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The time of, and location where ignition first occurs in a diesel fuel spray were investigated in a rapid compression machine (RCM) using the two–dimensional techniques of silicone oil particle scattering imaging (SSI), and the planar laser induced fluorescence (LIF) of formaldehyde. Formaldehyde has been hypothesized to be one of the stable intermediate species marking the start of oxidation reactions in a transient spray under compression ignition conditions. In this study, the LIF images of the formaldehyde formed in a diesel fuel spray during ignition process have been successfully obtained for the first time by exciting formaldehyde with the 3rd harmonic of the Nd:YAG laser. SSI images of the vaporizing spray, and the LIF images of formaldehyde were obtained together with the corresponding time record of combustion chamber pressures at initial ambient temperatures ranging from 580 K to 790 K.

CNG/diesel dual-fuel engine is using CNG as a main fuel, and injects diesel only a little as an ignition priming. In this study, remodeling an existing diesel engine into dual-fuel engine that can inject diesel with high pressure by CRDI (Common Rail Direct Injection), and injecting CNG at intake port for premixing. The results show that CNG/diesel dual-fuel engine satisfied coordinate torque and power with conventional diesel engine. And CNG alternation rate is over 89% in all operating ranges of CNG/diesel dual-fuel engine. PM emission is lower 94% than diesel engine, but NOx emission is higher than diesel engine. The output of dual fuel mode is 95% by the diesel mode. At this time, amount of CO₂ and PM are decreased while CO, NOx, and THC are increased. In NEDC mode, exhaust gases except NOx are decreased.

The rate of air entrainment into the flame and the rate of heat release are thermodynamically calculated in a DI diesel engine: A two-zone model is proposed which uses as input data three measured values of cylinder pressure, flame temperature, and injection rate. The correlations between both rates under various conditions make it clear that the combustion during early and main periods of diffusion combustion is mainly controlled by air entrainment into the flame. The effects of injection pressure, piston configuration, and swirl intensity on the air entrainment are also studied. And the extent of mixing in the flame is evaluated by the equivalence ratio in the flame which is also obtained by the same model. The trends of exhausted NO and soot concentrations well correlate with the equivalence ratios in the flame and measured flame temperatures under all conditions studied.

An on-board measurement system that simultaneously measures road traffic, vehicle running conditions and exhaust emissions was installed in a diesel freight vehicle with two tons payload. Actual NOx mass emissions were compared with that measured in a typical test mode for urban cities on a chassis dynamometer. The frequency of vehicle accelerations in actual urban cities was found to exceed that of a typical test mode for urban cities on a chassis dynamometer, which resulted in increased NOx from actual running conditions compared with the typical test mode for urban cities. The dynamics of NOx emissions at an actual roadside was also analyzed. It was observed that NOx emission based on distance with an actual city route test was about two times higher than that of a free way route and a typical test mode for urban cities. The reason for high NOx with the city route was explained by the higher frequency of lower gears at which higher NOx is emitted.

Reduction of particulate emissions from diesel engine is an important theme from the view point of air pollution. Experiments were carried out using a four-stroke single cylinder direct-injection diesel engine. A new method to measure diesel particulates has been developed. Particulates were sampled with a freezing method just behind an exhaust valve and examined through a scanning electron microscope. Shape and structure of particulates and the size distributions are measured under wide operating conditions obtained with above method. The total mass of particulate emissions was measured using a dilution tunnel sampling system. The heat release processes were analyzed using indicator diagrams and the relation between burning condition and particulate emissions were discussed, after systematic experiments under constant revolution speed of 2000 r/min for several load and injection timing conditions.

The OH and soot in an unsteady flame, which was achieved in a rapid compression machine, were visualized simultaneously by the laser-induced fluorescence and laser-induced scattering techniques. The fuel mixture consisting of 90% paraffin hydrocarbon (reference fuel) and 10% polypropylene-glycol was used to reduce the optical attenuation caused by dense soot cloud. The simultaneous images of the fluorescence from OH and scattering from soot show that the soot and OH exist separately from each other in the leading portion of the spray flame, and the OH is formed earlier than the soot in the near field region of spray flame.

The cross-sectional distribution of fuel vapor concentration in an evaporating spray was measured quantitatively by a new scattering imaging technique, silicone particle scattering imaging method, which was proposed in a previous paper[1]. When fuel containing silicone oil injected into a nitrogen environment at high temperature, the volatile base fuel in the droplets vaporized rapidly, leaving behind small droplets of silicone oil suspended in the vapor-gas mixture. The silicone oil droplets were illuminated by a thin laser sheet, and the scattered light was imaged by a CCD camera. The cross-sectional distribution of vapor concentration was estimated from the scattering image of the silicone oil droplets by Mie scattering theory. The results demonstrated clearly the inhomogeneity of the fuel vapor concentration. The distribution of vapor concentration was discontinuous, and islands of rich mixture with a scale of several millimeters existed in the center region of the spray.

A theoretical model for predicting the evaporation process of liquid fuel sprays in both diesel and S.I. stratified charge engines is presented: The injected liquid fuel is assumed to break up into droplets with a certain time delay which is determined through careful experiments on the heat absorption process of injected fuel in a high temperature, high pressure inert atmosphere. The evaporation, heat absorption, and motion of these droplets are computed, together with the change of gas conditions inside the spray, by solving a coupled system of equations made up of heat and mass balance between droplets and gas. The effects of such parameters as the surrounding gas conditions, fuel properties, and spray characteristics on evaporation are investigated by the model. Reference is also made to the application of a predicted result to the calculation of burning rate in a direct injection diesel engine.

Some conceptual image of a diesel spray flame and its combustion promotion is shown based on the various interpretations of the enormous data obtained in our laboratory in these several years, on the flame temperature measurement by the two color method, the composition analysis by gas sampling, as well as the focus shadow photography, back illuminated photography and luminous photography by a high speed camera, on the diesel spray flame created in a large scale Rapid Compression Machine (diameter ϕ 200 mm thickness 40 mm) and a D-I engine (diameter (ϕ 95 mm)

To understand further the mixing process between the injected fuel and air in the combustion chamber of a diesel engine, the turbulent mixing process in a one-phase, two-dimensional transient jet was theoretically studied using the discrete vortex simulation. First, the simulation model was evaluated by comparisons between calculated and experimental data on two-dimensional turbulent jets. Second, the trajectories of the injected fluid elements marked with different colors were graphically demonstrated. Also the process of entrainment of the surrounding fluid into the jet was visually presented using colored tracers.

The combustion mechanism of the homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) engine has been investigated by numerical calculations. Calculations were carried out using n-butane/air elementary reactions at 0 dimension and adiabatic condition to simplify the understanding of chemical reaction mechanisms in the HCCI engine without complexities of walls, crevices, and mixture inhomogeneities. n-Butane is the fuel with the smallest carbon number in the alkane family that shows two-stage auto-ignition, heat release with low temperature reaction (LTR) and high temperature reaction (HTR), similar to higher hydrocarbons such as gasoline at HCCI combustion. The CHEMKIN II code, SENKIN and kojima's n-butane elementary reaction scheme were used for the calculations. This paper consists of three main topics. First, the heat release mechanisms of the HCCI engine were investigated. The results show that heat release with LTR is HCHO oxidation reactions.

Soot concentration is very high in the periphery near the head of an unsteady spray flame which is achieved in a quiescent atmosphere in a rapid compression machine. To reduce soot concentration in this region, it was intended to improve fuel-air mixing by letting the flame impinge on a turbulence-generating plate. Two types of turbulence-generating plates, one donut-type, the other cross-type, were tested. Soot concentration in the flame was imaged using the laser shadow technique. The effect of injection pressure on soot reduction by the flame impingement was also investigated. The overall soot concentration is reduced significantly in the case when the flame impinges on the cross-type turbulence-generating plate at 50 mm (333 nozzle diameters) from the nozzle exit. The flame impingement on the cross-type turbulence-generating plate at 333 nozzle diameters makes soot reduction little dependent on injection pressures.

The injection rate meter based on W. Zeuch's method was improved to meet the recent requirement for precise measurement of the multiple injection rate and amount in CDI (Common rail Direct Injection) diesel engines. A pressure sensor with a high sensitivity was added to measure the small pressure increase due to the pilot injection and after injection. At the same time a flow meter having a high accuracy was installed in the discharge pipe line to obtain a correction factor to the modulus of elasticity of volume. As a result it became possible to measure the multiple injection amount at an accuracy of ±0.2mm3/stroke in a range up to 40mm3/stroke.

A new technique was proposed for measuring instantaneous distributions of flame temperature and KL factor of luminous flames. Here the principle of the two-color method was used to calculate flame temperature and KL factor from the two-color densities of a film image taken on a nega-color film. We applied this technique to the high speed nega-color photographs of flames in a D. I. diesel engine operated with varying swirl ratios, and discussed the measured results of instantaneous distributions of flame temperature and KL factors.

A new method was developed which measures the atomization characteristics of a non-evaporating, axisymmetric diesel spray: The film image density of the high speed focused shadow photographs of a spray was analyzed based on the incident light extinction principle, and the Sauter mean diameter and the fuel concentration distribution were calculated from the image data and the measured injection rate with the help of the onion peeling model. The measured Sauter mean diameter showed good agreement with the diameter measured by the conventional immersion method, and also the measured fuel concentration distribution along the spray axis was proved to coincide well with the predicted result by Che one dimentional quasi-steady jet model except at a region near the spray tip.

The swirl velocity in the combustion bowl of a DI diesel engine was measured by means of laser doppler anemometry, varying the swirl intensity and engine speed. At the same time an axisymmetrical two dimensional laminar model for simulating the in-cylinder air motion was presented. The boundary condition of the flow near the wall was investigated by a comparison of predicted and measured swirl velocity, and as a result the free slip condition was found to be suitable for the present model. A comparison between measured and theoretical swirl velocity revealed that the secondary flow in the combustion bowl induced by an interaction between the squish and swirl flow transfers swirl velocities from points to points, causing a complex time variation of the swirl velocity at an observing point.

This work experimentally investigates how the dwell time between pilot injection and main injection influences combustion characteristics and emissions (NOx, CO, THC and Smoke) in a single-cylinder DI diesel engine. Additionally, results from diesel injection are compared with those shown in dimethyl ether (DME) injection under the identical injection strategy to demonstrate the sensitivity of the combustion characteristics and emissions to changes of the fuel type. Two fuel injection systems are applied for this experiment due to the differences of fuel characteristic with regard to physical and chemical properties. The injection strategy is accomplished by varying the dwell time (10°CA, 16°CA and 22°CA) between injections at five main injection timings (-4°CA aTDC, -2°CA aTDC, TDC, 2°CA aTDC and 4°CA aTDC). It was found that pilot injection offers good potential to lower the heat-release rate with reduced pressure traces regardless of the dwell time between injections and fuel type.

In an attempt to achieve lean combustion in Diesel engines which has a potential for simultaneous reduction in no and soot, the authors developed a micro-hole nozzle which has orifices with a diameter as small as 0.06 mm. Combustion tests were carried out using a rapid compression-expansion machine which has a DI Diesel type combustion chamber equipped with the micro-hole nozzle. A comparison with the result of a conventional nozzle experiment revealed that the ignition delay was shortened by 30 %, and in spite of that, both peaks of initial premixed combustion and diffusion combustion increased significantly. The combustion in the case of the micro-hole nozzle experiment was accompanied with a decrease in soot emission, whereas an increase in NO emission.

According to previous papers on the combustion process in LHR diesel engines the combustion seems to deteriorate in LHR diesel engines. However it has been unclear whether this was caused by the high temperature gas or high temperature combustion chamber walls. This study was intended to investigate the effect of gas temperature on the rate of heat release through the heat release analysis and other measurements using a rapid compression-expansion machine. Experiments conducted at high gas temperatures which was achieved by the employment of oxygen-argon-helium mixture made it clear that the combustion at a high gas temperature condition deteriorated actually and this was probably due to the poorer mixing rate because of the increase in gas viscosity at a high gas temperature condition.

Experiments on the effects of temperature T and equivalence ratio ϕ on soot formation at high pressures up to 5 MPa were conducted. The soot formation region is mapped on ϕ-T diagram using the results obtained in the experiments and the published data. NO formation region is also determined by the Zeldovich equations and is plotted on the same diagram. The time histories of ϕ and T of the flame in a DI diesel engine which was obtained by a gas sampling study, are plotted on the ϕ-T diagram to form a trajectory. Discussion of the trajectory in relation to both soot and NO formation region gives suggestion of a possibility of high temperature - rich mixture combustion to reduce particulate formation in diesel engines.