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In order to address the CO₂ emissions issue and to diversify the energy for transportation, CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) is considered as one of the most promising alternative fuels given its high octane number. However, gaseous injection decreases volumetric efficiency, impacting directly the maximal torque through a reduction of the cylinder fill-up. To overcome this drawback, both independent natural gas and gasoline indirect injection systems with dedicated engine control were fitted on a RENAULT 2.0L turbocharged SI (Spark Ignition) engine and were adapted for simultaneous operation. The main objective of this innovative combination of gas and liquid fuel injections is to increase the volumetric efficiency without losing the high knocking resistance of methane.

This study deals with a coupled experimental and modeling approach of Diesel Particulate Filter cracking. A coupled model (heat transfer, mass transfer, chemical reactions) is used to predict the temperature field inside the filter during the regeneration steps. This model consists of assembled 1D models and is calibrated using a set of laboratory bench tests. In this set of experiments, laboratory scale filters are tested in different conditions (variation of the oxygen rate and gas flow) and axial/radial thermal gradient are recorded with the use of thermocouples. This model is used to build a second set of laboratory bench tests, which is dedicated to the understanding of the phenomena of Diesel Particulate Filter cracking.

In recent years, the increase of gasoline fuel injection pressure is a way to improve thermal efficiency and lower engine-out emissions in GDI homogenous combustion concept. The challenge of controlling particulate formation as well in mass and number concentrations imposed by emissions regulations can be pursued improving the mixture preparation process and avoiding mixture inhomogeneity with ultra-high injection pressure values up to 100 MPa. The increase of the fuel injection pressure in GDI homogeneous systems meets the demand for increased injector static flow, while simultaneously improves the spray atomization and mixing characteristics with consequent better combustion performance. Few studies quantify the effects of high injection pressure on transient gasoline spray evolution. The aim of this work was to simulate with OpenFOAM the spray morphology of a commercial gasoline injected in a constant volume vessel by a prototypal GDI injector.

The modeling of fuel sprays under well-characterized conditions relevant for heavy-duty Diesel engine applications, allows for detailed analyses of individual phenomena aimed at improving emission formation and fuel consumption. However, the complexity of a reacting fuel spray under heavy-duty conditions currently prohibits direct simulation. Using a systematic approach, we extrapolate available spray models to the desired conditions without inclusion of chemical reactions. For validation, experimental techniques are utilized to characterize inert sprays of n-dodecane in a high-pressure, high-temperature (900 K) constant volume vessel with full optical access. The liquid fuel spray is studied using high-speed diffused back-illumination for conditions with different densities (22.8 and 40 kg/m3) and injection pressures (150, 80 and 160 MPa), using a 0.205-mm orifice diameter nozzle.

The thorough understanding of the effects due to the fuel direct injection process in modern gasoline direct injection engines has become a mandatory task to meet the most demanding regulations in terms of pollutant emissions. Within this context, computational fluid dynamics proves to be a powerful tool to investigate how the in-cylinder spray evolution influences the mixture distribution, the soot formation and the wall impingement. In this work, the authors proposed a comprehensive methodology to simulate the air-fuel mixture formation into a gasoline direct injection engine under multiple operating conditions. At first, a suitable set of spray sub-models, implemented into an open-source code, was tested on the Engine Combustion Network Spray G injector operating into a static vessel chamber. Such configuration was chosen as it represents a typical gasoline multi-hole injector, extensively used in modern gasoline direct injection engines.

A computational, three-dimensional approach to investigate the behavior of diesel soot particles in the micro-channels of wall-flow Diesel Particulate Filters is presented. The KIVA3V CFD code, already extended to solve the 2D conservation equations for porous media materials [1], has been enhanced to solve in 2-D and 3-D the governing equations for reacting and compressible flows through porous media in non axes-symmetric geometries. With respect to previous work [1], a different mathematical approach has been followed in the implementation of the numerical solver for porous media, in order to achieve a faster convergency as source terms were added to the governing equations. The Darcy pressure drop has been included in the Navier-Stokes equations and the energy equation has been extended to account for the thermal exchange between the gas flow and the porous wall.

In the last decades the continuously tightening limitations on pollutant emissions has led to an extensive adoption of after-treatment devices on the exhaust systems of modern internal combustion engines. While these devices are primarily introduced for reducing and controlling the emissions, they also play an important role influencing the wave motion inside the exhaust system and so affecting the acoustics and the performances of the engine. In this paper a novel approach is proposed for the modeling of two after-treatment devices: the catalyst and the Diesel Particulate Filter. The models are based on a fast quasi-3D approach, named 3Dcell, originally developed by the authors for the acoustic modeling of silencers. This approach allows to model the wave motion by solving the momentum equation along the three directions.

This paper is focused on the development and application of a CFD methodology that can be applied to predict the fuel-air mixing process in stratified charge, sparkignition engines. The Eulerian-Lagrangian approach was used to model the spray evolution together with a liquid film model that properly takes into account its effects on the fuel-air mixing process into account. However, numerical simulation of stratified combustion in SI engines is a very challenging task for CFD modeling, due to the complex interaction of different physical phenomena involving turbulent, reacting and multiphase flows evolving inside a moving geometry. Hence, for a proper assessment of the different sub-models involved a detailed set of experimental optical data is required. To this end, a large experimental database was built by the authors.

Biofuels are a renewable energy source. When used as extenders for transportation fuels, biofuels contribute to the global reduction of Green House Gas and CO2 emissions from the transport sector and to security and independence of energy supply. On a “Well to Wheel” basis they are much more CO2 efficient than conventional fossil fuels. All vehicles currently in circulation in Europe are capable of using 5 % biodiesel. The introduction of higher percentages biodiesel needs new specific standards and vehicle tests validation. The development of vehicles compatible with 30% biodiesel blends in diesel fuel includes the validation of each part of both engine and fuel vehicle systems to guarantee normal operation for the entire life of the vehicle.

Among the existing concepts that help to improve the efficiency of spark-ignition engines at part load, Controlled Auto-Ignition™ (CAI™) is an effective way to lower both fuel consumption and pollutant emissions. This combustion concept is based on the auto-ignition of an air-fuel-mixture highly diluted with hot burnt gases to achieve high indicated efficiency and low pollutant emissions through low temperature combustion. To minimize the costs of conversion of a standard spark-ignition engine into a CAI engine, the present study is restricted to a Port Fuel Injection engine with a cam-profile switching system and a cam phaser on both intake and exhaust sides. In a 4-stroke engine, a large amount of burnt gases can be trapped in the cylinder via early closure of the exhaust valves. This so-called Negative Valve Overlap (NVO) strategy has a key parameter to control the amount of trapped burnt gases and consequently the combustion: the exhaust valve-lift profile.

A new fast and efficient parallel numerical solver for reacting and compressible flows through porous media has been developed in the OpenFOAM® (Open Field Operation and Manipulation) CFD Toolbox. With respect to the macroscopic model for porous media originally available in OpenFOAM®, a different mathematical approach has been followed: the new implemented solver makes use of the physical normal components resulting from the velocity expansion in the unit orthogonal vector basis to compute the Darcy pressure drop across the porous medium. Also, an additional sink term to account for the increased flow friction over the porous wall has been included into the momentum equation. In the new solver, the pressure correction equation is still able to achieve a faster convergency at very low permeability of the medium, also when it is associated with grid non-orthogonality.

Diesel particulate filter (DPF) technology is becoming increasingly established as a practical method for control of particulate emissions from diesel engines. In the year 2000, production vehicles with DPF systems, using metallic fuel additive to assist regeneration, became available in Europe. These early examples of first generation DPF technology are forerunners of more advanced systems likely to be needed by many light-duty vehicles to meet Euro IV emissions legislation scheduled for 2005. Aspects requiring attention in second generation DPF systems are a compromise between regeneration kinetics and ash accumulation. The DPF regeneration event is activated by fuel injection, either late in the combustion cycle (late injection), or after normal combustion (post injection), leading to increased fuel consumption. Therefore for optimum fuel economy, the duration of regeneration and/or the soot ignition temperature must be minimised.

In this work an integration between a 1D code (Gasdyn) with a CFD code (OpenFOAM®) has been applied to improve the performance of a Moto3 engine. The four-stroke, single cylinder S.I. engine was modeled, in order to predict the wave motion in the intake and exhaust systems and to study how it affects the cylinder gas exchange process. The engine considered was characterized by having an air induction system with integrated filter cartridge, air-box and intake runner, including two fuel injectors, resulting in a complex air-path from the intake mouth to the intake valves, which presents critical aspects when a 1D modeling is addressed. The exhaust and intake systems have been optimized form the point of view of the wave action. However, due to the high revolution speed reached by this type of engine, the interaction between the gas stream and the fuel spray becomes a key aspect to be addressed in order to achieve the best performance at the desired operating condition.

Partially premixed combustion (PPC) can be applied to decrease emissions and increase fuel efficiency in direct injection, compression ignition (DICI) combustion engines. PPC is strongly influenced by the mixing of fuel and oxidizer, which for a given fuel is controlled mainly by (a) the fuel injection, (b) the in-cylinder flow, and (c) the geometry and dynamics of the engine. As the injection timings can vary over a wide range in PPC combustion, detailed knowledge of the in-cylinder flow over the whole intake and compression strokes can improve our understanding of PPC combustion. In computational fluid dynamics (CFD) the in-cylinder flow is sometimes simplified and modeled as a solid-body rotation profile at some time prior to injection to produce a realistic flow field at the moment of injection. In real engines, the in-cylinder flow motion is governed by the intake manifold, the valve motion, and the engine geometry.

The OpenFOAM® CFD methodology is nowadays employed for simulation in internal combustion engines and a lot of work has been done for an appropriate description of all complex phenomena. At the moment in the RANS turbulence models available in the OpenFOAM® toolbox the turbulence modulation is not yet included, and the present work analyzes the predictive capabilities of the code in simulating high injection pressure fuel sprays after modeling the influence of the dispersed phase on the turbulence structure. Different experiments were employed for the validation. At first, non-evaporating diesel spray was considered in a constant volume and quiescent vessel. The validation was performed via the available experimental spray evolution in terms of penetrations and spatial/temporal fuel distributions. Then the Sandia combustion chamber was chosen for diesel spray simulation in non-reacting conditions.

The paper presents results of an experimental investigation of the fluid dynamic processes during the air/fuel mixture formation period between an evaporating diesel spray and swirl air flow under realistic engine conditions. Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) experiments have been carried out using an optically accessible prototype 2-stroke diesel engine equipped with a swirled combustion chamber. The flow within the chamber assumes a well structured swirl motion, similar to that developing in a real diesel engine, operating at high swirl ratio. The engine has been equipped with a common rail injection system and a solenoid-controlled injector, in use on automotive engines for the European market, able to manage multiple injection strategies. Two injector nozzles have been tested: a micro-sac 5-hole nozzle, 0.13 mm diameter, 150° spray angle and a 7-hole, 0.141 mm diameter, 148° spray angle.

The development of thermally durable zeolite NH3/Urea-SCR formulations coupled with that of high porosity filters substrates has opened the way to integrate PM and NOx control into a single device, namely an SCR-coated Diesel Particulate Filter (SCRF). A few experimental works are already present in the literature regarding SCRF systems, mainly addressing the DeNOx performances of the system (in both presence and absence of soot) under both steady state and transient conditions. The purpose of the present work is to perform a simulation study focused on phenomena which are expected to play key roles in SCRF systems, such as coupling of reaction and diffusion phenomena, soot effect on DeNOx activity, SCR coating effect on soot regeneration and filtration efficiency and competition between soot oxidation and DeNOx processes involving NO2.

Premixed combustion modes in compression ignition engines are studied as a promising solution to meet fuel economy and increasingly stringent emissions regulations. Nevertheless, PCCI combustion systems are not yet consolidated enough for practical applications. The high complexity of such combustion systems in terms of both air-fuel charge preparation and combustion process control requires the employment of robust and reliable numerical tools to provide adequate comprehension of the phenomena. Object of this work is the development and validation of suitable models to evaluate the effects of charge premixing levels in diesel combustion. This activity was performed using the Lib-ICE code, which is a set of applications and libraries for IC engine simulations developed using the OpenFOAM® technology.

Direct-injection technology represents today a very interesting solution to the typical problems that are generally encountered in SI, gas-fueled engines such as reduced volumetric efficiency, backfire and knock. However, development of suitable injection systems and combustion chamber geometry is necessary to optimize the fuel-air mixing and combustion processes. To this end, CFD models are widely applied even if the influence of the mesh structure, numerical and turbulence models on the computed results are still matter of investigation. In this work, a numerical methodology for the simulation of the gas exchange and injection processes in gas-fueled engines was developed within the Lib-ICE framework, which is a set of libraries and applications for IC engine modeling developed using the OpenFOAM® technology. The gas exchange and fuel injection processes were simulated into a four-valve, pent-roof hydrogen-fueled engine with optical access.

This paper presents results of an experimental investigation on a flexible port dual fuel injection using different ethanol to gasoline mass fractions. A four stroke, two cylinder turbocharged SI engine was used for the experiments. The engine speed was set at 3000 rpm, tests were carried out at medium-high load and two air-fuel-ratio. The initial reference conditions were set running the engine, fueled with full gasoline at the KLSA boundary, in accordance with the standard ECU engine map. This engine point was representative of a rich mixture (λ=0.9) in order to control the knock and the temperature at turbine inlet. The investigated fuels included different ethanol-gasoline mass fractions (E10, E20, E30 and E85), supplied by dual injection within the intake manifold. A spark timing sweep, both at stoichiometric and lean (λ=1.1) conditions, up to the most advanced one without knock was carried out.