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Air motion inside the engine cylinder plays a predominant role on combustion and emission processes. An attempt has been made in this investigation to simulate the in-cylinder air motion in a DI diesel engine with four different piston configurations such as dome piston, bowl on dome and pentroof piston and pentroof offset bowl piston. For computational analysis, the commercial general purpose code STAR-CD Es-ice has been used, which works on the method of finite volume. To validate the simulation, qualitative and quantitative comparisons have been done with the PIV results available in the literature. From this study, the best possible piston configuration has been arrived at.

For controlling oxides of nitrogen (NOx) and particular matter (PM) emissions from diesel engines, various fuel and combustion mode modification strategies are investigated in the past. Low temperature combustion (LTC) is an alternative combustion strategy that reduces NOx and PM emissions through premixed lean combustion. Dual fuel reactivity-controlled compression ignition (RCCI) is a promising LTC strategy with better control over the start and end of combustion because of reactivity and equivalence ratio stratification. However, the unburned hydrocarbon (HC) and carbon monoxide (CO) emissions are significantly higher in RCCI, especially at part-load conditions. The present work intends to address this shortcoming by utilizing oxygenated alternative fuels. Considering the limited availability and higher cost, replacing conventional fuels completely with alternative fuels is not feasible.

The presence of unsaturated methyl esters in biodiesel makes it susceptible to oxidation and fuel quality degradation upon long-term storage. In the present work, the effects of oxidation of Karanja biodiesel upon long-term storage on the combustion and emission characteristics of a heavy-duty truck diesel engine are studied. The Karanja biodiesel is stored for one year in a 200 litres steel barrel at room conditions to mimic commercial storage conditions. The results obtained show that compared to diesel, the start of injection of fresh and aged biodiesels are advanced by ~2-degree crank angle, and the ignition delay time is reduced. Aged biodiesel showed a slightly smaller ignition delay compares to fresh biodiesel. The fuel injection and combustion characteristics of fresh and aged biodiesels were similar at all the load conditions. Both fresh and aged biodiesels produced higher oxides of nitrogen (NOx) and lower smoke emissions compared to diesel.

In-cylinder emission control methods for simultaneous reduction of oxides of nitrogen (NOx) and particulate matter (PM) are gaining attention due to stringent emission targets and the higher cost of after-treatment systems. In addition, there is a renewed interest in using carbon-neutral biodiesel due to global warming concerns with fossil diesel. The bi-directional NOx-PM trade-off is reduced to a unidirectional higher NOx emission problem with biodiesel. The effect of water injection with biodiesel with low water quantities is relatively unexplored and is attempted in this investigation to mitigate higher NOx emissions. The water concentrations are maintained at 3, 6, and 9% relative to fuel mass by varying the pulse width of a low-pressure port fuel injector. Considering the corrosive effects of water at higher concentrations, they are maintained below 10% in the present work.

Adopting a low compression ratio (LCR) is a viable approach to meet the stringent emission regulations since it can simultaneously reduce the oxides of nitrogen (NOx) and particulate matter (PM) emissions. However, significant shortcomings with the LCR approach include higher unburned hydrocarbon (HC) and carbon monoxide (CO) emissions and fuel economy penalties. Further, poor combustion stability of LCR engines at cold ambient and part load conditions may worsen the transient emission characteristics, which are least explored in the literature. In the present work, the effects of implementing the low compression ratio (LCR) approach in a mass-production light-duty vehicle powered by a single-cylinder diesel engine are investigated with a major focus on transient emission characteristics.

For more than a decade there is a progressive demand for fuel efficient and high specific power output engines. Optimization of engine cooling and thermal management is one of the important activities in engine design and development. In the present paper an effort has been made to simulate the heat transfer modes of cylinder block and head for a present 4-stroke air-cooled motorcycle engine. Two and three-dimensional decoupled and conjugate heat transfer analysis has been done with commercially available computational fluid dynamics (CFD) codes. Experimental results are also presented. A complete simulation model has been developed and CFD techniques have been applied to design and optimize air cooling surfaces of cylinder head and block, for an air cooled motorcycle engine. The two dimensional analysis is an easy and fast method to predict fin surface temperature, heat transfer co-efficient and flow velocity.

This paper deals with a numerical investigation on swirl generation by a helical intake port and its effects on in-cylinder flow characteristics with axisymmetric piston bowls in a small four-valve direct injection diesel engine. The novelty of this study is in determining the appropriate design and orientation of the helical port to generate high swirl. A commercial CFD software STAR-CD is used to perform the detailed three dimensional simulations. Preliminary studies were carried out at steady state conditions with the helical port which demonstrated a good swirl potential and the CFD predictions were found to have reasonably good agreement with the experimental data taken from literature. For transient cold flow simulations, the STAR-CD code was validated with Laser Doppler Velocimetry (LDV) experimental velocity components’ measurements available in literature.

The classical trade-off between NOx and soot emissions from conventional diesel engines has been a limiting factor in meeting ever stringent emission norms. The electronic control of fuel injection in diesel engines emerged as an important strategy for their simultaneous reduction. The high pressure multiple-injection in a common rail direct injection system has been promising in this regard. While, the effects of pilot injection or multiple pulses of CRDI injection schedule on simultaneous reduction of NOx and soot have been widely investigated and reported, the investigations concerning three and more injection pulses have been limited. In this paper, the ability of a predictive model, developed by the authors, in providing optimal multiple-injection schedule is demonstrated through parametric investigations. The effects of pilot and post fuel quantity and dwell between the injection pulses on NOx and soot emissions are discussed.

Oil with high free fatty acid (FFA) content may not be an appropriate contestant for biodiesel production due to poor process yield. The high FFA content (≻1%) will cause soap formation and the separation of products will be exceedingly difficult, and as a result, it has low yield of biodiesel product. In order to increase the process yield, pretreatment setup is required. This involves additional cost and will increase overall fuel price. Hence crude vegetable oils having high FFA can be blended with diesel for effectual employment in diesel engines. In this context, Jatropha Curcas L, non-edible tree-based oil with higher FFA content, can be considered as one of the prominent blending sources for diesel. The primary objective of the present work is to analyze the effect of FFA content of crude Jatropha Curcas L oil (CJO) on performance and emission characteristics of a direct injection (DI) diesel engine.

Direct injection diesel engines are used in both light duty and heavy duty vehicles because of higher thermal efficiency compared to SI engines. However, due to only short time available for fuel-air mixing, combustion process depends on proper mixing. As a result, DI Diesel engine emits more NOx and soot into the atmosphere. Therefore, to achieve better combustion with less emission and also to accelerate the fuel-air mixing to improve the combustion, appropriate design of combustion chamber is crucial. Hence, in this work a study has been carried out using CFD to evaluate the effect of combustion chamber configuration on Diesel combustion with two different piston bowls. The two different piston configurations considered in this study are centre bowl on flat piston and pentroof offset bowl piston.

Premixed Charge Compression Ignition (PCCI) is a promising LTC strategy to reduce NOx and soot emissions without relying on after-treatment devices. One major drawback of PCCI is high HC and CO emissions resulting from fuel-wall impingement due to early injection of diesel. Narrow-angle direct injection (NADI) helps reduce the wall wetting of fuel. But it is effective only at lower loads. At mid and higher loads, it increases soot and CO emissions in small-bore engines due to the formation of fuel-rich pockets in the piston bowl region. This problem is addressed using a split injection strategy in the present work. A 3-D CFD model is developed and validated with experimental data at two load conditions. Simulations are performed using CONVERGE CFD software. Split injection strategies are explored using wide (148 deg) and narrow (88 deg) spray included angles.

Supercharging a single-cylinder diesel engine has proved to be a viable methodology to reduce engine-out emissions and increase full-load torque and power. The increased air availability of the supercharger (SC) system helps to inject more fuel quantity that can improve the engine's full-load brake mean effective pressure (BMEP) without elevating soot emissions. However, the increased inlet temperature of the boosted air and the availability of excess oxygen can pose significant challenges to contain oxides of nitrogen (NOx) emissions. Hence, it is important to investigate the potential NOx reduction options in supercharged diesel engines. In the present work, the potential of low-pressure exhaust gas recirculation (LP EGR) was evaluated in a single-cylinder supercharged diesel engine for its benefits in NOx emission reduction and impact on other criteria emissions and brake specific fuel consumption (BSFC).

Mass-production single-cylinder engines are generally not turbocharged due to pulsated exhaust flow. Hence, about one-third of the fuel chemical energy is wasted in the engine exhaust. To extract the exhaust energy and boost the single-cylinder engines, a novel supercharging with a turbo-compounding strategy is proposed in the present work, wherein an impulse turbine extracts energy from the pulsated exhaust gas flow. Employing an impulse turbine for a vehicular application, especially on a single-cylinder engine, has never been commercially attempted. Hence, the design of the impulse turbine assumes higher importance. A nozzle, designed as a stator part of the impulse turbine and placed at the exhaust port to accelerate the flow velocity, was included as part of the layout in the present work. The layout was analyzed using the commercial software AVL BOOST. Different nozzle exit diameters were considered to analyze their effect on the exhaust back pressure and engine performance.

Single-cylinder engines in mass production are generally not turbocharged due to the pulsated and intermittent exhaust gas flow into the turbocharger and the phase lag between the intake and exhaust stroke. The present work proposes a novel approach of decoupling the turbine and the compressor and coupling them separately to the engine to address these limitations. An impulse turbine is chosen for this application to extract energy during the pulsated exhaust flow. Commercially available AVL BOOST software was used to estimate the overall engine performance improvement of the proposed novel approach compared to the base naturally aspirated (NA) engine. Two different impulse turbine layouts were analyzed, one without an exhaust plenum and the second layout having an exhaust plenum before the power turbine. The merits and limitations of both layouts are compared in the present study.

Unsaturated methyl esters in biodiesel make it susceptible to oxidation and fuel quality degradation upon long-term storage. It is almost impossible to use biodiesel for commercial applications immediately after production. The lead time between biodiesel production and usage is generally high, causing auto-oxidation and fuel quality degradation. Hence any onsite improvement in fuel quality should be tested with aged biodiesel. To avoid the food versus fuel debate, non-edible oil feedstocks are preferable for producing biodiesel. However, biodiesel from non-edible oil sources has more unsaturated methyl ester constituents. The traditional trade-off between oxides of nitrogen (NOx) and soot emissions in conventional diesel combustion is reduced to a more severe NOx problem with biodiesel. In the present study, NOx mitigation through fuel modifications is studied for oxidized biodiesel produced from a non-edible oil, Karanja.

Emulsification of biodiesel with water aids in reducing oxides of nitrogen (NOx) and smoke emissions simultaneously whilst improving the engine performance. However, widespread commercial applications of biodiesel-water emulsions require cost-effective surfactants that result in stable emulsions to avoid the corrosive effects of water at high temperatures prevailing in the engine combustion systems. The current investigation explored the effect of adding water to biodiesel at 6 and 12% by weight. A novel, cost-effective surfactant Polyglycerol Polyricinoleate (PGPR), was used to stabilize the emulsions. A magnetic stirrer with a heating facility was utilized to prepare biodiesel-water emulsions that were stable for over five months. The experiments were carried out on a light-duty diesel engine at a constant rated speed and varying load conditions. The results obtained with the emulsions were compared with neat biodiesel as the reference fuel.

Currently, alternative fuels produced from waste resources are gaining much attention to replace depleting fossil fuels. The disposal of waste plastic poses severe environmental problems across the globe. The energy embodied in waste plastics can be converted into liquid fuel by pyrolysis. The present work explores the possibility of utilizing waste plastic oil (WPO) produced from municipal plastic wastes and waste cooking oil (WCO) biodiesel produced from used cooking oil in a dual fuel reactivity-controlled compression ignition (RCCI) mode. A single-cylinder light-duty diesel engine used for agricultural water pumping applications is modified to run in RCCI through suitable intake and fuel injection systems modifications. Alternative fuel blends, viz. WPO and WCO biodiesel with 20 vol. % in gasoline and diesel is used as a port and direct-injected fuels in RCCI. The premixed ratio and direct-injected fuel timings are optimized to achieve maximum thermal efficiency.

Over the years, much progress has been made in automotive vehicle technology to achieve high efficiency and clean combustion. Reactivity controlled compression ignition (RCCI) is one of the most widely studied high-efficiency, clean combustion strategies. However, complex dual-fuel injection systems and associated controls, high unburned hydrocarbon (UHC), and carbon monoxide (CO) emissions limit RCCI use in practical applications. Recently, single fuel RCCI strategies are gaining more attention as the above shortcomings are effectively addressed. Homogeneous charge with direct injection (HCDI) is a single fuel RCCI strategy that results in high thermal efficiency and lower UHC and CO emissions. In HCDI, the port-injected diesel fuel vapour and air are inducted during the intake stroke and ignited with direct-injected diesel fuel near the end of the compression stroke. However, high oxides of nitrogen (NOx) make HCDI less viable for practical applications.

A diesel engine was operated with karanja oil, bio-diesel obtained from karanja oil (BDK) and diesel as pilot fuels while LPG was used as primary fuel. LPG supply was varied from zero to the maximum value that the engine could tolerate. The engine output was kept at different constant levels of 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% of full load. The thermal efficiency improved at high loads. Smoke level was reduced drastically at all loads. CO and HC levels were reduced at full load. There was a slight increase in the NO level. Combustion parameters indicated an increase in the ignition delay. Peak pressure and rate of pressure rise were not unfavorably affected. There was an increase in the peak heat release rate with LPG induction. The amount of LPG that could be tolerated with out knock at full load was 49%, 53% and 61% on energy basis with karanja oil, BDK and diesel as pilots.

This paper deals mainly with computer simulation of processes of Gasoline Direct Injection (GDI) associated with Extended Expansion Engine (EEE) concept applied to a four-stroke, single-cylinder SI engine. In the case of standard SI engines, part-load brake thermal efficiencies are low due to higher pumping losses. The pumping losses can be reduced by operating the engine always at full throttle as done in extended expansion engine. In extended expansion engine, higher Geometric Expansion Ratio (GER) compared to Effective Compression Ratio (ECR) is responsible for better performance at part loads. Usually, in this engine, by delaying inlet valve closure timing along with reduced clearance volume, extended expansion is achieved. Experimentally many researchers have proved that variable valve timing and variable compression ratio techniques adopted in SI engines, improves the part- load performance greatly.