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A detailed chemical model was implemented in the KIVA-3V two dimensional CFD code to investigate the effects of the spray cone angle and injection timing on the PCCI combustion process and emissions in an optical research diesel engine. A detailed chemical model for Primary Reference Fuel (PRF) consisting of 157 species and 1552 reactions was used to simulate diesel fuel chemistry. The model validation shows good agreement between the predicted and measured pressure and emissions data in the selected cases with various spray angles and injection timings. If the injection is retarded to -50° ATDC, the spray impingement at the edge of the piston corner with 100° injection angle was shown to enhance the mixing of air and fuel. The minimum fuel loss and more widely distributed fuel vapor contribute to improving combustion efficiency and lowering uHC and CO emissions in the engine idle condition.

Three-dimensional Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) has become an integral part in analysing engine in-cylinder processes since it provides detailed information on the flow and combustion, which helps to find design improvements during the development of modern engine concepts. The predictive capability of simulation tools depends largely on the accuracy, fidelity and robustness of the various models used, in particular concerning turbulence and combustion. In this study, a flamelet model with a physics based closure for the progress variable dissipation rate is applied for the first time to a spark ignited IC engine. The predictive capabilities of the proposed approach are studied for one operating condition of a gasoline port fuel injected single-cylinder, four-stroke spark ignited full-metal engine running at 3,500 RPM close to full load (10 bar BMEP) at stoichiometric conditions.

Engines with reduced emissions and improved efficiency are of high interest for road transport. However, achieving these two goals is challenging and various concepts such as PFI/DI/HCCI/PCCI are explored by engine manufacturers. The computational fluid dynamics is becoming an integral part of modern engine development programme because this method provides access to in-cylinder flow and thermo-chemical processes to develop a closer understanding to tailor tumble and swirling motions to construct green engines. The combustion modelling, its accuracy and robustness play a vital role in this. Out of many modelling methods proposed in the past flamelet based methods are quite attractive for SI engine application. In this study, FlaRe (Flamelets revised for physical consistencies) approach is used to simulate premixed combustion inside a gasoline PFI single-cylinder, four-stroke SI engine. This approach includes a parameter representing the effects of flame curvature on the burning rate.

Flamelet modelling of premixed turbulent combustion can be applied to spark-ignition engine combustion. To address and validate several modelling criteria, two measurement techniques are used in a burner flame to study the interaction between turbulent flowfields and combustion for subsequent application to engine combustion. Particle Image Velocimetry and Light Sheet Tomography are used together to measure conditional velocities simultaneously in reactant and product mixtures. Correlations of velocity and reaction scalar fluctuations indicate that counter-gradient turbulent diffusion must be accounted for when modelling this flowfield. Comparisons of spatial averaging of instantaneous and ensemble-averaged data are made and the application of similar techniques to engine combustion is discussed.

In this study, the internal nozzle flow and macroscopic spray characteristics of a kind of wide distillation fuel (WDF) - kerosene were investigated both with numerical and experimental approaches. Simulation results indicate that compared with diesel fuel, kerosene cavitates more due to higher turbulent kinetic energy as a result of lower viscosity. The results from experiment indicate that under lower charge density, the spray penetration for kerosene is obviously shorter than that for diesel, especially for the lower injection pressure. This is because lower fuel viscosity results in a reduction in the size of the spray droplets, leading to lower momentum. However the spray angle of kerosene is larger compared with diesel due to stronger turbulence in the nozzle flow caused by increased cavitation for kerosene, which also accords well with the simulation results.

This paper presents two new methods to quantitatively evaluate the mechanical durability of multi-layered automotive paint systems. The first examines the resistance of the paint system to particle impacts and involves the impact of hard particles against the painted surface, under controlled conditions. The second test examines the resistance of the clearcoat layer in the paint system to surface abrasion, or mar. The test uses a steel sphere which is rotated against the paint surface in the presence of a slurry of fine abrasive particles. These two techniques have been successfully applied to a set of commercial automobile paints, and were found to discriminate well between them and give reproducible, quantitative data. The effects of the bake conditions on both the erosion and abrasion resistance of a full paint system and the abrasion resistance of a range of commercial clearcoats are examined in detail.

A multi-dimensional combustion code implementing the Conditional Moment Closure turbulent combustion model interfaced with a well-established RANS two-phase flow field solver has been employed to study a broad range of operating conditions for a heavy duty direct-injection common-rail Diesel engine. These conditions include different loads (25%, 50%, 75% and full load) and engine speeds (1250 and 1830 RPM) and, with respect to the fuel path, different injection timings and rail pressures. A total of nine cases have been simulated. Excellent agreement with experimental data has been found for the pressure traces and the heat release rates, without adjusting any model constants. The chemical mechanism used contains a detailed NOx sub-mechanism. The predicted emissions agree reasonably well with the experimental data considering the range of operating points and given no adjustments of any rate constants have been employed.

Premixed Charge Compression Ignition (PCCI), a Low Temperature Combustion (LTC) strategy for diesel engines is of increasing interest due to its potential to simultaneously reduce soot and NOx emissions. However, the influence of mixture preparation on combustion phasing and heat release rate in LTC is not fully understood. In the present study, the influence of injection timing on mixture preparation, combustion and emissions in PCCI mode is investigated by experimental and computational methods. A sequential coupling approach of 3D CFD with a Stochastic Reactor Model (SRM) is used to simulate the PCCI engine. The SRM accounts for detailed chemical kinetics, convective heat transfer and turbulent micro-mixing. In this integrated approach, the temperature-equivalence ratio statistics obtained using KIVA 3V are mapped onto the stochastic particle ensemble used in the SRM.

Large-bore natural gas engines may use pre-chamber ignition. Despite extensive research in engine environments, the exact nature of the jet, as it exits the pre-chamber orifice, is not thoroughly understood and this leads to uncertainty in the design of such systems. In this work, a specially-designed rig comprising a quartz pre-chamber fit with an orifice and a turbulent flowing mixture outside the pre-chamber was used to study the pre-chamber flame, the jet, and the subsequent premixed flame initiation mechanism by OH* and CH* chemiluminescence. Ethylene and methane were used. The experimental results are supplemented by LES and 0D modelling, providing insights into the mass flow rate evolution at the orifice and into the nature of the fluid there. Both LES and experiment suggest that for large orifice diameters, the flow that exits the orifice is composed of a column of hot products surrounded by an annulus of unburnt pre-chamber fluid.

A heavy-duty diesel engine (ETH-LAV single cylinder MTU396 heavy duty research engine) was simulated by RANS and advanced reacting flow models to gain insight into its soot and NOx emissions. Due to symmetry, a section of the engine containing a single injector-hole was simulated. Dodecane was used as a surrogate to emulate the evaporation properties of diesel and a 22-step reaction mechanism for n-heptane was used to describe combustion. The Conditional Moment Closure (CMC) method was used as the combustion model in two ways. In a more conventional modelling approach, CMC was fully interfaced with the CFD and a two-equation model was employed for determining soot while the extended Zeldovich mechanism was used for NOx. In a second approach called the Imperfectly Stirred Reactor (ISR) method, the CMC equation was integrated over space and the previous RANS-CMC solution was further analysed in a post-processing step with the focus on soot.

This work presents turbulent premixed combustion modeling in spark ignition engines using G-equation based turbulent combustion model. In present study, a turbulent flame speed expression proposed and validated in recent years by two co-authors of this paper is applied to the combustion simulation of spark ignition engines. This turbulent flame speed expression has no adjustable parameters and its constants are closely tied to the physics of scalar mixing at small scales. Based on this flame speed expression, a minor modification is introduced in this paper considering the fact that the turbulent flame speed changes to laminar flame speed if there is no turbulence. This modified turbulent flame speed expression is implemented into Ford in-house CFD code MESIM (multi-dimensional engine simulation), and is validated extensively.

The underbody of a truck is responsible for an appreciable portion of the vehicle’s aerodynamic drag, and thus its fuel consumption. This paper investigates experimentally the flow around side-skirts, a common underbody aerodynamic device which is known to be effective at reducing vehicle drag. A full, 1/10 scale European truck model is used. The chassis of the model is designed to represent one that would be found on a typical trailer, and is fully reconfigurable. Testing is carried out in a water towing tank, which allows the correct establishment of the ground flow and rotating wheels. Optical access into the underbody is possible through the clear working section of the facility. Stereoscopic and planar Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) set-ups are used to provide both qualitative images of and quantitative information on the flow field.

A turbulent combustion model is described for SI engines with large variations in mixture strength. The model is for a single gas phase fluid at high Reynolds number and treats combustion in the laminar flamelet regime, which is characterized by high Damkholer and low Karlovitz numbers. An assumed probability density function (pdf) approach is used to extract expressions for mean quantities of interest, which are parameterized on the progress variable and mixture fraction variables. A double delta function pdf is used for the reaction progress variable and a beta function pdf is used for the mixture fraction. The reaction rate term in the progress variable equation is closed using an algebraic expression, which incorporates the effects of mixture strength, pressure and temperature on laminar flame speed. The model is implemented in two versions of a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) code.

The underbody of a truck is responsible for an appreciable portion of the vehicle’s aerodynamic drag, and thus its fuel consumption. A better understanding of the underbody aerodynamics could lead to designs that are more environmentally friendly. Unfortunately there are difficulties with correctly replicating the ground condition and rotating wheels when using the classical approach of a wind-tunnel for aerodynamic investigation. This in turn leads to computational modelling problems. A lack of experimental data for Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) validation means that the flow field in this area has seldom been investigated. There is thus very little information available for the optimisation and design of underbody aerodynamic devices. This paper investigates the use of a water-towing tank, which allows the establishment of the correct near-ground flow while permitting good optical access. Using a 1/10 scale model, Reynolds Numbers of around 0.7 million are achieved.