those techniques since the combustion products are easily separated by condensing the water and storing CO2. A problem associated with the burning of fuel using pure oxygen as an oxidant is that it results in high adiabatic flame temperature. This high flame temperature is decreased by introducing a thermal buffer to the system. A thermal buffer in this context is any gas that does not participate in combustion but at the same time absorbs some of the released heat and thus decreases the temperature of the medium. Many experiments have been conducted to study oxy-fuel combustion in ICE using noble gases as thermal buffers. However, those experiments focused on using hydrogen as a fuel to avoid any build-up of CO2 in the system.

In the engine community, gasoline compression ignition (GCI) engines are at the forefront of research and efforts are being taken to commercialize an optimized GCI engine in the near future. GCI engines are operated typically at Partially Premixed Combustion (PPC) mode as it offers better control of combustion with improved combustion stability. While the transition in combustion homogeneity from convectional Compression Ignition (CI) to Homogenized Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) combustion via PPC has been comprehensively investigated, the physical and chemical effects of fuel on GCI are rarely reported at different combustion modes. Therefore, in this study, the effect of physical and chemical properties of fuels on GCI is investigated. In-order to investigate the reported problem, low octane gasoline fuels with same RON = 70 but different physical properties and sensitivity (S) are chosen.

This paper compares the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions attributed to driving a popular production vehicle powered by an internal combustion engine (ICE), as well as a hybrid electric vehicle (HEV), with GHG emissions associated with walking, running and bicycling. The purpose of this study is to offer a different perspective on the problem of global warming due to anthropogenic causes, specifically on transportation and eating patterns. In order to accurately estimate emissions, a full life cycle of food has been considered coupled with energy expenditures of the aforementioned activities obtained from several different sources and averaged for more reliable results. The GHG emissions were calculated for Sweden, the UK, and the US. Depending on the availability of certain data, the methodology for different countries was altered slightly. The question whether walking, running or taking a bicycle is better for the environment than driving a car cannot be answered uniquely.

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.

Partially premixed combustion (PPC) is an operating mode that lies between the conventional compression ignition (CI) mode and homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) mode. The combustion in this mixed mode is complex as it is neither diffusion-controlled (CI mode) nor governed solely by chemical kinetics (HCCI mode). In this study, CFD simulations were performed to evaluate flame index, which distinguishes between zones having a premixed flame and non-premixed flame. Experiments performed in the optical engine supplied data to validate the model. In order to realize PPC, the start of injection (SOI) was fixed at −40 CAD (aTDC) so that a required ignition delay is created to premix air/fuel mixture. The reference operating point was selected to be with 3 bar IMEP and 1200 rpm. Naphtha with a RON of 77 and its corresponding PRF surrogate were tested. The simulations captured the general trends observed in the experiments well.

The experimental in-cylinder combustion process was compared with the numerical simualtion for naphtha fuel under conventional compression ignition (CI) and partially premixed combustion (PPC) conditions. The start of injection timing (SOI) with the single injection strategy was changed from late of −10 CAD aTDC to early of −40 CAD aTDC. The three-dimensional full cycle engine combustion simulation was performed coupling with gas phase chemical kinetics by the CFD code CONVERGE™. The flame index was used for evaluating the combustion evolution of premixed flame and diffusion flame. The results show that the flame index could be used as an indicator for in-cylinder homogeneity evaluation. Hydroperoxyl shows a similar distribution with the premixed combustion. Formaldehyde could be used as an indicator for low temperature combustion.