Search Results

Φ-sensitivity is a fuel characteristic that has important benefits for the operation and control of low-temperature gasoline combustion (LTGC) engines. A fuel is φ-sensitive if its autoignition reactivity varies with the fuel/air equivalence ratio (φ). Thus, multiple-injection strategies can be used to create a φ-distribution that leads to several benefits. First, the φ-distribution causes a sequential autoignition that reduces the maximum heat release rate. This allows higher loads without knock and/or advanced combustion timing for higher efficiencies. Second, combustion phasing can be controlled by adjusting the fuel-injection strategy. Finally, experiments show that intermediate-temperature heat release (ITHR) increases with φ-sensitivity, increasing the allowable combustion retard and improving stability. A detailed mechanism was applied using CHEMKIN to understand the chemistry responsible for φ-sensitivity.

Diesel fuel is a blend of various middle distillate components separated at the refinery. The composition and characteristics of the diesel fuel blend changes daily if not hourly because of normal process variation, changing refinery processing conditions, changing crude oil diet or changing diesel fuel and kerosene market conditions. Regardless of the situation going on at the refinery or the market, the resultant diesel fuel must consistently meet established cloud point specifications. To consistently meet the cloud point specifications, refiners are forced to blend their diesel fuels in such a way that the resultant blend is always on the low side of the cloud point specification even when the refining process adversely changes the fuel characteristics. This practice has the effect of producing several degrees of cloud point “giveaway” when the refinery is not experiencing adverse swings in product quality.

Exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) can be used to mitigate knock in SI engines. However, experiments have shown that the effectiveness of various EGR constituents to suppress knock varies with fuel type and compression ratio (CR). To understand some of the underlying mechanisms by which fuel composition, octane sensitivity (S), and CR affect the knock-mitigation effectiveness of EGR constituents, the current paper presents results from a chemical-kinetics modeling study. The numerical study was conducted with CHEMKIN, imposing experimentally acquired pressure traces on a closed reactor model. Simulated conditions include combinations of three RON-98 (Research Octane Number) fuels with two octane sensitivities and distinctive compositions, three EGR diluents, and two CRs (12:1 and 10:1). The experimental results point to the important role of thermal stratification in the end-gas to smooth peak heat-release rate (HRR) and prevent acoustic noise.

To cope with regulatory standards, minimizing tailpipe emissions with rapid catalyst light-off during cold-start is critical. This requires catalyst-heating operation with increased exhaust enthalpy, typically by using late post injections for retarded combustion and, therefore, increased exhaust temperature. However, retardability of post injection(s) is constrained by acceptable pollutant emissions such as unburned hydrocarbon (UHC). This study provides further insight into the mechanisms that control the formation of UHC under catalyst-heating operation in a medium-duty diesel engine, and based on the understanding, develops combustion strategies to simultaneously improve exhaust enthalpy and reduce harmful emissions. Experiments were performed with a full boiling-range diesel fuel (cetane number of 45) using an optimized five-injections strategy (2 pilots, 1 main, and 2 posts) as baseline condition.

Fundamental engine research is primarily conducted under steady-state conditions, in order to better describe boundary conditions which influence the studied phenomena. However, light-duty automobiles are operated, and tested, under heavily transient conditions. This mismatch between studied conditions and in-use conditions is deemed acceptable due to the fundamental knowledge gained from steady-state experiments. Nonetheless, it is useful to characterize the conditions encountered during transient operation and determine if the governing phenomena are unduly influenced by the differences between steady-state and transient operation, and further, whether transient behavior can be reasonably extrapolated from steady-state behavior. The transient operation mode used in this study consists of 20 fired cycles followed by 80 motored cycles, operating on a continuous basis.

The objective of this investigation is to verify and characterize the influence of fuel volatility on maximum liquid-phase fuel penetration for a variety of actual Diesel fuels under realistic Diesel engine operating conditions. To do so, liquid-phase fuel penetration was measured for a total of eight Diesel fuels using laser elastic-scatter imaging. The experiments were carried out in an optically accessible Diesel engine of the “heavy-duty” size class at a representative medium speed (1200 rpm) operating condition. In addition to liquid-phase fuel penetration, ignition delay was assessed for each fuel based on pressure-derived apparent heat release rate and needle lift data. For all fuels examined, it was observed that initially the liquid fuel penetrates almost linearly with increasing crank angle until reaching a maximum characteristic length. Beyond this characteristic length, the fuel is entirely vapor phase and not just smaller fuel droplets.

Global emission legislations for diesel engines are becoming increasingly stringent. While the exhaust gas composition requirements for prior iterations of emission legislation could be met with improvements in the engine's combustion process, the next issue of European, North American and Japanese emission limits greater than 2005 will require more rigorous measures, mainly employment of exhaust gas aftertreatment systems. As a result, many American diesel OEMs are considering NOx adsorbers as a means to achieve 2007+ emission standards. Since the efficacy of a NOx adsorber over its lifetime is significantly affected by sulfur (“sulfur poisoning”), forthcoming reductions in diesel fuel sulfur (down to 15 ppm), have raised industry concerns regarding compatibility and possible poisoning effects of sulfur from the lubricant.

This study summarizes the peer-reviewed literature regarding the use of raw pyrolysis liquids (PLs) created from woody biomass as fuels for compression-ignition (CI) engines. First, a brief overview is presented of fast pyrolysis and the potential advantages of PLs as fuels for CI engines. Second, a discussion of the general composition and properties of PLs relative to conventional, petroleum-derived diesel fuels is provided, with emphasis on the differences that are most likely to affect PL performance in CI-engine applications. Next, a synopsis is given of the peer-reviewed literature describing experimental studies of CI engines operated using neat PLs and PLs combined in various ways with other fuels. This literature conclusively indicates that raw PLs and PL blends cannot be used as “drop-in replacements” for diesel fuel in CI engines, which is reflected in part by none of the cited studies reporting successful operation on PL fuels for more than twelve consecutive hours.

Characteristics of E diesel, a fuel blend of diesel fuel and ethanol, are considered in a matrix of tests. One characteristic of particular concern and a subject of this investigation is that of stability. Methods to evaluate stability are looked at and compared in light of the potential for distillate and ethanol to separate under certain conditions. The quality of the fuel blend is enhanced by the use of enabling additives to ensure stability which necessitates development of a standard for assessment of the quality of stability. The properties of various base diesel fuels and their influence on stability are also studied. Other key characteristics are evaluated including viscosity, pour point, and oxidative stability.

This paper presents the development of a Stochastic Knock Detection (SKD) method for combustion knock detection in a spark-ignition engine using a model based design approach. The SKD set consists of a Knock Signal Simulator (KSS) as the plant model for the engine and a Knock Detection Module (KDM). The KSS as the plant model for the engine generates cycle-to-cycle accelerometer knock intensities following a stochastic approach with intensities that are generated using a Monte Carlo method from a lognormal distribution whose parameters have been predetermined from engine tests and dependent upon spark-timing, engine speed and load. The lognormal distribution has been shown to be a good approximation to the distribution of measured knock intensities over a range of engine conditions and spark-timings for multiple engines in previous studies.

The spatial and temporal locations of autoignition depend on fuel chemistry and the temperature, pressure, and mixing trajectories in the fuel jets. Dual-fuel systems can provide insight into fuel-chemistry aspects through variation of the proportions of fuels with different reactivities, and engine operating condition variations can provide information on physical effects. In this context, the spatial and temporal progression of two-stage autoignition of a diesel-fuel surrogate, n-heptane, in a lean-premixed charge of synthetic natural gas (NG) and air is imaged in an optically accessible heavy-duty diesel engine. The lean-premixed charge of NG is prepared by fumigation upstream of the engine intake manifold.

Low-temperature gasoline combustion (LTGC) engines can deliver high efficiencies, with ultra-low emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx) and particulate matter (PM). However, controlling the combustion timing and maintaining robust operation remains a challenge for LTGC engines. One promising technique to overcoming these challenges is spark assist (SA). In this work, well-controlled, fully premixed experiments are performed in a single-cylinder LTGC research engine at 1200 rpm using a cylinder head modified to accommodate a spark plug. Compression ratios (CR) of 16:1 and 14:1 were used during the experiments. Two different fuels were also tested, with properties representative of premium- and regular-grade market gasolines. SA was found to work well for both CRs and fuels. The equivalence ratio (ϕ) limits and the effect of intake-pressure boost on the ability of SA to compensate for a reduced Tin were studied. For the conditions studied, ϕ=0.42 was found to be most effective for SA.

Experiments were conducted in an optically accessible constant-volume combustion vessel to investigate soot formation at diesel combustion conditions in a high exhaust-gas recirculation (EGR) environment. The ambient oxygen concentration was decreased systematically from 21% to 8% to simulate a wide range of EGR conditions. Quantitative measurements of in-situ soot in quasi-steady n-heptane and #2 diesel fuel jets were made by using laser extinction and planar laser-induced incandescence (PLII) measurements. Flame lift-off length measurements were also made in support of the soot measurements. At constant ambient temperature, results show that the equivalence ratio estimated at the lift-off length does not vary with the use of EGR, implying an equal amount of fuel-air mixing prior to combustion. Soot measurements show that the soot volume fraction decreases with increasing EGR.

This work explores the potential of partial fuel stratification to smooth HCCI heat-release rates at high load. A combination of engine experiments and multi-zone chemical-kinetics modeling was used for this. The term “partial” is introduced to emphasize that care is taken to supply fuel to all parts of the in-cylinder charge, which is essential for reaching high power output. It was found that partial fuel stratification offers good potential to achieve a staged combustion event with reduced pressure-rise rates. Therefore, partial fuel stratification has the potential to increase the high-load limits for HCCI/SCCI operation. However, for the technique to be effective the crank-angle phasing of the “hot” ignition has to be sensitive to the local ϕ. Sufficient sensitivity was observed only for fuel blends that exhibit low-temperature heat release (like diesel fuel).

Ethanol and ethanol/gasoline blends are being widely considered as alternative fuels for light-duty automotive applications. At the same time, HCCI combustion has the potential to provide high efficiency and ultra-low exhaust emissions. However, the application of HCCI is typically limited to low and moderate loads because of unacceptably high heat-release rates (HRR) at higher fueling rates. This work investigates the potential of lowering the HCCI HRR at high loads by using partial fuel stratification to increase the in-cylinder thermal stratification. This strategy is based on ethanol's high heat of vaporization combined with its true single-stage ignition characteristics. Using partial fuel stratification, the strong fuel-vaporization cooling produces thermal stratification due to variations in the amount of fuel vaporization in different parts of the combustion chamber.

Spark-ignition (SI) engine efficiency is typically limited by fuel auto-ignition resistance, which is described in practice by the Research Octane Number (RON) and the Motor Octane Number (MON). The goal of this work is to assess whether fuel properties (i.e. RON, MON, and heat of vaporization) are sufficient to describe the antiknock behavior of varying gasoline formulations in modern engines. To this end, the auto-ignition resistance of three compositionally dissimilar gasoline-like fuels with identical RON values and varying or non-varying MON values were evaluated in a modern, prototype, 12:1 compression ratio, high-swirl (by nature of intake valve deactivation), directly injected spark ignition (DISI) engine at 1400 RPM. The three gasolines are an alkylate blend (RON=98, MON=97), a blend with high aromatic content (RON=98, MON=88), and a blend of 30% ethanol by volume with a gasoline BOB (RON=98, MON=87; see Table 2 for details).

A scaling law for the maximum penetration distance of liquid-phase fuel in a diesel spray (defined as the liquid length) was developed by applying jet theory to a simplified model of a spray. The scaling law accounts for injector, fuel, and in-cylinder thermodynamic conditions on liquid length, and provides significant insight into the fuel vaporization process. As developed, the scaling law is valid for single-component fuels, but can be used to model multi-component fuels through use of single-component surrogate fuels. Close agreement between the scaling law and measured liquid length data over a very wide range of conditions is demonstrated. The agreement suggests that vaporization in sprays from current-technology, direct-injection (DI) diesel injectors is limited by mixing processes in the spray. The mixing processes include entrainment of high-temperature air and the overall transport and mixing of fuel and air throughout the spray cross-section.

Recently, research and testing of oxygenated diesel fuels has increased, particularly in the area of exhaust emissions. Included among the oxygenated diesel fuels are blends of diesel fuel with ethanol, or E diesel fuels. Exhaust emissions testing of E diesel fuel has been conducted by a variety of test laboratories under various conditions of engine type and operating conditions. This work reviews the existing public data from previous exhaust emissions testing on E diesel fuel and includes new testing performed in engines of varied design. Emissions data compares E diesel fuel with normal diesel fuel under conditions of different engine speeds, different engine loads and different engine designs. Variations in performance under these various conditions are observed and discussed with some potential explanations suggested.

The reaction zone of a diesel fuel jet stabilizes at a location downstream of the fuel injector once the initial autoignition phase is over. This distance is referred to as flame lift-off length. Recent investigations have examined the effects of a wide range of parameters (injection pressure, orifice diameter, and ambient gas temperature, density and oxygen concentration) on lift-off length under quiescent diesel conditions. Many of the experimental trends in lift-off length were in agreement with scaling laws developed for turbulent, premixed flame propagation in gas-jet lifted flames at atmospheric conditions. However, several effects did not correlate with the gas-jet scaling laws, suggesting that other mechanisms could be important to lift-off stabilization at diesel conditions. This paper shows experimental evidence that ignition processes affect diesel lift-off stabilization.

The fuel-ambient mixture in vaporized fuel jets produced by liquid sprays is fundamental to the performance and operation of engines. Unfortunately, experimental difficulties limit the direct measurement of local fuel-ambient mixture, inhibiting quantitative assessment of mixing. On the other hand, measurement of global quantities, such as the jet penetration rate, is relatively straightforward. Simplified models to predict local fuel-ambient mixture have also been developed, based on these global parameters. However, experimental data to validate these models over a range of conditions is needed. In the current work, we perform measurements of jet global quantities such as vapor-phase penetration, liquid-phase penetration, spreading angle, and nozzle flow coefficients over a range of conditions in a high-temperature, high-pressure vessel.