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Engine knock is a major challenge that limits the achievement of higher engine efficiency by increasing the compression ratio of the engine. To address this issue, using a higher octane number fuel can be a potential solution to reduce or eliminate the propensity for knock and so obtain better engine performance. Methanol, a promising alternative fuel, can be produced from conventional and non-conventional energy resources, which can help reduce pollutant emissions. Methanol has a higher octane number than typically gasolines, which makes it a viable option for reducing knock intensity. This study compared the combustion characteristics of gasoline and methanol fuels in an optical spark-ignition engine using multiple spark plugs. The experiment was carried out on a single-cylinder four-stroke optical engine. The researchers used a customized metal liner with four circumferential spark plugs to generate multiple flame kernels inside the combustion chamber.

Super-knock that occurs in spark ignition (SI) engines is investigated using two-dimensional (2D) numerical simulations. The temperature, pressure, velocity, and mixture distributions are obtained and mapped from a top dead center (TDC) slice of full-cycle three-dimensional (3D) engine simulations. Ignition is triggered at one end of the cylinder and a hot spot of known temperature was used to initiate a pre-ignition front to study super-knock. The computational fluid dynamics code CONVERGE was used for the simulations. A minimum grid size of 25 μm was employed to capture the shock wave and detonation inside the domain. The Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) method was employed to represent the turbulent flow and gas-phase combustion chemistry was represented using a reduced chemical kinetic mechanism for primary reference fuels. A multi-zone model, based on a well-stirred reactor assumption, was used to solve the reaction terms.

Heavy-duty vehicles face increasing demands of emission regulations. Reduced carbon-dioxide (CO2) emission targets motivate decreased fuel consumption for fossil fuel engines. Increased engine efficiency contributes to lower fuel consumption and can be achieved by lower heat transfer, friction and exhaust losses. The double compression expansion engine (DCEE) concept achieves higher efficiency, as it utilizes a split-cycle approach to increase the in-cylinder pressure and recover the normally wasted exhaust energy. However, the DCEE concept suffers heat losses from the high-pressure approach. This study utilizes up to three injectors to reduce the wall-gas temperature gradient rendering lower convective heat losses. The injector configuration consists of a standard central injector and two side-injectors placed at the rim of the bowl. An increased distance from side-injector to the wall delivered lower heat losses by centralizing hot gases in the combustion chamber.

In this study, the authors investigated the effect of fuel properties on the combustion characteristics by employing methane, methanol, ethanol, and primary reference fuels (PRFs) as the main chamber fuel while using methane for the pre-chamber. Global excess air ratios (λ) from 1.6 to lean limit were tested, while 13% of total fuel energy supplied to the engine was delivered via the pre-chamber. The gaseous methane was injected into the pre-chamber at the gas exchange top-dead-center (TDC). Port fuel injection was tested with both open and closed inlet valves. The pre-chamber assembly was designed to fit into the diesel injector pocket of the base engine, which resulted in a narrow throat diameter of 3.3 mm. The combustion stability limit was set at 5% of the coefficient of variation of gross IMEP, and the knock intensity limit was set at 10 bar. GT-Power software was used to estimate the composition of pre-chamber species and was used in heat release analysis of the two chambers.

Future internal combustion engines demand higher efficiency but progression towards this is limited by the phenomenon called knock. A possible solution for reaching high efficiency is Octane-on-Demand (OoD), which allows to customize the antiknock quality of a fuel through blending of high-octane fuel with a low octane fuel. Previous studies on Octane-on-Demand highlighted efficiency benefits depending on the combination of low octane fuel with high octane booster. The author recently published works with ethanol and methanol as high-octane fuels. The results of this work showed that the composition and octane number of the low octane fuel is significant for the blending octane number of both ethanol and methanol. This work focuses on toluene as the high octane fuel (RON 120). Aromatics offers anti-knock quality and with high octane number than alcohols, this work will address if toluene can provide higher octane enhancement.

Earlier studies on efficiency improvement in CI engines have suggested that heat transfer losses contribute largely to the total energy losses. Fuel impingement on the cylinder walls is typically associated with high heat transfer. This study proposes a two-injector concept to reduce heat losses and thereby improve efficiency. The two injectors are placed at the rim of the bowl to change the spray pattern. Computational simulations based on the Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes approach have been performed for four different fuel injection timings in order to quantify the reduction in heat losses for the proposed concept. Two-injector concepts were compared to reference cases using only one centrally mounted injector. All simulations were performed in a double compression expansion engine (DCEE) concept using the Volvo D13 single-cylinder engine. In the DCEE, a large portion of the exhaust energy is re-used in the second expansion, thus increasing the thermodynamic efficiency.

A new concept utilizing multiple fuel injectors was proven effective at reducing heat transfer losses by directing spray plumes further away from the combustion chamber walls. In this concept, two injectors are mounted close to the rim of the piston bowl and point in opposite directions to generate swirling in-cylinder bulk motion. Moreover, a new flat-bowl piston design was also proposed in combination with the multiple fuel injectors for even larger improvements in thermal efficiency. However, all tests were performed at low-to-medium load conditions with no significant EGR. Modern engine concepts, such as the double compression-expansion engine (DCEE), have demonstrated higher thermal efficiency when operated at high-load conditions with a large amount of EGR for NOx control. Thus, this study aims to assess the effectiveness of the multiple-fuel-injector system under such conditions. In this study, a number of 3-D CFD simulations are performed using the RANS technique in CONVERGE.

The Double compression expansion engine (DCEE) concept has exhibited a potential for achieving high brake thermal efficiencies (BTE). The effect of different engine components on system efficiency was evaluated in this work using GT Power simulations. A parametric study on piston insulation, convection heat transfer multiplier, expander head insulation, insulation of connecting pipes, ports and tanks, and the expander intake valve lift profiles was conducted to understand the critical parameters that affected engine efficiency. The simulations were constrained to a constant peak cylinder pressure of 300 bar, and a fixed combustion phasing. The results from this study would be useful in making technology choices that will help realise the potential of this engine concept.

Pre-ignition is an abnormal engine combustion phenomenon where the inducted fuel-air charge ignites before the spark ignition. This premature combustion phenomenon often leads to heavy knocking events. The mixture preparation plays a critical role in pre-ignition tendency for a given load. Literature shows efforts made towards improving pre-ignition-limited-IMEP by splitting the injection pulse into multiple pulses. In this study, two direct injectors are used in a single cylinder research engine. A centrally mounted direct injector was used to inject Coryton Gasoline (RON 95) fuel early in the intake stroke. A second fluid was injected late in the compression stroke to suppress pre-ignition. The fluids used in the second direct injector was varied to see the effects of the molecule and its physical and chemical property on pre-ignition suppression tendency. Methanol, ethanol, water, and gasoline were tested as second fluid.

High-pressure internal combustion engines promise high efficiency, but a proper injection strategy to minimize heat losses and pollutant emissions remain a challenge. Previous studies have concluded that two injectors, placed at the piston bowl's rim, simultaneously improve the mixing and reduce the heat losses. The two-injector configuration further improves air utilization while keeping hot zones away from the cylinder walls. This study investigates how the two-injector concept delivers even higher efficiency by providing additional control of spray -and injection angles. Three-dimensional Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes simulations examined several umbrella angles, spray-to-spray angles, and injection orientations by comparing the two-injector cases with a reference one-injector case. The study focused on heat transfer reduction, where the two-injector approach reduces the heat transfer losses by up to 14.3 % compared to the reference case.

Engine knock is an abnormal phenomenon, which places barriers for modern Spark-Ignition (SI) engines to achieve higher thermal efficiency and better performance. In order to trigger more controllable knock events for study while keeping the knock intensity at restricted range, various spark strategies (e.g. spark timing, spark number, spark location) are applied to investigate on their influences on knock combustion characteristics and pressure oscillations. The experiment is implemented on a modified single cylinder Compression-Ignition (CI) engine operated at SI mode with port fuel injection (PFI). A specialized liner with 4 side spark plugs and 4 pressure sensors is used to generate various flame propagation processes, which leads to different auto-ignition onsets and knock development. Based on multiple channels of pressure signals, a band-pass filter is applied to obtain the pressure oscillations with respect to different spark strategies.

A new approach for investigating combustion behavior of practical fuels under homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) conditions was developed with the help of a cooperative fuel research (CFR) engine. The method uses a set of two pressure-temperature diagrams and two charts, each with an octane number scale based on primary reference fuels (PRF), created from experimental results by sweeping the intake temperature. The two pressure-temperature diagrams report conditions leading to the start of the low temperature combustion and the start of the main combustion, respectively. Additional two charts -- required compression ratio and fraction of low temperature heat release charts -- describe global combustion behavior and the importance of the low temperature combustion. Each diagram and chart, together with their respective octane number scale, allow to examine the combustion behavior of practical fuels by comparing their combustion behavior with those of the PRFs.

In a previous study, it was shown that isobaric combustion cycle, achieved by multiple injection strategy, is more favorable than conventional diesel cycle for the double compression expansion engine (DCEE) concept. In spite of lower effective expansion ratio, the indicated efficiencies of isobaric cycles were approximately equal to those of a conventional diesel cycle. Isobaric cycles had lower heat transfer losses and higher exhaust losses which are advantageous for DCEE since additional exhaust energy can be converted into useful work in the expander. In this study, the performance of low-pressure isobaric combustion (IsoL) and high-pressure isobaric combustion (IsoH) in terms of gross indicated efficiency, energy flow distribution and engine-out emissions is compared to the conventional diesel combustion (CDC) but at a relatively lower compression ratio of 11.5. The experiments are conducted in a Volvo D13C500 single-cylinder heavy-duty engine using standard EU diesel fuel.

The efficiency of an internal combustion engine is highly dependent on the peak pressure at which the engine operates. A new compound engine concept, the double compression expansion engine (DCEE), utilizes a two-stage compression and expansion cycle to reach ultrahigh efficiencies. This engine takes advantage of its high-integrity structure, which is adapted to high pressures, and the peak motored pressure reaches up to 300 bar. However, this makes the use of conventional combustion cycles, such as the Seiliger-Sabathe (mixed) or Otto (isochoric) cycles, not feasible as they involve a further pressure rise due to combustion. This study investigates the concept of isobaric combustion at relatively high peak pressures and compares this concept with traditional diesel combustion cycles in terms of efficiency and emissions. Multiple consecutive injections through a single injector are used for controlling the heat release rate profile to achieve isobaric heat addition.

In most large-eddy simulation (LES) applications to two-phase engine flows, the liquid-air interactions need to be accounted for as source terms in the respective governing equations. Accurate calculation of these source terms requires the relative velocity “seen” by liquid droplets as they move across the flow, which generally needs to be estimated using a turbulent dispersion model. Turbulent dispersion modeling in LES is very scarce in the literature. In most studies on engine spray flows, sub-grid scale (SGS) models for the turbulent dispersion still follow the same stochastic approach originally proposed for Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS). In this study, an SGS dispersion model is formulated in which the instantaneous gas velocity is decomposed into a deterministic part and a stochastic part. The deterministic part is reconstructed using the approximate deconvolution method (ADM), in which the large-scale flow can be readily calculated.

Pre-ignition in modern engines is largely attributed to oil-fuel mixture droplets igniting before the spark timing. Researchers have also found pre-ignition events to be triggered by high hydrocarbon emissions from the previous cycle as well as late spark timing in the previous cycle. Additionally, an ideally scavenged engine was not found to be limited by pre-ignition. These observations point to a significant role of residuals in triggering pre-ignition events. Current work studies pre-ignition in a probabilistic approach. The effect of residuals and in-cylinder thermodynamic state is studied by varying the exhaust back pressure and intake air temperature respectively. Experiments were performed with a fixed mass flow rate of air + fuel and intake air temperature while the exhaust back pressure was varied. Intake air pressure varied in response to fixed intake temperature. Pre-ignition and super-knock count increased with increasing exhaust back pressure.

Heat losses are known to decrease the efficiency of CI engines largely. Here, multiple injectors have been suggested to shrink these losses through reduction of spray wall impingement. Studies on multiple injectors have proven the concept’s heat transfer reduction but also highlighted the difficulty of using a standard piston bowl. This study proposes a two-injector concept combined with a flat bowl to reduce heat losses further. To change the spray pattern, the two injectors are injecting in a swirling motion while placed at the rim of the bowl. Four injection timings have been investigated using Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes simulations. This computational method quantified the amount of heat loss reduction possible. A conventional single injector concept is compared to two injector concepts with a standard and flat bowl. A Double Compression Expansion Engine (DCEE) concept, based on a modified Volvo D13 single-cylinder engine, was the base for all simulations.

Gasoline compression ignition (GCI) engines are becoming more popular alternative for conventional spark engines to harvest the advantage of high volatility. Recent experimental study demonstrated that high reactivity gasoline fuel can be operated in a conventional mixing controlled combustion mode producing lower soot emissions than that of diesel fuel under similar efficiency and NOx level [1]. Therefore, there is much interest in using gasoline-like fuels in compression ignition engines. In order to improve the fidelity of simulation-based GCI combustion system development, it is mandatory to enhance the prediction of spray combustion of gasoline-like fuels. The purpose of this study is to model the spray characteristics of high reactivity gasoline fuels and validate the models with experimental results obtained through an optically accessible constant volume vessel under vaporizing [2] and reactive conditions [3].

The improvement of the indicated thermal efficiency of an argon power cycle (replacing nitrogen with argon in the combustion reaction) is investigated in a CFR engine at high compression ratios in homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) mode. The study combines the two effects that can increase the thermodynamic efficiency as predicted by the ideal Otto cycle: high specific heat ratio (provided by argon), and high compression ratios. However, since argon has relatively low heat capacity (at constant volume), it results in high in-cylinder temperatures, which in turn, leads to the occurrence of knock. Knock limits the feasible range of compression ratios and further increasing the compression ratio can cause serious damage to the engine due to the high pressure rise rate caused by advancing the combustion phasing.

Pre-ignition remains a significant bottleneck to further downsizing and downspeeding technologies employed for reducing CO2 emissions in modern turbocharged spark-ignited engines. Pre-ignition, which occurs rarely, may lead to high peak pressures that auto-ignite the entire charge before TDC. The resulting high-pressure oscillations are known as super-knock, leading to sudden and permanent hardware damage to the engine. Over the years, numerous researchers have investigated the stochastic phenomenon’s source and concluded that there is a role of lubricant additives, deposits, gasoline properties, and hot surfaces in triggering pre-ignition. No single source has been identified; the research continues. Here, we take a different approach; rather than continue the search for the source(s) of super-knock, we explore mitigating super-knock by detecting pre-ignition early enough to take immediate evasive action.