Search Results

The modeling of fuel jet atomization is key in the characterization of Internal Combustion (IC) engines, and 3D Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is a recognized tool to provide insights for design and control purposes. Multi-hole injectors with counter-bored nozzle are the standard for Gasoline Direct Injection (GDI) applications and the Spray-G injector from the Engine Combustion Network (ECN) is considered the reference for numerical studies, thanks to the availability of extensive experimental data. In this work, the behavior of the Spray-G injector is simulated in a constant volume chamber, ranging from sub-cooled (nominal G) to flashing conditions (G2), validating the models on Diffused Back Illumination and Phase Doppler Anemometry data collected in vaporizing inert conditions.

The spray structure and vaporization processes of flash-boiling sprays in a constant volume chamber under a wide range of superheated conditions were experimentally investigated by a high speed imaging technique. The Engine Combustion Network’s Spray G injector was used. Four fuels including gasoline, ethanol, and gasoline-ethanol blends E30 and E50 were investigated. Spray penetration length and spray width were correlated to the degree of the superheated degree, which is the ratio of the ambient pressure to saturated vapor pressure (pa/ps). It is found that parameter pa/ps is critical in describing the spray transformation under flash-boiling conditions. Three distinct stages namely the slight flash-boiling, the transition flash-boiling, and the flare flash-boiling are identified to describe the transformation of spray structures.

Ignition location is one of the important factors that affect the thermal efficiency, exhaust emissions and knock sensitivity in premixed-charge ignition engines. However, the ignition initiation locations of pre-chamber generated turbulent jet ignition, which is a promising ignition enhancement method, are not clearly understood due to the complex physics behind it. Motivated by this, the ignition initiation location of a transient turbulent jet in a constant volume combustor is analyzed by the use of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations. In the CFD simulations of this work, commercial codes KIVA-3 V release 2 and an in-house-developed chemical solver with a detailed mechanism for H2/air mixtures are used. Comparisons are performed between simulated and experimental ignition initiation locations, and they agree well with one another. A detailed parametric study of the influence of in-cylinder temperature on the ignition initiation location is also performed.

The formation of fuel film in the combustion cylinder affects the mixing process of the air and the fuel, and the process of the combustion propagation in engines. Some models of film evaporation have been developed to predict the evaporation behavior of the film, but rarely experimental results have been produced, especially when the temperature is high. In this study, the evaporation behavior of the film of different species of oil and their blends at different temperature are observed. The 45 μL films of isooctane, 1-propanol, 1-butanol, 1-pentanol, and their blends were placed on a quartz glass substrate in the closed temperature-controlled chamber. The shape change of the film during evaporation was monitored by a high-speed camera through the window of the chamber. First, the binary blends film of isooctane and one of the other three oils were evaporated at 30 °C, 50 °C, 70 °C and 90 °C.

An efficient multi-component fuel droplet vaporization model has been developed in this work using discrete approach. The precise modeling of droplet vaporization process is divided into two parts: vapor-phase and liquid-phase sub-models. Temporal evolution of flow inside the droplet is considered to describe the transient behavior introduced by the slow diffusion process. In order to account for the internal circulation motion, surface regression and finite diffusion without actually resolving the spatial governing equations within the liquid phase, a set of ordinary differential equations is applied to describe the evolution of the non-uniform distributions of universal diffusional variables, i.e. temperature and species mass fraction. The differences between the droplet surface and bulk mean states are modeled by constructing a quasi-1D frame; the effect of the internal circulations is taken into consideration by using the effective diffusivity rather than physical diffusivity.

Gasoline compression ignition (GCI) combustion is a promising solution to address increasingly stringent efficiency and emissions regulations imposed on the internal combustion engine. However, the high resistance to auto-ignition of modern market gasoline makes low load compression ignition (CI) operation difficult. Accordingly, a method that enables the variation of the fuel reactivity on demand is an ideal solution to address low load stability issues. Metal engine experiments conducted on a single cylinder medium-duty research engine allowed for the investigation of this strategy. The fuels used for this study were 87 octane gasoline (primary fuel stream) and diesel fuel (reactivity enhancer). Initial tests demonstrated load extension down to idle conditions with only 20% diesel by mass, which reduced to 0% at loads above 3 bar IMEPg.

Methanol has been regarded as a potential transportation fuel due to its advanced combustion characteristics and flexible source. However, it is suffering from misfire and high HC emissions problems under cold start and low load conditions either on methanol SI engine or on methanol/diesel dual fuel engine. Hydrogen is a potential addition that can enhance the combustion of methanol due to its high flammability and combustion stability. In the current work, the effect of hydrogen fraction on the laminar flame characteristics of methanol- hydrogen-air mixture under varied equivalence ratio was investigated on a constant volume combustion chamber system coupled with a schlieren setup. Experiments were performed over a wide range of equivalence ratio of the premixed charge, varied from 0.8 to 1.4, as well as different hydrogen fraction, 0%, 5%, 10%, 15% and 20% (n/n). All tests were carried out at fixed temperature and pressure of 400K and 0.1MPa.

In this work, an efficient and unified combustion model is introduced to simulate the flame propagation, diffusion-controlled combustion, and chemically-driven ignition in both SI and CI engine operation. The unified model is constructed upon a G-equation model which addresses the premixed flame propagation. The concept of the Livengood-Wu integral is used with tabulated ignition delay data to account for the chemical kinetics which is responsible for the spontaneous ignition of fuel-air mixture. A set of rigorously defined operations are used to couple the evolution of the G scalar field and the Livengood-Wu integral. The diffusion-controlled combustion is simulated equivalent to applying the Burke-Schumann limit. The combined model is tested in the simulation of the premixed SI combustion in a constant volume chamber, as well as the CI combustion in a conventional small bore diesel engine.

A quasi-dimensional model for a direct injection diesel engine was developed based on experiments at Sandia National Laboratory. The Sandia researchers obtained images describing diesel spray evolution, spray mixing, premixed combustion, mixing controlled combustion, soot formation, and NOx formation. Dec [1] combined all of the available images to develop a conceptual diesel combustion model to describe diesel combustion from the start of injection up to the quasi-steady form of the jet. The end of injection behavior was left undescribed in this conceptual model because no clear image was available due to the chaotic behavior of diesel combustion. A conceptual end-of-injection diesel combustion behavior model was developed to capture diesel combustion throughout its life span. The compression, expansion, and gas exchange stages are modeled via zero-dimensional single zone calculations.

Dual-fuel combustion combining a premixed charge of compressed natural gas (CNG) and a pilot injection of diesel fuel offer the potential to reduce diesel fuel consumption and drastically reduce soot emissions. In this study, dual-fuel combustion using methane ignited with a pilot injection of No. 2 diesel fuel, was studied in a single cylinder diesel engine with optical access. Experiments were performed at a CNG substitution rate of 70% CNG (based on energy) over a wide range of equivalence ratios of the premixed charge, as well as different diesel injection strategies (single and double injection). A color high-speed camera was used in order to identify and distinguish between lean-premixed methane combustion and diffusion combustion in dual-fuel combustion. The effect of multiple diesel injections is also investigated optically as a means to enhance flame propagation towards the center of the combustion chamber.

A new approach of NOx reduction in the compression-ignition engine is introduced in this work. The previous research has shown that during the combustion stage, the high temperature ignition tends to occur early at the near-stoichiometric region where the combustion temperature is high and majority of NOx is formed; Therefore, it is desirable to burn the leaner region first and then the near-stoichiometric region, which inhibits the temperature rise of the near-stoichiometric region and consequently suppresses the formation of NOx. Such inverted ignition sequence requires mixture with inverted phi-sensitivity. Fuel selection is performed based on the criteria of strong ignition T-sensitivity, negligible negative temperature coefficient (NTC) behavior, and large heat of vaporization (HoV).

Butanol, which is a renewable biofuel, has been regarded as a promising alternative fuel for internal combustion engines. When blended with diesel and applied to pilot ignited natural gas engines, butanol has the capability to achieve lower emissions without sacrifice on thermal efficiency. However, high blend ratio of butanol is limited by its longer ignition delay caused by the higher latent heat and higher octane number, which restricts the improvement of emission characteristics. In this paper, the potential of increasing butanol blend ratio by adding hot exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) is investigated. 3D CFD model based on a detailed kinetic mechanism was built and validated by experimental results of natural gas engine ignited by diesel/butanol blends. The effects of hot EGR is then revealed by the simulation results of the combustion process, heat release traces and also the emissions under different diesel/butanol blend ratios.

With the development of advanced ABE fermentation technology, the volumetric percentage of acetone, butanol and ethanol in the bio-solvents can be precisely controlled. To seek for an optimized volumetric ratio for ABE-diesel blends, the previous work in our team has experimentally investigated and analyzed the combustion features of ABE-diesel blends with different volumetric ratio (A: B: E: 6:3:1; 3:6:1; 0:10:0, vol. %) in a constant volume chamber. It was found that an increased amount of acetone would lead to a significant advancement of combustion phasing whereas butanol would compensate the advancing effect. Both spray dynamic and chemistry reaction dynamic are of great importance in explaining the unique combustion characteristic of ABE-diesel blend. In this study, a semi-detailed chemical mechanism is constructed and used to model ABE-diesel spray combustion in a constant volume chamber.

The motivation of the present work was to understand the mechanism by which alcohols produce less aromatic species in their combustion process than an equal amount of hydrocarbon with similar molecular structure does. Due to its numerous advantages over short-chain alcohols, butanol has been considered very promising in soot reduction. Excluding the influence of spray, vaporization and mixing process in engine cases, an adiabatic constant-pressure reactor model was applied to investigate the effect of butanol additives on aromatic species, which are known to be soot precursors, in fuel-rich butane flames. To keep the carbon flux constant, 5% and 10% oxygen by mass of the fuel were added to butane using butanol additive, respectively. Based on the soot reduction effects proposed in literature, effects on temperature, key radical concentrations and the carbon removal from the pathway to aromatic species were considered to identify the major mechanism of reduction in aromatic species.

This work presents a comprehensive computational study of diesel - natural gas (NG) dual fuel engine. A complete computational model is developed for the operation of a diesel - NG dual fuel engine modified from an AVL 5402 single cylinder diesel test engine. The model is based on the KIVA-3V program and includes customized sub-models. The model is validated against test cell measurements of both pure diesel and dual fuel operation. The effects of NG on ignition and combustion in dual fuel operation are analyzed in detail. Zero-dimensional computations with a diesel surrogate reaction mechanism are conducted to discover the effects of NG on ignition and combustion and to reveal the fundamental chemical mechanisms behind such effects. Backed by the detailed theoretical analysis, the engine operation parameters are optimized with genetic algorithm (GA) for the dual fuel operation of the modified AVL 5402 test engine.

In the present study, we developed a reduced chemical reaction mechanism consisted of n-heptane and toluene as surrogate fuel species for diesel engine combustion simulation. The LLNL detailed chemical kinetic mechanism for n-heptane was chosen as the base mechanism. A multi-technique reduction methodology was applied, which included directed relation graph with error propagation and sensitivity analysis (DRGEPSA), non-essential reaction elimination, reaction pathway analysis, sensitivity analysis, and reaction rate adjustment. In a similar fashion, a reduced toluene mechanism was also developed. The reduced n-heptane and toluene mechanisms were then combined to form a diesel surrogate mechanism, which consisted of 158 species and 468 reactions. Extensive validations were conducted for the present mechanism with experimental ignition delay in shock tubes and laminar flame speeds under various pressures, temperatures and equivalence ratios related to engine conditions.

A multi-step acetone-butanol-ethanol (ABE) phenomenological soot model was proposed and implemented into KIVA-3V Release 2 code. Experiments were conducted in an optical constant volume combustion chamber to investigate the combustion and soot emission characteristics under the conditions of 1000 K initial temperature with various oxygen concentrations (21%, 16%, 11%). Multi-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations were conducted in conjunction under the same operation conditions. The predicted soot mass traces showed good agreement with experimental data. As ambient oxygen decreased from 21% to 11%, ignition delay retarded and the distribution of temperature became more homogenous. Compared to 21% ambient oxygen, the peak value of total soot mass at 16% oxygen concentration was higher due to the suppressed soot oxidation mechanism.

Ethanol is the most widely used renewable fuel in the world now. Compared to ethanol, butanol is another very promising renewable fuel for internal combustion engines. It is less corrosive, and has higher energy density, lower vapor pressure and lower solubility in water. However, the use of Acetone-Butanol-Ethanol (ABE), an intermediate product in ABE fermentation, presents a cost advantage over ethanol and butanol and has attracted much attention recently. In this study, three high-alcohol-content gasoline blends (85% vol. of ethanol, butanol and ABE, referred as E85, B85 and ABE85, respectively) were investigated in a port-injection spark-ignition engine. ABE has a component ratio of 3:6:1. In addition, pure gasoline was also tested as a baseline for comparison. All fuels were tested under the same conditions (1200 RPM, Φ = 0.83−1.25, BMEP = 3 bar).

The numerical models presented in this study are established based on discrete phase model (DPM) of spray dispersion and evaporation considering the cold wall operating condition of port injection system. All the models were implemented into the CFD software FLUENT. Gas flow and film flow and spray are coupled by mass, momentum and energy transfer due to spray impingement, film evaporation and surface shear stress. Influences of impact parameters including injection height, injection duration and injection angle on the formation and evaporation of wall-film are discussed. The results show that, with the increase of injection height, the maximum film thickness and wall film ratio decrease, and fuel vapor mass ratio increases. The reductions of film thickness and wall film ratio are not obvious as the increasing of injection height. Extending the injection duration could add the maximum film thickness and film area.

Dual loop EGR systems (having both a high pressure loop EGR and a low pressure loop EGR) have been successfully applied to multiple light-duty diesel engines to meet Tier 2 Bin 5 and Euro 5/6 emissions regulations [1, 2], including the 2009 model year VW Jetta 2.0TDI. Hyundai and Toyota also published their studies with dual loop EGR systems [3, 4]. More interest exists on the low pressure loop EGR effects on medium to heavy duty applications [5]. Since the duty cycles of light duty diesel and heavy duty diesel applications are very different, how to apply the dual loop EGR systems to heavy duty applications and understanding their limitations are less documented and published. As a specific type of heavy duty application, this paper studied the dual loop EGR effects on the retrofit applications of heavy duty diesel for delivery and drayage applications. The reduction of NOx emissions and the impact on fuel economy and controls are discussed.