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Premixed diesel combustion blending high volatility fuels into diesel fuel were investigated in a modern diesel engine. First, various fractions of normal heptane and diesel fuel were examined to determine the influence of the blending of a highly ignitable and volatile fuel into diesel fuel. The indicated thermal efficiency improves almost linearly with increasing normal heptane fraction, particularly at advanced injection timings when the fuel is not injected directly into the piston cavity. This improvement is mainly due to decreases in the other losses, ϕother which are calculated with the following equation based on the energy balance. ηu: The combustion efficiency calculated from the exhaust gas compositions ηi: The indicated thermal efficiency ϕex: The exhaust loss calculated from the enthalpy difference between intake and exhaust gas The decreases in the other losses with normal heptane blends are due to a reduction in the unburned fuel which does not reach the gas analyzer.

Reductions in combustion noise are necessary in high load diesel engine operation and multiple fuel injections can achieve this with the resulting reductions in the maximum rate of pressure rise. In 2014, Dr. Fuyuto reported the phenomenon that the combustion noise produced in the first combustion can be reduced by the combustion noise of the second fuel injection, and this has been named “Noise Cancelling Spike Combustion (NCS combustion)”. To investigate more details of NCS combustion, the effects of timings and heating values of the first and second heat releases on the reduction of overall combustion noise are investigated in this paper. The engine employed in the research here is a supercharged, single cylinder DI diesel engine with a high pressure common rail fuel injection system.

Diesel soot suppression effects of catalytic fuel additives for a range of fuels with different properties were investigated with calcium naphthenate. A single cylinder DI diesel engine and a thermobalance were used to determine the soot reduction and its mechanism for seven kinds of fuels. Experimental results showed that the catalytic effect of the fuel additive was different for the different fuels, and could be described by a parameter considering cetane number and kinematic viscosity. The fuel additives reduced soot more effectively for fuels with higher cetane number and lower kinematic viscosity. This result was explained by soot oxidation characteristics for the different fuels. Oxidation of soot with the metallic additive proceeds in two stages: stage I, a very rapid oxidation stage; and stage II, a following slow or ordinary oxidation stage.

This research investigates the influences of the injection timing, injection pressure, and compression ratio on the combustion and exhaust emissions in a single cylinder 1.0 L DI diesel engine operating with ultra-high EGR. Longer ignition delays due to either advancing or retarding the injection timing reduced the smoke emissions, but advancing the injection timing has the advantages of maintaining the thermal efficiency and preventing misfiring. Smokeless combustion is realized with an intake oxygen content of only 9-10% regardless of the injection pressure. Reduction in the compression ratio is effective to reduce the in-cylinder temperature and increase the ignition delay as well as to expand the smokeless combustion range in terms of EGR and IMEP. However, the thermal efficiency deteriorates with excessively low compression ratios.

To extend the operational range of premixed diesel combustion, fuel reformation by piston induced compression of rich homogeneous air-fuel mixtures was conducted in this study. Reformed gas compositions and chemical processes were first simulated with the chemistry dynamics simulation, CHEMKIN Pro, by changing the intake oxygen content, intake air temperature, and compression ratio. A single cylinder diesel engine was utilized to verify the simulation results. With the simulation and experiments, the characteristics of the reformed gas with respect to the reformer cylinder operating condition were obtained. Further, the thermal decomposition and partial oxidation reaction mechanisms of the fuel in extremely low oxygen concentrations were obtained with the characteristics of the gas production at the various reaction temperatures.

The influence of fuel properties on the operational range and the thermal efficiency of premixed diesel combustion was evaluated with an ordinary diesel fuel, a primary reference fuel for cetane numbers, three primary reference fuels for octane numbers, and two normal heptane-toluene blend fuels in a single-cylinder DI diesel engine. The fuel injection timing was set at 25°CA BTDC and the maximum rate of pressure rise was maintained below 1.0 MPa/°CA when lowering the intake oxygen concentration by cooled EGR. With increasing octane numbers, the higher intake oxygen concentration can be used, resulting in higher indicated thermal efficiency due to a higher combustion efficiency. The best thermal efficiency at the optimum intake oxygen concentration with the ordinary diesel fuel is lower than with the primary reference fuels with the similar ignitability but higher volatility.

Combustion and exhaust gas emissions of alcohol and vegetable oil blends including a 20% ethanol + 40% 1-butanol + 40% vegetable oil blend and a 50% 1-butanol + 50% vegetable oil blend were examined in a single cylinder, four-stroke cycle, 0.83L direct injection diesel engine, with a supercharger and a common rail fuel injection system. A 50% diesel oil + 50% vegetable oil blend and regular unblended diesel fuel were used as reference fuels. The boost pressure was kept constant at 160 kPa (absolute pressure), and the cooled low pressure loop EGR was realized by mixing with a part of the exhaust gas. Pilot injection is effective to suppress rapid combustion due to the lower ignitability of the alcohol and vegetable oil blends. The effects of reductions in the intake oxygen concentration with cooled EGR and changes in the fuel injection pressure were investigated for the blended fuels.

Port injection of ethanol addition as an ignition inhibitor was implemented to control ignition timing and expand the operating range in DME fueled HCCI combustion. The ethanol reduced the rate of low-temperature oxidation and consequently delayed the onset of the high-temperature reaction with ultra-low NOx over a wide operating range. Along with the ethanol addition, changes in intake temperature, overall equivalence ratio, and engine speed are investigated and shown to be effective in HCCI combustion control and to enable an extension of operation range. A chemical reaction analysis was performed to elucidate details of the ignition inhibition on low-temperature oxidation of DME-HCCI combustion.

A new method to simultaneously measure temperature and concentration distributions in unsteady gas jets was established with an adaptation of the laser-induced fluorescence of iodine molecules seeded into ambient gas. Using the temperature dependence of iodine fluorescence spectra, the local temperature inside jets was determined with the ratio between the fluorescence intensities of two visualized images with different wavelengths. Jet concentrations were also determined with the images for the temperature measurements. The method was applied to an unsteady argon jet injected into hot argon-iodine ambient gases. The experimental results showed that the local temperature distribution in an unsteady gas jet were quite similar to the local concentration distributions.

Diesel combustion and emissions with four kinds of oxygenated agents as main fuels were investigated. Significant improvements in smoke, particulate matter, NOx, THC, and thermal efficiency were simultaneously realized with the oxygenates, and engine noise was also remarkably reduced for the oxygenates with higher ignitability. The improvements in the exhaust emissions and the thermal efficiency depended almost entirely on the oxygen content in the fuels regardless of the oxygenate to diesel fuel blend ratios and type of oxygenate. The unburned THC emission and odor intensity under starting condition with an oxygenate were also much lower than with conventional diesel fuel.

The effects of intake dilution with various dilution gases including nitrogen, argon, and carbon dioxide on low temperature diesel combustion were investigated in a naturally aspirated DI diesel engine to understand the mechanism of the simultaneous reductions in smoke and NOx with ultra-high EGR. NOx almost completely disappears with the intake oxygen concentration diluted below 16% regardless of the kind of dilution gas. Smoke emissions decrease with increased heat capacity of the charged gas due to promotion of mixture homogeneity with longer ignition delays. Intake dilution with the 36% CO2 + 64% Ar mixture which has a similar specific heat capacity as N2 shows lower smoke emissions than with N2. Chemical kinetics analysis shows that carbon dioxide may help to reduce NOx and soot by lowering the reaction temperature as well as by changing the concentrations of some radicals or/and species related to soot and NOx formation.

The characteristics of smokeless low temperature diesel combustion in various fuel-air mixing was investigated by engine tests with high rates of cooled exhaust gas recirculation (EGR), three compression ratios, and fuels of various cetane numbers, as well as by computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation of the in-cylinder distributions of mixture concentration and temperature. The results show that besides combustion temperature, fuel-air mixing is also vital to efficient, smokeless, and low NOx diesel combustion. Smokeless and low NOx diesel combustion can be realized even with insufficient fuel-air mixing as long as the combustion temperature is sufficiently low. However low combustion temperature and insufficient oxygen due to ultra-high EGR cause very high UHC and CO emissions, and a severe deterioration in combustion efficiency.

The effect of after-injection on exhaust gas emissions from a DI diesel engine with a common rail injection system was experimentally investigated for a range of operating conditions. The results showed that over the whole of the operating range, some reduction in smoke emissions can be achieved with after-injection, without deterioration in thermal efficiency and other emission characteristics. The optimum quantity of after-injection for smoke reduction is 20% of the total fuel supply, and the optimum timing is just after the main injection. Visualization in a bottom view type engine showed that with after-injection, soot formation in the main-injection decrease more due to a smaller quantity of fuel than without after-injection, and soot formation with after-injection is insignificant.

Premixed diesel combustion modes including low temperature combustion and MK combustion are expected to realize smokeless and low NOx emissions. As ignition must be delayed until after the end of fuel injection to establish these combustion modes, methods for active ignition control are being actively pursued. It is reported that alcohols including methanol and ethanol strongly inhibit low temperature oxidation in HCCI combustion offering the possibility to control ignition with alcohol induction. In this research improvement of diesel combustion and emissions by ethanol intake port injection for the promotion of premixing of the in-cylinder injected diesel fuel, and by increased EGR for the reduction of combustion temperature.

The thermal cracking and polyaromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) formation processes of dimethyl ether (DME), ethanol, and ethane were investigated with chemical kinetics to determine the soot formation mechanism of oxygenated fuels. The modeling analyzed three processes, an isothermal constant pressure condition, a temperature rising condition under a constant pressure, and an unsteady condition approximating diesel combustion. With the same mole number of oxygen atoms, the DME rich mixtures form much carbon monoxide and methane and very little non-methane HC and PAH, in comparison with ethanol or ethane mixtures. This suggests that the existence of the C-C bond promotes the formation of PAH and soot.

Time resolved changes in unburned hydrocarbon emissions and their components were investigated in a DI diesel engine with a specially developed gas sampling system and gas chromatography. The tested transient operations include starting and increasing loads. At start-up with high equivalence ratios the total hydrocarbon (THC) at first increased, and after a maximum gradually decreased to reach a steady state value. Reducing the equivalence ratio of the high fueling at start-up and shortening the high fueling duration are effective to reduce THC emissions as long as sufficient startability is maintained. Lower hydrocarbons, mainly C1-C8, were the dominant components of the THC and mainly determined the THC behavior in the transient operations while the proportion of hydrocarbon (HC) components did not significantly change. The unregulated toxic substances, 1,3 butadiene and benzene were detected in small quantities.

The combustion characteristics in a partially premixed charge compression ignition (PCCI) engine with n-hexane were compared with ordinary diesel fuel to evaluate combustion improvements with lower distillation-temperature fuels. In the PCCI engine, a lean mixture was formed reasonably with early stage injection and the additional fuel was supplied with a second stage fuel injection after ignition. With n-hexane, thermal efficiency improved while simultaneously maintaining low NOx and smokeless combustion. A CFD analysis simulated the mixture formation processes and showed that the uniformity of the mixture with the first stage injection improves with lower distillation-temperature fuels.

Smokeless and ultra low NOx combustion without knocking in a dual-fuel diesel engine with induced LPG as the main fuel was established with a uniquely developed piston cavity divided by a lip in the sidewall. A small quantity of diesel fuel was directly injected at early compression stroke into the lower part of the cavity as an ignition source for this confined area, and this suppressed explosively rapid combustion just after ignition and spark-knock like combustion at later stage. A combination of the divided cavity, EGR, and intake air throttling was effective to simultaneously eliminate knocking, and reduce THC and NOx significantly.

The fundamental parameters related to engine combustion and performances, such as, heating value, theoretical air-fuel ratio, adiabatic flame temperature, carbon dioxide (CO2), and nitric oxide (NO) emissions, specific heat and engine thermal efficiency were investigated with computations for a wide range of oxygenated fuels. The computed results showed that almost all of the above combustion-related parameters are closely related to oxygen content in the fuels regardless of the kinds or chemical structures of oxygenated fuels. An interesting finding was that with the increase in oxygen content in the fuels NO emission decreased linearly, and the engine thermal efficiency was almost unchanged below oxygen content of 30 wt-% but gradually decreased above 30 wt-%.

Direct injection of various ignition suppressors, including water, methanol, ethanol, 1-propanol, hydrogen, and methane, was implemented to control ignition timing and expand the operating range in an HCCI engine with induced DME as the main fuel. Ultra-low NOx and smoke-less combustion was realized over a wide operating range. The reaction suppressors reduced the rate of low-temperature oxidation and consequently delayed the onset of high-temperature oxidation. Analysis of the chemical kinetics showed a reduction of OH radical in the premixed charge with the suppressors. Among the ignition suppressors, alcohols had a greater impact on OH radical reduction resulting in stronger ignition suppression. Although water injection caused a greater lowering of the temperature, which also suppressed ignition, the strong chemical effect of radical reduction with methanol injection resulted in the larger impact on suppression of oxidation reaction rates.