Search Results

The generalization of exhaust aftertreatment systems along with the growing awareness about climate change is leading to an increasing importance of the efficiency over other criteria during the design of reciprocating engines. Using experimental and theoretical tools to perform detailed global energy balance (GEB) of the engine is a key issue for assessing the potential of different strategies to reduce consumption. With the objective of improving the analysis of GEB, this paper describes a tool that allows calculating the detailed internal repartition of the fuel energy in DI Diesel engines. Starting from the instantaneous in-cylinder pressure, the tool is able to describe the different energy paths thanks to specific submodels for all the relevant subsystems.

These days many research efforts on internal combustion engines are centred on optimising turbocharger matching and performance on the engine. In the last years a number of studies have pointed out the strong effect on turbocharger behaviour of heat transfer phenomena. The main difficulty for taking into account these phenomena comes from the little information provided by turbocharger manufacturers. In this background, Original Engine Manufacturers (OEM) need general engineering tools able to provide reasonably precise results in predicting the mentioned heat transfer phenomena. Therefore, the purpose of this work is to provide a procedure, applicable to small automotive turbochargers, able to predict the heat transfer characteristics that can be used in a lumped 1D turbocharger heat transfer model. This model must be suitable to work coupled to whole-engine simulation codes (such as GT-Power or Ricardo WAVE) for being used in global engine models by the OEM.

In the last two decades engine research has been mainly focused on reducing pollutant emissions. This fact together with growing awareness about the impacts of climate change are leading to an increase in the importance of thermal efficiency over other criteria in the design of internal combustion engines (ICE). In this framework, the heat transfer to the combustion chamber walls can be considered as one of the main sources of indicated efficiency diminution. In particular, in modern direct-injection diesel engines, the radiation emission from soot particles can constitute a significant component of the efficiency losses. Thus, the main of objective of the current research was to evaluate the amount of energy lost to soot radiation relative to the input fuel chemical energy during the combustion event under several representative engine loads and speeds. Moreover, the current research characterized the impact of different engine operating conditions on radiation heat transfer.

With ever-demanding emission legislations in Compression Ignition (CI) engines, new premixed combustion strategies have been developed in recent years seeking both, emissions and performance improvements. Since it has been shown that in-cylinder air flow affects the combustion process, and hence the overall engine performance, the study of swirling structures and its interaction with fuel injection are of great interest. In this regard, possible Turbulent Kinetic Energy (TKE) distribution changes after fuel injection may be a key parameter for achieving performance improvements by reducing in-cylinder heat transfer. Consequently, this paper aims to gain an insight into spray-swirl interaction through the analysis of in-cylinder velocity fields measured by Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) when PCCI conditions are proposed. Experiments are carried out in a single cylinder optical Diesel engine with bowl-in-piston geometry.

Growing awareness about CO2 emissions and their environmental implications are leading to an increase in the importance of thermal efficiency as criteria to design internal combustion engines (ICE). Heat transfer to the combustion chamber walls contributes to a decrease in the indicated efficiency. A strategy explored in this study to mitigate this efficiency loss is to promote low swirl conditions in the combustion chamber by using low swirl ratios. A decrease in swirl ratio leads to a reduction in heat transfer, but unfortunately, it can also lead to worsening of combustion development and a decrease in the gross indicated efficiency. Moreover, pumping work plays also an important role due to the effect of reduced intake restriction to generate the swirl motion. Current research evaluates the effect of a dedicated injection strategy to enhance combustion process when low swirl is used.

Gas engines (fuelled with CNG, LNG or Biogas) for generation of power and heat are, to this date, taking up larger shares of the market with respect to diesel engines. In order to meet the limit imposed by the TA-Luft regulations on stationary engines, lean combustion represents a viable solution for achieving lower emissions as well as efficiency levels comparable with diesel engines. Leaner mixtures however affect the combustion stability as the flame propagation velocity and consequently heat release rate are slowed down. As a strategy to deliver higher ignition energy, an active pre-chamber may be used. This work focuses on assessing the performance of a pre-chamber combustion configuration in a stationary heavy-duty engine for power generation, operating at different loads, air-to-fuel ratios and spark timings.

Nowadays turbocharging the internal combustion engine has become a key point in both the reduction of pollutant emissions and the improvement of engine performance. The matching between turbocharger and engine is difficult; some of the reasons are the highly unsteady flow and the variety of diabatic and off-design conditions the turbocharger works with. In present paper the importance of the heat transfer phenomena inside small automotive turbochargers will be analyzed. These phenomena will be studied from the point of view of internal heat transfer between turbine and compressor and with a one-dimensional approach. A series of tests in a gas stand, with steady and pulsating hot flow in the turbine side, will be modeled to show the good agreement in turbocharger enthalpies prediction. The goodness of the model will be also shown predicting turbine and compressor outlet temperatures.

Visualization of single-hole nozzles into quiescent ambient has been used extensively in the literature to characterize spray mixing and combustion. However in-cylinder flow may have some meaningful impact on the spray evolution. In the present work, visualization of direct diesel injection spray under both non-reacting and reacting operating conditions was conducted in an optically accessible two-stroke engine equipped with a single-hole injector. Two different high-speed imaging techniques, Schlieren and UV-Light Absorption, were applied here to quantify vapor penetration for non-reacting spray. Meanwhile, Mie-scattering was used to measure the liquid length. As for reacting conditions, Schlieren and OH* chemiluminescence were simultaneously applied to obtain the spray tip penetration and flame lift-off length under the same TDC density and temperature. Additionally, PIV was used to characterize in-cylinder flow motion.

In the past few years’ various studies have shown how the application of a highly premixed dual fuel combustion for CI engines leads a strong reduction for both pollutant emissions and fuel consumption. In particular a drastic soot and NOx reduction were achieved. In spite of the most common strategy for dual fueling has been represented by using two different injection systems, various authors are considering the advantages of using a single injection system to directly inject blends in the chamber. In this scenario, a characterization of the behavior of such dual-fuel blend spray became necessary, both in terms of inert and reactive ambient conditions. In this work, a light extinction imaging (LEI) has been performed in order to obtain two-dimensional soot distribution information within a spray flame of different diesel/gasoline commercial fuel blends. All the measurements were conducted in an optically accessible two-stroke engine equipped with a single-hole injector.

Regulated emissions and fuel consumption are the main constraints affecting internal combustion engine (ICE) design. Over the years, many techniques have been used with the aim of meeting these limitations. In particular, exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) has proved to be an invaluable solution to reduce NOx emissions in Diesel engines, becoming a widely used technique in production engines. However, its application has a direct effect on fuel consumption due to both the changes in the in-cylinder processes, affecting indicated efficiency, and also on the air management. An analysis, based on the engine Global Energy Balance, is presented to thoroughly assess the behavior of a HSDI Diesel engine under variable EGR conditions at different operating points. The tests have been carried out keeping constant the conditions at the IVC and the combustion centering.

Recent studies have shown that the use of highly premixed dual fuel combustion reduces pollutant emissions and fuel consumption in CI engines. The most common strategy for dual fueling is to use two injection systems. Port fuel injection for low reactivity fuel and direct injection for high reactivity fuel. This strategy implies some severe shortcomings for its real implementation in passenger cars such as the use of two fuel tanks. In this sense, the use of a single injection system for dual fueling could solve this drawback trying to maintain pollutant and efficiency benefits. Nonetheless, when single injection system is used, the spray characteristics become an essential issue. In this work the fundamental characteristics of dual-fuel sprays with a single injection system under non-evaporating engine-like conditions are presented.

Ever decreasing permitted emission levels and the necessity of more efficient engines demand a better understanding of in-cylinder phenomena. In swirl-supported compression ignition (CI) engines, mean in-cylinder flow structures formed during the intake stroke deeply influence mixture preparation prior to combustion, heat transfer and pollutant oxidation all of which could potentially improve engine performance. Therefore, the ability to characterize these mean flow structures is relevant for achieving performance improvements. CI mean flow structure is mainly described by a precessing vortex. The location of the vortex center is key for the characterization of the flow structure. Consequently, this work aims at evaluating algorithms that allow for the location of the vortex center both, in ensemble-averaged velocity fields and in instantaneous velocity fields.

To face the current challenges of the automotive industry, there is a need for computational models capable to simulate the engine behavior under low-temperature and low-pressure conditions. Internal combustion engines are complex and have interconnected systems where many processes take place and influence each other. Thus, a global approach to engine simulation is suitable to study the entire engine performance. The circuits that distribute the hydraulic fluids -liquid fuels, coolants and lubricants- are critical subsystems of the engine. This work presents a 0D model which was developed and set up to make possible the simulation of hydraulic circuits in a global engine model. The model is capable of simulating flow and pressure distributions as well as heat transfer processes in a circuit.

Engine Combustion Network promotes fundamental investigations on a number of different spray configurations with the goal of providing experimental results under highly controlled conditions for CFD validation. Most of the available experiments up to now have been obtained in spray vessels, which miss some of the interactions governing spray evolution in the combustion chamber of an engine, such as the jet wall interaction and the transient conditions in the combustion chamber. The main aim of the present research is to compare the results obtained with a three-hole, 90 μm injector, known as ECN’s Spray B, in these constant-volume vessels and more recent Heavy-Duty engines with those obtained in a Light Duty Single Cylinder Optical Engine, under inert and reactive conditions, using n-dodecane. In-cylinder conditions during the injection were estimated by means of a 1-D and 0-D model simulation, accounting for heat transfer and in-cylinder mass evolution.

Focusing on the dual-mode dual-fuel (DMDF) combustion concept, a combined optimization of the piston bowl geometry with the fuel injection strategy was conducted at low, mid, and high loads. By coupling the KIVA-3V code with the enhanced genetic algorithm (GA), a total of 14 parameters including the piston bowl geometric parameters and the injection parameters were optimized with the objective of meeting Euro VI regulations while improving the fuel efficiency. The optimal piston bowl shape coupled with the corresponding injection strategy was summarized and integrated at various loads. Furthermore, the effects of the key geometric parameters were investigated in terms of organizing the in-cylinder flow, influencing the energy distribution, and affecting the emissions. The results indicate that the behavior of the DMDF combustion mode is further enhanced in the aspects of improving the fuel economy and controlling the emissions after the bowl geometry optimization.

Electrification and hybridization of powerplants in the transportation sector is one of the most important changes in the last few decades. Lithium-ion batteries are the main energy storage systems, but despite the maturity of this technology, it has certain constrains compared to traditional internal combustion engines in the day-to-day usage. As the operating conditions of the batteries are pushed to the limits to overcome certain disadvantages relative to other conventional systems like charge and discharge times or vehicle driving range, new concerns and safety limitations must be considered. High power rates and cooling deficiencies can produce excessive operating temperatures within the cells, leading to problems with degradation or even unchain chemical reactions that can end in thermal runaway, one of the most worrying failure modes attaining electric platforms nowadays.

The Engine Combustion Network (ECN) is a coordinate effort from research partners from all over the world which aims at creating a large experimental database to validate CFD calculations. Two injectors from ECN, namely Spray C and D, have been compared in a constant pressure flow vessel, which enables a field of view of more than 100 mm. Both nozzles have been designed with similar flow metrics, with Spray D having a convergent hole shape and Spray C a cylindrical one, the latter being therefore more prone to cavitation. Although the focus of the study is on reacting conditions, some inert cases have also been measured. High speed schlieren imaging, OH* chemiluminescence visualization and head-on broadband luminosity have been used as combustion diagnostics to evaluate ignition delay, lift off length and reacting tip penetration. Parametric variations include ambient temperature, oxygen content and injection pressure variations.

Altitude simulators for internal combustion engines are broadly used in order to simulate different atmospheric pressure and temperatures on a test bench. One of the main problems of these devices is their outlet temperature and in order to control it, at least one heat exchanger is needed. A methodology to define, select and analyses the best heat exchanger that fulfill the requirements is presented. The methodology combines CFD and 0D models with experimental test. The combination of these tools allows to adjust both the 0D and the CFD models. The adjusted 0D model will be used to perform parametric analysis that will help to select the best geometrical combinations considering heat transfer and pressure losses while the CFD model will help to find possible local deficiencies on the designed Heat Exchanger and, therefore, try to improve it.

Rising concern towards environment and decarbonization has increased the demand of EVs. However, one of the major challenges for these vehicles is to achieve the same driving ranges as that of ICEs. This can be attained by increasing the power of cells without altering their sizes; conversely, this has important effects on the cell thermal behaviour. The focus of this paper is to analyse the impact of changing the characterizing materials thicknesses of collectors and electrodes of a cylindrical cell on its thermal response and to determine an optimal configuration. The CFD software considered to conduct this research uses the equivalent circuit model (ECM) to represent a cell and requires material physical properties to calculate the thermal response. In the calculations presented, resistance, capacitance, and Open Circuit Voltage (OCV) needed for the ECM are obtained from experimental measurements.

This article proposes a novel methodology for the definition of an optimized immersion cooling fluid for lithium-ion battery applications aimed to minimize maximum temperature and temperature gradient during most critical battery operations. The battery electric behavior is predicted by a first order equivalent circuit model, whose parameters are experimentally determined. Thermal behavior is described by a nodal network, assigning to each node thermal characteristics. Hence, the electro-thermal model of a battery is coupled with a thermal management model of an immersion cooling circuit developed in MATLAB/Simulink. A first characterization of the physical properties of an optimal dielectric liquid is obtained by means of a design of experiment. The optimal values of density, thermal conductivity, kinematic viscosity, and specific heat are defined to minimize the maximum temperature and temperature gradient during a complete discharge of the battery at 2.5C.