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Natural gas as an alternative fuel offers the potential of clean combustion and emits relatively low CO2 emissions. The main constitute of natural gas is methane. Historically, the slow burning speed of methane has been a major concern for automotive applications. Literature on experimental methane-gasoline Dual Fuel (DF) studies on research engines showed that the DF strategy is improving methane combustion, leading to an enhanced initial establishment of burning speed even compared to that of gasoline. The mechanism of such an effect remains unclear. In the present study, pure methane (representing natural gas) and PRF95 (representing gasoline) were supplied to a constant volume combustion vessel to produce a DF air mixture. Methane was added to PRF95 in three different energy ratios 25%, 50% and 75%. Experiments have been conducted at equivalence ratios of 0.8, 1, 1.2, initial pressures of 2.5, 5 and 10 bar and a temperature of 373K.

Strategies to suppress knock have been extensively investigated to pursue thermal efficiency limits in downsized engines with a direct-injection spark ignition. Comprehensive considerations were given in this work, including the effects of second injection timing and injector location on knock combustion in a downsized gasoline engine by large eddy simulation. The turbulent flame propagation is determined by an improved G-equation turbulent combustion model, and the detailed chemistry mechanism of a primary reference fuel is employed to observe the detailed reaction process in the end-gas auto-ignition process. The conclusions were obtained by comparing the data to the baseline single-injection case with moderate knock intensity. Results reveal that for both arrangements of injectors, turbulence intensity is improved as the injecting timing is retarded, increasing the flame propagation speed.

Combustion characteristics of neat 2-methylfuran (MF), 10% and 20% volumetric fraction 2-methylfuran gasoline blends were experimentally investigated in a single cylinder spark ignition engine, and the results were benchmarked against that of the research on octane number 97 neat gasoline. The investigation focused on the performance of cyclic variation of MF and its blends, and the effects of spark ignition timing, compression ratio, and exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) were studied. Experiments were conducted at the engine speed of 1500 rpm, and loads between 7 and 11 bar indicated mean effective pressure (IMEP) with using stoichiometric air-fuel ratio mixture. Index of the coefficient of variation of IMEP (COVIMEP) was used to evaluate the combustion stability of the tested fuels. The results show that neat MF and MF gasoline blended fuels have superior combustion stability compared with gasoline.

The combined thermo-generator and organic rankine cycle (TEG-ORC) used in exhaust heat recovery of internal combustion engine (ICE) is analyzed theoretically. Only about one third of the total energy released from fuel combustion is converted into useful work in engines, while the remaining energy goes into ambient environment, among which exhaust gas possesses high-grade thermal energy. Most of previous studies on energy recovery from engines have focused on exhaust heat recovery by ORC. However, if the heat is exchanged directly with high-temperature exhaust gas, organic working fluid would resolve with its lower decomposition temperature, and this is extremely harmful to ORC system. To avoid this phenomenon and utilize waste heat, preliminary thermoelectric modules are used to lower exhaust temperature and to generate electricity simultaneously.

Methane as an attractive alternative fuel offers the most potential in clean combustion and low CO2 emissions. In this work, combustion characteristics of methane/gasoline dual-fuel were investigated in a spark-ignited engine with port-injection of methane and direct-injection of gasoline, allowing for variations in methane addition and excess air coefficient. Engine experimental results showed that under low load conditions, as methane mass rate was raised, there was a promotion in methane/gasoline dual-fuel combustion, and this became more obvious at lean conditions. Similar observations were also obtained when the engine was operated at intermediate load conditions, but a prolonged combustion duration was found with the methane addition. Further analysis showed that the promotion of methane/gasoline dual-fuel combustion with methane addition mainly occurred in the early stage of combustion, especially for lean conditions.

Combustion cycle-to-cycle variation (CCV) of Spark-Ignition (SI) engines can be influenced by the cyclic variations in charge motion, trapped mass and mixture composition inside the cylinder. A high CCV leads to misfire or knock, limiting the engine’s operating regime. To understand the mechanism of the effect of flow field and mixture compositions on CCV, the present numerical work was performed in a single cylinder Direct Injection Spark-Ignition (DISI) engine. A large eddy simulation (LES) approach coupled with the G-equation combustion model was developed to capture the CCV by accurately resolving the turbulent flow field spatially and temporally. Further, the ignition process was modeled by sourcing energy during the breakdown and arc phases with a line-shape ignition model which could move with the local flow. Detailed chemistry was solved both inside and outside the flame front. A compact 48-species 152-reactions primary reference fuel (PRF) reduced mechanism was used.

This paper presents a model system TEG-DORC that employs thermoelectric generator (TEG) as a topping cycle integrated with a dual-loop organic Rankine bottoming cycle (DORC) to recover exhaust heat of internal combustion engine (ICE). The thermodynamic performance of TEG-DORC system is analyzed based on the first and second law of thermodynamics when system net output power Wnet, thermal efficiency ηth, exergy efficiency ηe and volumetric expansion ratio are chosen as objective functions. The model has many parameters that affect combined system performance such as TEG scale, evaporation pressure of high temperature ORC loop (HT loop) Pevp,HT, condensation temperature of HT loop Tcond,HT. It is suggested that HT loop has a vital influence on system performance.

Nowadays the strong knocking combustion involving destructive pressure wave or shock wave has become the main bottleneck for highly boosted engines when pursuing high thermal efficiency. However, its fundamental mechanism is still not fully understood. In this study, synchronization measurements through simultaneous pressure acquisition and high-speed direct photography were performed to comparatively investigate the strong knocking combustion of iso-octane and propane in a rapid compression machine with flat piston design. The pressure characteristics and visualized images of autoignition and reaction wave propagation were compared, and the correlations between thermodynamic trajectories and mixture reactivity progress were analyzed. The results show that iso-octane behaves a greater propensity to strong knocking combustion than propane at similar target pressures.

Turbulent jet ignition (TJI) has the advantages of improving burning rates and expanding lean burn limitations of gasoline engines. Based on a single cylinder engine, combustion process with different ignition methods, including single spark ignition, twin spark ignition, one-hole TJI and seven-hole TJI, are studied in this work. Experiments are carried out under conditions with different air/fuel equivalence ratios and different engine loads. Results show that the cycle-to-cycle variations of TJI combustion, which is evaluated by coefficient of variations (CoV) of IMEP and CoV of peak pressure, are obviously reduced due to the fast burning rate induced by the jet flame, and one-hole TJI combustion has the best combustion stability, especially for reducing the CoV of peak pressure.