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A variable valve timing (VVT) mechanism has been applied in a high-speed direct injection (HSDI) diesel engine. The effective compression ratio (εeff) was lowered by means of late intake valve closing (LIVC), while keeping the expansion ratio constant. Premixed charge compression ignition (PCCI) combustion, adopting the Miller-cycle, was experimentally realized and numerically analyzed. Significant improvements of NOx and soot emissions were achieved for a wide range of engine speeds and loads, frequently used in a transient mode test. The operating range of the Miller-PCCI combustion has been expanded up to an IMEP of 1.30 MPa.

Auto-ignition and combustion processes of dual-component fuel spray were numerically studied. A source code of SUPERTRAPP (developed by NIST), which is capable of predicting thermodynamic and transportation properties of pure fluids and fluid mixtures containing up to 20 components, was incorporated into KIVA3V to provide physical fuel properties and vapor-liquid equilibrium calculations. Low temperature oxidation reaction, which is of importance in ignition process of hydrocarbon fuels, as well as negative temperature coefficient behavior was taken into account using the multistep kinetics ignition prediction based on Shell model, while a global single-step mechanism was employed to account for high temperature oxidation reaction. Computational results with the present multi-component fuel model were validated by comparing with experimental data of spray combustion obtained in a constant volume vessel.

The authors have explored the potential of fuel to control spray and its combustion processes in a diesel engine. Fuel has some potential for low emission and high thermal efficiency because its volatility and ignitability are one of the ultimate performing factors of the engines. In present study, the ignition process of mixed fuel spray was investigated in a constant volume combustion vessel and in a rapid compression and expansion machine, The ignition delay based on the diagram of rate of the heat release, the imaging of natural flame emissions and the numerical simulation were carried out to clarify the effect of the physical and chemical properties of mixed fuel on ignition characteristics.

Fuel design concept has been proposed for low emission and combustion control in engine systems. In this concept, the multicomponent fuels, which are mixed with a high volatility fuel (gasoline or gaseous fuel components) and a low volatility fuel (gas oil or fuel oil components), are used for artificial control of fuel properties. In addition, these multicomponent fuels can easily lead to flash boiling which promote atomization and vaporization in the spray process. In order to understand atomization and vaporization process of multicomponent fuels in detail, the model for flash boiling spray of multicomponent fuel have been constructed and implemented into KIVA3V rel.2. This model considers the detailed physical properties and evaporation process of multicomponent fuel and the bubble nucleation, growth and disruption in a nozzle orifice and injected fuel droplets.

A diesel engine operating in premixed charge compression ignition (PCCI) mode promises the reduction of engine-out emissions of NOx and particulate matter. A serious issue for PCCI operation with the early injection timing during the compression stroke is the difficulty of controlling the mixture formation process. In this study, a mixed fuel consisting of high volatility fuel and high ignitability one is applied in order to develop a control technique for the mixture preparation. In particular, we focuses on a flash boiling phenomenon of mixed fuel. For pure substance, the quality of flashing spray is dominated by the degree of superheat. In contrast, that of mixed fuel is affected much by low boiling point fuel.

In the present study, we have proposed a novel fuel design concept in order to achieve low emissions and combustion control in engine systems. The fuel design concept is based on the combustion control that could be realized by using a mixed fuel with a lower boiling point fuel, such as gasoline or gaseous fuel components and a higher boiling point fuel, such as gas oil or fuel oil components. According to the fuel design concept proposed in this work, the characteristics of vaporization during mixture formation process as well as of combustion can be reasonably improved due to the formation of two-phase region. The heat release analysis was conducted to compare the temporal history of heat release for both a mixed fuel and a single component fuel that has the same transport properties of mixed fuels. In addition, the two-color method, which simultaneously allows the measurements of temperature distribution and soot concentration, is applied to the combustion field for mixed fuels.

Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) is effective for the simultaneous reduction of soot and NOx emissions from diesel engine. In general, high octane number and volatility fuels (gasoline components or gaseous fuels) are used for HCCI operation, because very lean mixture must be formed during ignition delay of the fuel. However, it is necessary to improve fuel injection systems, when these fuels are used in diesel engine. The purpose of the present study is the achievement of HCCI combustion in DI diesel engine without the large-scale improvements of engine components. Various high octane number fuels are mixed with diesel fuel as a base fuel, and the mixed fuels are directly applied to DI diesel engine. At first, the cylinder pressure and heat release rate of each mixed fuel are analyzed. The ignition delay of HCCI operation decreases with an increase in the operation load, although that of conventional diesel operation does not almost varied.

In this study, the novel fuel design concept has been proposed in order to realize the low emission and combustion control in engine systems. In this fuel design concept, the mixed fuels with a high volatility fuel (gasoline or gaseous fuel components) and a low volatility fuel (gas oil or fuel oil components) are used in order to improve the spray characteristics by flash boiling. In our previous papers on this study, the fundamental characteristics of spray and its combustion of mixed fuel were reported. In this paper, heat release and exhaust emission (smoke, NOx and THC) characteristics of single cylinder diesel engine operated with the mixed fuels were investigated under each load. The exhaust performance of diesel engine could be improved using mixed fuel, because fuel properties and spray characteristics were controlled by changing mixing fraction of the mixed fuel.

Fuel design for internal combustion engines has been proposed in our study. In this concept, the multicomponent fuel with high and low volatility fuels are used in order to control the spray and combustion processes in internal combustion engine. Therefore, it is necessary to understand the spray and combustion characteristics of the multicomponent fuels in detail. In the present study, the modeling of multicomponent spray vaporization was conducted using KIVA3V code. The physical fuel properties of multicomponent fuel were estimated using the source code of NIST Mixture Property Database. Peng-Robinson equation of state and fugacity calculation were applied to the estimation of liquid-vapor equilibrium in order to take account for non-ideal vaporization process. Two-zone model in which fuel droplet was divided into droplet surface and inner core was introduced in order to simply consider the temperature distribution in fuel droplet.

A variable valve timing (VVT) mechanism was applied to achieve premixed diesel combustion at higher load for low emissions and high thermal efficiency in a light duty diesel engine. By means of late intake valve closing (LIVC), compressed gas temperatures near the top dead center are lowered, thereby preventing too early ignition and increasing ignition delay to enhance fuel-air mixing. The variability of effective compression ratio has significant potential for ignition timing control of conventional diesel fuel mixtures. At the same time, the expansion ratio is kept constant to ensure thermal efficiency. Combining the control of LIVC, EGR, supercharging systems and high-pressure fuel injection equipment can simultaneously reduce NOx and smoke. The NOx and smoke suppression mechanism in the premixed diesel combustion was analyzed using the 3D-CFD code combined with detailed chemistry.

In previous our work, we revealed that the flash boiling process could improve remarkably the spray atomization for the pure substance-single component fuel in relation to the port-injected S.I. engines. Then, we applied this flash boiling spray to the Diesel spray process by the use of the two phase region formed between liquefied CO2 and n-Tridecane as the first step of fuel design concept. And the promoted atomization properties could be obtained in this mixed fuel concept. Further, we could obtain the simultaneous reduction of NO and soot emissions in Diesel engine exhaust due to the spray internal EGR effect and reburning of soot. As the second step, we proposed a novel fuel design concept for low exhaust emission and combustion control, relating to mixed and reformulated fuels with a lower boiling point fuel such as gasoline components or gas fuel and a higher boiling point fuel such as gas oil or heavy oil components to obtain the both advantages of their fuels for combustion.

Because the transportation industry uses fossil fuels as much as 1/4 of the total, CO2 emission from transport sector should be reduced. Therefore, carbon neutral (CN) fuel has been attracted attention. However, hydrogen and ammonia have low energy density and are difficult to be stored and transported. In this study, synfuel produced by Fischer-Tropsch (FT) reaction. This fuel is produced with carbon dioxide absorbed from the direct air capture and electricity derived from renewable energy, so it is possible to achieve CN. However, FT fuel tends to have less aromatics and a higher cetane number than diesel fuel. Therefore, excessive early ignition occurs at low speed and low load in application to diesel engine. The purpose of this study is to suppress early ignition by controlling the amount of air flowing into the cylinder. The numerical results showed that the ignition timing and combustion could be controlled using Miller cycle by late intake valve closing (LIVC).