Search Results

Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) combustion technology has demonstrated a profound potential to decrease both emissions and fuel consumption. In this way, the significance of the 2-stroke HCCI engine has been underestimated as it can provide more power stroke in comparison to a 4-stroke engine. Moreover, the mass of trapped residual gases is much larger in a 2-stroke engine, causing higher initial charge temperatures, which leads to easier auto-ignition. For controlling 2-stroke HCCI engines, it is vital to find optimized simulation approaches of HCCI combustion with a focus on ignition timing. In this study, a Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) model for a 2-stroke gasoline engine was developed coupled to a semi-detailed chemical mechanism of iso-octane to investigate the simulation capability of the considered chemical mechanism and the effects of different simulation parameters such as the turbulence model, grid density and time step size.

For natural gas (NG)-diesel RCCI, a multi-zonal, detailed chemistry modeling approach is presented. This dual fuel combustion process requires further understanding of the ignition and combustion processes to maximize thermal efficiency and minimize (partially) unburned fuel emissions. The introduction of two fuels with different physical and chemical properties makes the combustion process complicated and challenging to model. In this study, a multi-zone approach is applied to NG-diesel RCCI combustion in a heavy-duty engine. Auto-ignition chemistry is believed to be the key process in RCCI. Starting from a multi-zone model that can describe auto-ignition dominated processes, such as HCCI and PCCI, this model is adapted by including reaction mechanisms for natural gas and NOx and by improving the in-cylinder pressure prediction. The model is validated using NG-diesel RCCI measurements that are performed on a 6 cylinder heavy-duty engine.

Ion current measurements can give information useful for controlling the combustion stability in a multi-cylinder engine. Operation near the dilution limit (air or EGR) can be achieved and it can be optimized individually for the cylinders, resulting in a system with better engine stability for highly diluted mixtures. This method will also compensate for engine wear, e.g. changes in volumetric efficiency and fuel injector characteristics. Especially in a port injected engine, changes in fuel injector characteristics can lead to increased emissions and deteriorated engine performance when operating with a closed-loop lambda control system. One problem using the ion-current signal to control engine stability near the lean limit is the weak signal resulting in low signal to noise ratio. Measurements presented in this paper were made on a turbocharged 9.6 liter six cylinder natural gas engine with port injection.

During development of an air assisted, direct injection combustion system, it was found that an air pulse during the late part of compression stroke significantly shortened the combustion duration and extended the lean limits of the engine. The effect of an injection of pure air through an air assist direct injector was studied with Particle Image Velocimetry, PIV. Results showed that an air pulse during the compression stroke significantly speeded up in-cylinder velocities, which also was showed in the heat release analysis. A system to use low density seeding particles was developed and is presented in the paper.

The different roles played by small and large eddies in engine combustion were studied. Experiments compared natural gas combustion in a converted, single cylinder Volvo TD 102 engine and in a 125 mm cubical cell. Turbulence is used to enhance flame growth, ideally giving better efficiency and reduced cyclic variation. Both engine and test cell results showed that flame growth rate correlated best with the level of high frequency, small eddy turbulence. The more effective, small eddy turbulence also tended to lower cyclic variations. Large scales and bulk flows convected the flame relative to cool surfaces and were most important to the initial flame kernel.

Post-injection strategies prove to be a valuable option for reducing soot emission, but experimental results often differ from publication to publication. These discrepancies are likely caused by the selected operating conditions and engine hardware in separate studies. Efforts to optimize not only engine-out soot, but simultaneously fuel economy and emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx) complicate the understanding of post-injection effects even more. Still, the large amount of published work on the topic is gradually forming a consensus. In the current work, a Design-of-Experiments (DoE) procedure and regression analysis are used to investigate the influence of various operating conditions on post-injection scheduling and efficacy. The study targets emission reductions of soot and NOx, as well as fuel economy improvements. Experiments are conducted on a heavy-duty compression ignition engine at three load-speed combinations.

The main benefit of HCCI engines compared to SI engines is improved fuel economy. The drawback is the diluted combustion with a substantially smaller operating range if not some kind of supercharging is used. The reasons for the higher brake efficiency in HCCI engines can be summarized in lower pumping losses and higher thermodynamic efficiency, due to higher compression ratio and higher ratio of specific heats if air is used as dilution. In the low load operating range, where HCCI today is mainly used, other parameters as friction losses, and cooling losses have a large impact on the achieved brake efficiency. To initiate the auto ignition of the in-cylinder charge a certain temperature and pressure have to be reached for a specific fuel. In an engine with high in-cylinder cooling losses the initial charge temperature before compression has to be higher than on an engine with less heat transfer.

An experimental and theoretical study of the effect of thermal barriers and catalytic coatings in a Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) engine has been conducted. The main intent of the study was to investigate if a thermal barrier or catalytic coating of the wall would support the oxidation of the near-wall unburned hydrocarbons. In addition, the effect of these coatings on thermal efficiency due to changed heat transfer characteristics was investigated. The experimental setup was based on a partially coated combustion chamber. The upper part of the cylinder liner, the piston top including the top land, the valves and the cylinder head were all coated. As a thermal barrier, a coating based on plasma-sprayed Al2O3 was used. The catalytic coating was based on plasma-sprayed ZrO2 doped with Platinum. The two coatings tested were of varying thickness' of 0.15, 0.25 and 0.6 mm. The compression ratio was set to 16.75:1.

In an attempt to extend the upper load limit for Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI), supercharging in combination with Exhaust Gas Recirculation (EGR) have been applied. Two different boost pressures were used, 1.1 bar and 1.5 bar. High EGR rates were used in order to reduce the combustion rate. The highest obtained IMEP was 16 bar. This was achieved with the higher boost pressure, at close to stoichiometric conditions and with approximately 50 % EGR. Natural gas was used as the main fuel. In the case with the higher boost pressure, iso-octane was used as pilot fuel, to improve the ignition properties of the mixture. This made it possible to use a lower compression ratio and thereby reducing the maximum cylinder pressure. The tests were performed on a single cylinder engine operated at low speed (1000 rpm). The test engine was equipped with a modified cylinder head, having a Variable Compression Ratio (VCR) mechanism.

Styrene, or ethylbenzene, is mainly used as a monomer for the production of polymers, most notably Styrofoam. In the synthetis of styrene, the feedstock of benzene and ethylene is converted into aromatic oxygenates such as benzaldehyde, 2-phenyl ethanol and acetophenone. Benzaldehyde and phenyl ethanol are low value side streams, while acetophenone is a high value intermediate product. The side streams are now principally rejected from the process and burnt for process heat. Previous in-house research has shown that such aromatic oxygenates are suitable as diesel fuel additives and can in some cases improve the soot-NOx trade-off. In this study acetophenone, benzaldehyde and 2-phenyl ethanol are each added to commercial EN590 diesel at a ratio of 1:9, with the goal to ascertain whether or not the lower value benzaldehyde and 2-phenyl ethanol can perform on par with the higher value acetophenone. These compounds are now used in pure form.

Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) has a great potential for low NOx emissions but problems with emissions of unburned hydrocarbons (HC). One way of reducing the HC is to use direct injection. The purpose of this paper is to present experimental data on the trade off between NOx and HC. Injection timing, injection pressure and nozzle configuration all effect homogeneity of the mixture and thus the NOx and HC emissions. The engine studied is a single cylinder version of a Scania D12 that represents a modern heavy-duty truck size engine. A common rail (CR) system has been used to control injection pressure and timing. The combustion using injectors with different nozzle hole diameters and spray angle, both colliding and non-colliding, has been studied. The NOx emission level changes with start of injection (SOI) and the levels are low for early injection timing, increasing with retarded SOI. Different injectors produce different NOx levels.

The influence of residual gases on the cycle-to-cycle variations in engine combustion was investigated. Two-photon planar laser-induced fluorescence was used for 2D-visualization of residual gas water. In order to avoid influence from fuel fluorescence and inhomogeneities premixed natural gas was used as fuel. Measurements were conducted at different load conditions with varying inlet manifold pressure. To find out how the residual gas distribution influences the combustion process the pressure development during combustion was monitored. From the pressure information a measure of the combustion rate at different phases of the flame development was calculated. The correlation between residual gas distribution and combustion rate was evaluated on a cycle to cycle basis. The results show that with an inlet manifold pressure of 0.3 bar the correlation between residual gas fraction and rate of combustion were 0.5-0.6. At full load though, lower correlation was found.

CO2 regulations on heavy-duty transport are introduced in essentially all markets within the next decade, in most cases in several phases of increasing stringency. To cope with these mandates, developers of engines and related equipment are aiming to break new ground in the fields of combustion, fuel and hardware technologies. In this work, a novel diesel fuel injector, Delphi’s DFI7, is utilized to experimentally investigate and compare the performance of ramped injection rates versus traditional square fueling profiles. The aim is specifically to shift the efficiency and NOx tradeoff to a more favorable position. The design of experiments methodology is used in the tests, along with statistical techniques to analyze the data. Results show that ramped and square rates - after optimization of fueling parameters - produce comparable gross indicated efficiencies.

N-butanol, as a biomass-based renewable fuel, has many superior fuel properties. It has a higher energy content and cetane number than its alcohol competitors, methanol and ethanol. Previous studies have proved that n-butanol has the capability to achieve lower emissions without sacrifice on thermal efficiency when blended with diesel. However, most studies on n-butanol are limited to low blending ratios, which restricts the improvement of emissions. In this paper, 80% by volume of n-butanol was blended with 20% by volume of n-heptane (namely BH80). The influences of various engine parameters (combustion phasing, EGR ratio, injection timing and intake pressure, respectively) on its combustion and emission characteristics are tested at different loads. The results showed that when BH80 uses more than 40% EGR, the emitted soot and nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions are below the EURO VI legislation.

A specially designed cylinder head, enabling unthrottled operation with a standard cam-phasing mechanism, was tested in an optical single-cylinder engine. The in-cylinder flow was measured with particle image velocimetry (PIV) and the results were compared with heat release and emission measurements. The article also discusses effects of residual gas and effective compression ratio on heat-release and emissions. The special design of the cylinder head, with one inlet and one exhaust valve per camshaft, made it possible to operate the engine unthrottled at part load. Cam phasing led to late inlet valve closing, but also to increased valve overlap. The exhaust valve closing was late in the intake stroke, resulting in high amounts of residual gases. Two different camshafts were used with late inlet valve closing. One of the camshafts had shorter valve open duration on the phased exhaust cam lobe.

Partially premixed compression ignition combustion is one of the low temperature combustion techniques which is being actively investigated. This approach provides a significant reduction of both soot and NOx emissions. Comparing to the homogeneous charge compression ignition mode, PPCI combustion provides better control on ignition timing and noise reduction through air-fuel mixture stratification which lowers heat release rate compared to other advanced combustion modes. In this work, CFD simulations were conducted for a low and a high air-fuel mixture stratification cases on a light-duty optical engine operating in PPCI mode. Such conditions for PRF70 as fuel were experimentally achieved by injection timing and spray targeting at similar thermodynamic conditions.

Autoignition of a homogeneous mixture is very sensitive to operating conditions, therefore fast control is necessary for reliable operation. There exists several means to control the combustion phasing of an Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) engine, but most of the presented controlled HCCI result has been performed with single-input single-output controllers. In order to fully operate an HCCI engine several output variables need to be controlled simultaneously, for example, load, combustion phasing, cylinder pressure and emissions. As these output variables have an effect on each other, the controller should be of a structure which includes the cross-couplings between the output variables. A Model Predictive Control (MPC) controller is proposed as a solution to the problem of load-torque control with simultaneous minimization of the fuel consumption and emissions, while satisfying the constraints on cylinder pressure.

Power supply systems play a very important role in everyday life applications. There are mainly two ways of producing energy for low power generation: electrochemical batteries and small engines. In the last few years, many improvements have been carried out in order to obtain lighter batteries with longer durations but unfortunately the energy density of 1 MJ/kg seems to be an asymptotic value. An energy source constituted of an organic fuel with an energy density around 29 MJ/kg and a minimum overall efficiency of only 3.5% could surpass batteries. Nowadays, the most efficient combustion process is HCCI combustion which has the ability to combine a high energy conversion efficiency with low emission levels and a very low fuel consumption. The present paper describes an investigation carried out on a modified model airplane engine, on how a pure HCCI combustion behaves in a small volume, Vd = 4.11 cm3, at very high engine speeds (up to 17,500 [rpm]).

Turbulent premixed natural gas - air flame velocities have been measured in a stationary axi-symmetric burner using LDA. The flame was stabilized by letting the flow retard toward a stagnation plate downstream of the burner exit. Turbulence was generated by letting the flow pass through a plate with drilled holes. Three different hole diameters were used, 3, 6 and 10 mm, in order to achieve different turbulent length scales. Turbulent integral length scales were measured using two-point LDA and the stretching in terms of the Karlovitz number could be estimated from these measurements. The results support previous studies indicating that stretching reduces the flame speed.

A newly developed cross flow cylinder head has been used for comparison between throttled and unthrottled operation using late intake valve closing. Pressure measurements have been used for calculations of indicated load and heat-release. Emission measurements has also been made. A model was used for estimating the amount of residual gases resulting from the different load strategies. Unthrottled operation using late intake valve closing resulted in lower pumping losses, but also in increased amounts of residual gases, using this cylinder head. This is due to the special design, with one intake valve and one exhaust valve per camshaft. Late intake valve closing was achieved by phasing one of the camshafts, resulting in late exhaust valve closing as well. With very late phasing - i.e. low load - the effective compression ratio was reduced. This, in combination with high amount of residual gases, resulted in a very unstable combustion.