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In order to meet the requirements in the stringent emission regulations, more and more research work has been focused on homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) and partially premixed combustion (PPC) or partially premixed compression ignition (PCCI) as they have the potential to produce low NOx and soot emissions without adverse effects on engine efficiency. The mixture formation and charge stratification influence the combustion behavior and emissions for PPC/PCCI, significantly. An ultra-high speed burst-mode laser is used to capture the mixture formation process from the start of injection until several CADs after the start of combustion in a single cycle. To the authors’ best knowledge, this is the first time that such a high temporal resolution, i.e. 0.2 CAD, PLIF could be accomplished for imaging of the in-cylinder mixing process. The capability of resolving single cycles allows for the influence of cycle-to-cycle variations to be eliminated.

In a previous study, in order to investigate the effect of charge stratification on combustion behavior such as combustion efficiency and combustion phasing which also largely affects the emissions, an experiment was conducted in a heavy-duty compression ignition (CI) metal engine. The engine behavior and emission characteristics were studied in the transition from HCCI mode to PPC mode by varying the start of injection (SOI) timing. To gain more detailed information of the mixing process, in-cylinder laser diagnostic measurements, namely fuel-tracer planar laser induced fluorescence (PLIF) imaging, were conducted in an optical version of the heavy-duty CI engine mentioned above. To the authors’ best knowledge, this is the first time to perform fuel-tracer PLIF measurements in an optical engine with a close to production bowl in piston combustion chamber, under transition conditions from HCCI to PPC mode.

Gasoline partially premixed combustion (PPC) has shown potential in terms of high efficiency with low emissions of oxides of nitrogen (NOx) and soot. Despite these benefits, emissions of unburned hydrocarbons (UHC) and carbon monoxide (CO) are the main shortcomings of the concept. These are caused, among other things, by overlean zones near the injector tip and injector dribble. Previous diesel low temperature combustion (LTC) research has demonstrated post injections to be an effective strategy to mitigate these emissions. The main objective of this work is to investigate the impact of post injections on CO and UHC emissions in a quiescent (non-swirling) combustion system. A blend of primary reference fuels, PRF87, having properties similar to US pump gasoline was used at PPC conditions in a heavy duty optical engine. The start of the main injection was maintained constant. Dwell and mass repartition between the main and post injections were varied to evaluate their effect.

Soot emissions from diesel internal combustion engines are strictly regulated nowadays. Laser extinction measurement (LEM) and natural luminosity (NL) of sooty flames are commonly applied to study soot. LEM measures soot along the laser beam path and it can probe soot regardless of temperature. NL integrates the whole field of view and relies on soot temperature. In this work, a comparison of simultaneously recorded LEM and NL data has been performed in a heavy-duty optical engine. A 685 nm laser beam is used for LEM. The laser was modulated at 63 kHz, which facilitated subtraction of the background NL signal from the raw LEM data. By Beer-Lambert’s law, KL factor can be calculated and used as a metric to describe soot measurements. A compensation of transmitted laser intensity fluctuation and soot deposits on optical windows has been performed in this work.

The partially premixed combustion (PPC) concept has shown high efficiency with low soot emissions. However, the in-cylinder phenomena are still to be explained and evaluated for further progress in the research. This work studies the start of combustion process during a transition from homogenous charge compression ignition (HCCI) to PPC. The process is visualized using a heavy-duty, non-swirling engine modified for optical access. High speed video was used to capture the natural luminosity of the combustion. The fuel used was PRF87. Single and double injection strategies were used at a load kept to the moderate level of 7.5 bar IMEPg. Single injections were swept from early HCCI to retarded PPC conditions whilst running a cycle to cycle temperature sweep, to capture the effect of injection timing and temperature differences simultaneously. Results show that retarded injections show less cycle-to-cycle variation due to temperature variations.

It has been proven that partially premixed combustion (PPC) has the capability of high combustion efficiency with low soot and NOx emissions, which meet the requirements of increasingly restricted emission regulations. In order to obtain more homogenous combustion and longer ignition delay in PPC, different fuel injection strategies were employed which could affect the fuel air mixing and control the combustion. In the present work, a light duty optical diesel engine was used to conduct high speed particle image velocimetry (PIV) for single, double and triple injections with different timings. A quartz piston and a cylinder liner were installed in the Bowditch configuration to enable optical access. The geometry of the quartz piston crown is based on the standard diesel combustion chamber design for this commercial passenger car engine, including a re-entrant bowl shape.

A pilot-main injection strategy is investigated for a part-load operating point in a single cylinder optical Diesel engine. As the energizing dwell between the pilot and main injections decreases below 200 μs, combustion noise reaches a minimum and a reduction of 3 dB is possible. This decrease in combustion noise is achieved without increased pollutant emissions. Injection schedules employed in the engine are analyzed with an injection analyzer to provide injection rates for each dwell tested. Two distinct injection events are observed even at the shortest dwell tested; rate shaping of the main injection occurs as the dwell is adjusted. High-speed elastic scattering imaging of liquid fuel is performed in the engine to examine initial liquid penetration rates.

Flow field asymmetry can lead to an asymmetric mixture preparation in Diesel engines. To understand the evolution of this asymmetry, it is necessary to characterize the in-cylinder flow over the full compression stroke. Moreover, since bowl-in-piston cylinder geometries can substantially impact the in-cylinder flow, characterization of these flows requires the use of geometrically correct pistons. In this work, the flow has been visualized via a transparent piston top with a realistic bowl geometry, which causes severe experimental difficulties due to the spatial and temporal variation of the optical distortion. An advanced optical distortion correction method is described to allow reliable particle image velocimetry (PIV) measurements through the full compression stroke. Based on the ensemble-averaged velocity results, flow asymmetry characterized by the swirl center offset and the associated tilting of the vortex axis is quantified.

In this work the pre- to main chamber ignition process is studied in a Wärtsilä 34SG spark-ignited lean burn four-stroke large bore optical engine (bore 340 mm) operating on natural gas. Unburnt and burnt gas regions in planar cross-sections of the combustion chamber are identified by means of planar laser induced fluorescence (PLIF) from acetone seeded to the fuel. The emerging jets from the pre-chamber, the ignition process and early flame propagation are studied. Measurements reveal the presence of a significant temporal delay between the occurrence of a pressure difference across the pre-chamber holes and the appearance of hot burnt/burning gases at the nozzle exit. Variations in the delay affect the combustion timing and duration. The combustion rate in the pre-chamber does not influence the jet propagation speed, although it still has an effect on the overall combustion duration.

Measurements of ignition behavior, homogeneous reactor simulations employing detailed kinetics, and quantitative in-cylinder imaging of fuel-air distributions are used to delineate the impact of temperature, dilution, pilot injection mass, and injection pressure on the pilot ignition process. For dilute, low-temperature conditions characterized by a lengthy ignition delay, pilot ignition is impeded by the formation of excessively lean mixture. Under these conditions, smaller pilot mass or higher injection pressures further lengthen the pilot ignition delay. Similarly, excessively rich mixtures formed under relatively short ignition delay conditions typical of conventional diesel combustion will also prolong the ignition delay. In this latter case, smaller pilot mass or higher injection pressures will shorten the ignition delay. The minimum charge temperature required to effect a robust pilot ignition event is strongly dependent on charge O2 concentration.

Owing to the presence of oxygen atoms in biodiesel, the use of this fuel in compression ignition (CI) engines has the advantage of reducing engine-out harmful emissions. In this context, biodiesel fuel can also be used to extend the low temperature combustion (LTC) regime because it inherently suppresses soot formation within the combustion chamber. Therefore, in this study, LTC characteristics of biodiesel were investigated in a single cylinder CI engine; the engine performance and emission characteristics with biodiesel and conventional petro-diesel fuels were evaluated and compared. A modulated kinetics (MK)-like approach was employed to realize LTC operation. The engine test results showed that LTC operation was achieved by retardation of the fuel injection timing. The results also showed that using biodiesel reduced smoke, THC, and CO emissions but increased NOx emissions.

Because of the concerns regarding global warming caused by greenhouse gases and the high cost of fossil fuels, research on improving the fuel economy and emissions in internal combustion engines has become important. Specifically for spark ignition engines, lean-burning direct injection is the most promising technology because the fuel economy and emissions can be improved using a stable combustion of a stratified mixture. This study aimed to develop a spray-guided, lean-burning liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) direct injection engine through optimizing the combustion parameter controls. In previous research, the brake thermal efficiency in an LPG direct injection engine was significantly increased and stable combustion was secured with an interinjection spark ignition (ISI) strategy under low-load operating conditions.

Fuel tracer-based planar laser-induced fluorescence is used to investigate the vaporization and mixing behavior of pilot injections for variations in pilot mass of 1-4 mg, and for two injection pressures, two near-TDC ambient temperatures, and two swirl ratios. The fluorescent tracer employed, 1-methylnaphthalene, permits a mixture of the diesel primary reference fuels, n-hexadecane and heptamethylnonane, to be used as the base fuel. With a near-TDC injection timing of −15°CA, pilot injection fuel is found to penetrate to the bowl rim wall for even the smallest injection quantity, where it rapidly forms fuel-lean mixture. With increased pilot mass, there is greater penetration and fuel-rich mixtures persist well beyond the expected pilot ignition delay period. Significant jet-to-jet variations in fuel distribution due to differences in the individual jet trajectories (included angle) are also observed.

In a recent study, quantitative measurements were presented of in-cylinder spatial distributions of mixture equivalence ratio in a single-cylinder light-duty optical diesel engine, operated with a non-reactive mixture at conditions similar to an early injection low-temperature combustion mode. In the experiments a planar laser-induced fluorescence (PLIF) methodology was used to obtain local mixture equivalence ratio values based on a diesel fuel surrogate (75% n-heptane, 25% iso-octane), with a small fraction of toluene as fluorescing tracer (0.5% by mass). Significant changes in the mixture's structure and composition at the walls were observed due to increased charge motion at high swirl and injection pressure levels. This suggested a non-negligible impact on wall heat transfer and, ultimately, on efficiency and engine-out emissions.

Nowadays, automobile manufacturers are focusing on reducing exhaust-gas emissions because of their harmful effects on humans and the environment, such as global warming due to greenhouse gases. Direct injection combustion is a promising technology that can significantly improve fuel economy compared to conventional port fuel injection spark ignition engines. However, previous studies indicate that relatively high levels of nitrogen oxide (NOx) emission were produced with gasoline fuel in a spray-guided-type combustion system as a result of the stratified combustion characteristics. Because a lean-burn engine cannot employ a three-way catalyst, NOx emissions can be an obstacle to commercializing a lean-burn direct injection engine. Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) fuel was proposed as an alternative for reducing NOx emission because it has a higher vapor pressure than gasoline and decreases the local rich mixture region as a result of an improved mixing process.

Mixing in wall-jets was investigated in an optical heavy-duty diesel engine with several injector configurations and injection pressures. Laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) was employed in non-reacting conditions in order to quantitatively measure local equivalence ratios in colliding wall-jets. A novel laser diagnostic technique, Structured Laser Illumination Planar Imaging (SLIPI), was successfully implemented in an optical engine and permits to differentiate LIF signal from multiply scattered light. It was used to quantitatively measure local equivalence ratio in colliding wall-jets under non-reacting conditions. Mixing phenomena in wall-jets were analyzed by comparing the equivalence ratio in the free part of the jet with that in the recirculation zone where two wall-jets collide. These results were then compared to φ predictions for free-jets. It was found that under the conditions tested, increased injection pressure did not increase mixing in the wall-jets.

The performance of Partially Premixed Compression Ignition (PPCI) combustion relies heavily on the proper mixing between the injected fuel and the in-cylinder gas mixture. In fact, the mixture distribution has direct control over the engine-out emissions as well as the rate of heat release during combustion. The current study focuses on investigating the pre-combustion equivalence ratio distribution in a light-duty diesel engine operating at a low-load (3 bar IMEP), highly dilute (10% O₂), slightly boosted (P ⁿ = 1.5 bar) PPCI condition. A tracer-based planar laser-induced fluorescence (PLIF) technique was used to acquire two-dimensional equivalence ratio measurements in an optically accessible diesel engine that has a production-like combustion chamber geometry including a re-entrant piston bowl.

In a recent experimental study the in-cylinder spatial distribution of mixture equivalence ratio was quantified under non-combusting conditions by planar laser-induced fluorescence (PLIF) of a fuel tracer (toluene). The measurements were made in a single-cylinder, direct-injection, light-duty diesel engine at conditions matched to an early-injection low-temperature combustion mode. A fuel amount corresponding to a low load (3.0 bar indicated mean effective pressure) operating condition was introduced with a single injection at -23.6° ATDC. The data were acquired during the mixture preparation period from near the start of injection (-22.5° ATDC) until the crank angle where the start of high-temperature heat release normally occurs (-5° ATDC). In the present study the measured in-cylinder images are compared with a fully resolved three-dimensional CFD model, namely KIVA3V-RANS simulations.

The spatial distribution of the mixture equivalence ratio within the squish volume is quantified under non-combusting conditions by planar laser-induced fluorescence (PLIF) of a fuel tracer (toluene). The measurements were made in a single-cylinder, direct-injection, light-duty diesel engine at conditions matched to an early-injection low temperature combustion mode. A fuel amount corresponding to a low load (3.0 bar indicated mean effective pressure) operating condition was introduced with a single injection. Data were acquired during the mixture preparation period from near the start of injection (-22.5° aTDC) until the crank angle where the start of high-temperature heat release normally occurs (-5° aTDC). Despite the opposing squish flow, the fuel jets penetrate through the squish region to the cylinder bore. Although rapid mixing is observed in the head of each jet, rich regions remain at the head at the start of high-temperature heat release.

Laser-Induced Incandescence (LII) has traditionally been considered a straightforward and reliable optical diagnostic technique for in-cylinder soot measurements. As a result, it is nowadays even possible to buy turn-key LII measurement systems. During recent years, however, attention has been drawn to a number of unresolved challenges with LII. Many of these are relevant mostly for particle sizing using time-resolved LII, but also two-dimensional soot volume fraction measurements are affected, especially in regions with high soot concentrations typically found in combustion engines. In this work the focus is on the specific challenges involved in performing high-repetition rate measurements with LII in diesel engines. All the mentioned issues might not be possible to overcome but they should nevertheless be known and their potential impact should be considered.