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The NO reduction in an ammonia SCR converter has been simulated by a 1D+1D model for a single representative channel to parametrically study the characteristics of the system under typical operating conditions. An appropriate model has been selected interpreting the chemical behavior of the system and the parameters are calibrated based on a comprehensive set of experiments with an Fe-Zeolite washcoated monolith for different feed concentrations, temperatures and flow rates. Physical and chemical properties are determined as well as kinetics and rate parameters and the model has been verified by experimental data at different operating conditions. Three different mechanisms for the surface kinetics to model NO reduction have been assessed and the results have been compared in the cases of steady DeNO performance and transient response of the system. Ammonia inhibition is considered in the model since it has a major effect specifically under transient operating conditions.

The subject of this paper is the reduction of the particle number emissions of a gasoline DI engine at high engine load (1.4 MPa IMEP). To reduce the particle number emissions, several parameters are investigated: the large scale charge motion (baseline configuration, tumble and swirl) can be varied at the single cylinder engine by using inlays in the intake port. The amount of residual gas can be influenced by the exhaust backpressure. By using a throttle valve, the exhaust backpressure can be set equal to the intake pressure and hence simulate a turbocharger's turbine in the exhaust system or the throttle valve can be wide open and thus simulate an engine using a supercharger. Additionally, higher fuel injection pressure can help to enhance mixture formation and thus decrease particulate formation. Therefore, a solenoid injector with a maximum pressure of 30 MPa is used in this work.

Particle image velocimetry measurements of the in-cylinder flow in an optically accessible single-cylinder research engine were taken to better understand the effects of intake pressure variations on the flow field. At a speed of 1500 rpm, the engine was run at six different intake pressure loads from 0.4 to 0.95 bar under motored operation. The average velocity fields show that the tumble center position is located closer to the piston and velocity magnitudes decrease with increasing pressure load. A closer investigation of the intake flow near the valves reveals sharp temporal gradients and differences in maximum and minimum velocity with varying intake pressure load which are attributed to intake pressure oscillations. Despite measures to eliminate acoustic oscillations in the intake system, high-frequency pressure oscillations are shown to be caused by the backflow of air from the exhaust to the intake pipe when the valves open, exciting acoustic modes in the fluid volume.

Cycle-to-cycle variations in internal combustion engines are known to lead to limitations in engine load and efficiency, as well as increases in emissions. Recent research has led to the identification of the source of cyclic variations of pressure, soot and NO emissions in direct injection common rail diesel engines, when employing a single block injection and operating under long ignition delay conditions. The variations in peak pressure arise from changes in the diffusion combustion rate, caused by randomly occurring in-cylinder pressure fluctuations. These fluctuations result from the excitation of the first radial mode of vibration of the cylinder gases which arises from the rapid premixed combustion after the long ignition delay period. Cycles with high-intensity fluctuations present faster diffusion combustion, resulting in higher cycle peak pressure, as well as higher measured exhaust NO concentrations.

Past research has shown that post injections have the potential to reduce Diesel engine exhaust PM concentration without any significant influence in NOx emissions. However, an accurate, widely applicable rule of how to parameterize a post injection such that it provides a maximum reduction of PM emissions does not exist. Moreover, the underlying mechanisms are not thoroughly understood. In past research, the underlying mechanisms have been investigated in engine experiments, in constant volume chambers and also using detailed 3D CFD-CMC simulations. It has been observed that soot reduction due to a post injection is mainly due to two reasons: increased turbulence from the post injection during soot oxidation and lower soot formation due to lower amount of fuel in the main combustion at similar load conditions. Those studies do not show a significant temperature rise caused by the post injection.

In this study we classify established and possible future engine combustion systems according to two main criteria, i.e. charge preparation (homogeneous or stratified) and type of combustion initiation (external, typically spark ignition and internal, typically due to compression). We discuss the relevant pros and cons of the four resulting energy conversion processes with emphasis on combustion stability, thermal efficiency and pollutant emissions. We show thereby that these output parameters are dominated by specific thermochemical and fluiddynamic processes as well as their complex interaction within the time scales of a thermodynamically optimal energy conversion at a given engine speed and load. For unsteady operation in mobile applications, the complexity of new combustion concepts may, nevertheless, prevent a breakthrough, despite their in-principle attractivity.

In this paper experimental results of a medium duty single cylinder research engine with spark ignition are presented. The engine was operated with stoichiometric natural gas combustion and additional charge dilution by means of external and cooled exhaust gas recirculation (EGR). The first part of this work considers the benefits of cooled EGR on thermo-mechanical stress of the engine including exhaust gas temperature, cylinder head temperature, and knock behaviour. This is followed by the analysis of the influence of cooled EGR on the heat release rate. In this context the impact of fuel gas composition is also under investigation. The influence of increasing EGR on fuel efficiency, which is caused by a changed combustion process due to higher fractions of inert gases, is shown in this section. By application of different pistons a relationship between the piston bowl geometry and the flame propagation has been demonstrated.

The operation of dual fuel engines, operated with natural gas as main fuel, offers the potential of substantial savings in CO2. Nevertheless, the operating map area where low pollutant emissions are produced is very narrow. Especially at low load, the raw exhaust gas contains high concentrations of unburned methane and, with high pilot fuel portions due to ignition limitations, also soot. The analysis of the combustion in those conditions in particular is not trivial, since multiple combustion modes are present concurrently. The present work focuses on the evaluation of the individual combustion modes of a dual fuel engine, operated with natural gas as main and diesel as pilot fuel, using a combustion model. The combustion has been split in two partwise concurrent combustion phases: the auto-ignition phase and the premixed flame propagation phase.

Measurements of the soot emissions and engine operating parameters from a diesel engine during transient operation were used to investigate the influence of transient operation on the soot emissions, as well as to validate a realtime mean value soot model (MVSM, [1]) for transient operation. To maximize the temporal resolution of the soot emission and engine parameter measurements (in particular EGR), fast instruments were used and their dynamic responses characterized and corrected. During tip-in transients, an increase in the soot emissions was observed due to a short term oxygen deficit compared to steady-state operation. No significant difference was seen between steady-state and transient operation for acceleration transients. When the MVSM was provided with inputs of sufficient temporal resolution, it was capable of reproducing the qualitative and, in part, quantitative soot emission trends.

In this study, numerical simulations of in-cylinder processes associated to fuel post-injection in a diesel engine operated at Low Temperature Combustion (LTC) have been performed. An extended Conditional Moment Closure (CMC) model capable of accounting for an arbitrary number of subsequent injections has been employed: instead of a three-feed system, the problem has been described as a sequential two-feed system, using the total mixture fraction as the conditioning scalar. A reduced n-heptane chemical mechanism coupled with a two-equation soot model is employed. Numerical results have been validated with measurements from the optically accessible heavy-duty diesel engine installed at Sandia National Laboratories by comparing apparent heat release rate (AHRR) and in-cylinder soot mass evolutions for three different start of main injection, and a wide range of post injection dwell times.

Numerical simulations of diesel sprays in a constant-volume vessel have been performed with the conditional moment closure (CMC) combustion model for a broad range of conditions. On the oxidizer side these include variations in ambient temperature (800-1100 K), oxygen volume fraction (15-21%) and density (7.3-58.5 kg/m₃) and on the fuel side variation in injector orifice diameter (50-363 μm) and fuel pressure (600-1900 bar); in total 22 conditions. Results are compared to experimental data by means of ignition delay and flame lift-off length (LOL). Good agreement for both quantities is reported for the vast majority of conditions without any changes to model constants: the variations relating to the air side are quantitatively accurately predicted; for the fuel side (viz. orifice diameter and injection pressure) the trends are qualitatively well reproduced.

Optical soot pyrometry is a mature experimental technique that has been applied to a broad range of combustion systems for measuring soot temperature and concentration. Even though the method is widely used and well documented, the line of sight nature of the technique makes the interpretation of its results challenging. Notably, gradients in temperature and soot concentration along the line of sight or across the field of view can introduce significant levels of uncertainty in the results. This paper presents a numerical study where the signal from the experimental two-color pyrometry technique in a marine diesel engine reference experiment is reconstructed employing computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and a detailed Line-by-Line (LBL) spectral radiation model. The analysis is aimed at qualitatively supporting interpretability of experimental observations.

Emissions and performance parameters of a medium size, medium speed D.I. diesel engine with increased charge air pressure and reduced but fixed inlet valve opening period have been measured and compared to the standard engine. While power output and fuel consumption are slightly improved, nitric oxide emissions can be reduced by up to 20%. The measurements confirm the results of simulations for both performance and emissions, for which a quasidimensional model including detailed chemistry for nitric oxide prediction has been developed.

A new approach within the well-known trade-off in combustion process simulations between computational efforts (and thus the capability for engine operating map calculations) on the one hand, and accuracy of predictions on the other, has been developed and applied successfully to diesel combustion, in particular to energy release and pollutant formation. Using phenomenological models in combination with bio-inspired algorithms (for parameter identification), it is now possible to predict thermal, chemical and injection related engine characteristics over an entire operating map including different types of fuel (e.g. diesel, water-in-diesel emulsions and oxygenated diesel).

Numerical simulations of in-cylinder soot evolution in the optically accessible heavy-duty diesel engine of Sandia National Laboratories have been performed with the multidimensional conditional moment closure (CMC) model using a reduced n-heptane chemical mechanism coupled with a two-equation soot model. Simulation results are compared to the high-fidelity experimental data by means of pressure traces, apparent heat release rate (AHRR) and time-resolved in-cylinder soot mass derived from optical soot luminosity and multiple wavelength pyrometry in conjunction with high speed soot cloud imaging. In addition, spatial distributions of soot relevant quantities are given for several operating conditions.

A raise of efficiency is the strongest selling point concerning the total cost of ownership (TCO), especially for commercial vehicles (CV). Accompanied by legislations, with contradictive development demands, satisfying solutions have to be found. The analysis of energy losses in modern engines shows three influencing parameters. Wall heat transfer (WHT) losses are awarded with the highest optimization potential. Critical for the occurrence of these losses is the WHT, which can be described by representing coefficients. To reduce WHT accompanying losses a decrease of energy transfer between combustion gas and combustion chamber wall is necessary. A measurement of heat fluxes is necessary to determine the WHT relations of the combustion chamber in an engine. As this has not been done for a Heavy-Duty (HD) engine, with peak pressures up to 250 bar, an increased in-cylinder turbulence and high exhaust gas recirculation (EGR)-rates before, it is presented in the following.

Dual-fuel natural gas engines are seen as an attractive solution for simultaneous reduction of pollutant and CO2 emissions while maintaining high engine thermal efficiency. However, engines of this type exhibit a tradeoff between misfire as well as high UHC emissions for small pilot injection amounts and higher emissions of soot and NOX for operation strategies with higher pilot fuel proportion. The aim of this study was to investigate POMDME as an alternative pilot fuel having the potential to mitigate the emissions tradeoff, enabling smokeless combustion due to high degree of oxygenation, and being less prone to misfire due to its higher cetane number. Furthermore, POMDME can be synthetized carbon neutrally. First, characteristics of POMDME ignition in methane/air mixture and the transition into premixed flame propagation were investigated optically in a rapid compression-expansion machine (RCEM) by employing Schlieren and OH* chemiluminescence imaging.

Oxygenated fuel additives are currently an important research topic for particulate emissions reduction in diesel engines with direct injection (DI) to meet future emission regulations. In this work more than twenty oxygenated hydrocarbons from the literature were considered as diesel fuel additives. Butylal (an acetal compound, chemical formula C9H20O2) offers significant advantages over most other oxygenates in that its physical properties are very close to those of common diesel fuel. Wear scar measurements were conducted to evaluate the lubricity characteristics of diglyme (C6H14O3), ethyldiglyme (C8H18O3), butylal and different diesel-butylal mixtures. The results reveal the low lubricity of all oxygenated compounds. Thus, for the engine tests, a lubricity improver has been added to the diesel-butylal mixtures.

The start of combustion in a spark-ignited engine is highly dependent upon the conditions between the two spark plug electrodes at ignition. In addition to the air-to-fuel ratio in this gap, the gas flow is seen as most critical. In a combustion engine with a standard spark plug that protrudes into the combustion chamber, this gas flow is mainly dependent upon the tumble, swirl, or squish that is developed by the cylinder head and the piston movement. However, the air movement in the pre-chamber depends on the orientation of the orifices towards the main combustion chamber (MCC). This implies a less complex manipulation of local velocity in the electrode gap. This paper focuses on the effect of different pre-chamber designs on spark deflection by the inflowing gas. Therefore, a test rig was developed using the spark plug thread in the cylinder head of a motored engine.

Despite the known benefits of direct injection (DI) spark ignition (SI) engines, port fuel injection (PFI) remains a highly relevant injection concept, especially for cost-sensitive market segments. Since particulate number (PN) emissions limits can be expected also for PFI SI engines in future emission legislations, it is necessary to understand the soot formation mechanisms and possible countermeasures. Several experimental studies demonstrated an advantage for PFI SI engines in terms of PN emissions compared to DI. In this paper an extended focus on higher engine loads for future test cycles or real driving emissions testing (RDE) is applied. The combination of operating parameter studies and optical analysis by high-speed video endoscopy on a four-cylinder turbocharged SI engine allows for a profound understanding of relevant soot formation mechanisms.