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The two-dimensional distribution of a soot cloud in an unsteady spray flame in a rapid compression machine(RCM) was visualized using the laser sheet scattering technique. A 40 mm x 50 mm cross section on the flame axis was illuminated by a thin laser sheet from a single pulsed Nd:YAG laser(wavelength 532 nm). Scattered light from soot particles was taken by a CCD camera via a high speed gated image intensifier. The temporal variation of the scattered light images were presented with the injection pressure as a parameter. The results showed that scattered light was intense near the periphery of the flame tip and that the scattered light becomes weaker significantly and disappears fast after the end of injection as injection pressure is increased. This technique was also applied to the visualization of the two-dimensional distribution of liquid droplets in the non-evaporating spray to correlate it with the soot concentration distribution.

The concentrations of soot, NO and the other combustion products were measured by incylinder gas sampling in a DI diesel engine. The effects of injection timing, swirl ratio, and combustion chamber geometry on the formation and emission processes of soot and NO were studied. The following results were obtained: (1) Soot is promptly formed in the flame during the early combustion period where the equivalence ratio in the flame is high over 1.0. Thereafter almost all the formed soot is swiftly burnd up by oxidation during the middle combustion period. This process mainly determines the exhaust soot concentration. (2) NO is formed in the flame during the early and middle combustion period where the flame temperature is high over 2000 K. The highest NO concentration is observed at the flame tip swept by the air swirl. Though the concentration of the formed NO decreases by dilusion it nearly constant during the later combustion period.

A new technique is developed for the in-situ measurement of Sauter mean diameter of droplets in non-evaporating transient dense sprays. This method analyzes the image of a shadowpicture of a spray based on the incident light extinction principle, and allows the sizing of Sauter mean diameter of whole droplets in a transient spray with any shape. In addition, this method allows the measurement of the local droplet size in a quasi-steady region of an axisymmetric spray if the conservation equations regarding mass and momentum are included in the calculation and data analysis. A calibration was carried out using glass beads as test particles: this was proved to have an accuracy of Sauter mean diameter measurement within 10%, on average. Applications of the new technique to both diesel and gasoline (EFI) sprays have been made.

There have been strong demands recently for reductions in the fuel consumption and exhaust emissions of diesel engines from the standpoints of conserving energy and curbing global warming. A great deal of research is being done on new emission control technologies using direct-injection (DI) diesel engines that provide high thermal efficiency. This work includes dramatic improvements in the combustion process. The authors have developed a new combustion concept called Modulated Kinetics (MK), which reduces smoke and NOx levels simultaneously by reconciling low-temperature combustion with pre-mixed combustion [1, 2]. At present, research is under way on the second generation of MK combustion with the aim of improving emission performance further and achieving higher thermal efficiency [3]. Reducing heat rejection in the combustion chamber is effective in improving the thermal efficiency of DI diesel engines as well as that of MK combustion.

The Dual-Fuel (DF) combustion is a promising technology for efficient, low NOx and low exhaust particulate matter (PM) engine operation. To achieve equivalent performance to a DF engine with only the use of conventional liquid fuel, this study proposes the implementation of an on-board fuel reformation process by piston compression. For concept verification, DF combustion tests with representative reformed gas components were conducted. Based on the results, the controllability of the reformed gas composition by variations in the operating conditions of the reformer cylinder were discussed.

The structure of dense sprays was investigated using 2-D imaging techniques. To investigate the mechanism of atomization, the liquid phase in a non-evaporating spray was visualized by a thin laser sheet formed by a single pulse from a Nd:YAG laser at the distance from 4 to 19 mm from the nozzle orifice with the injection pressure and the surrounding gas density as parameters. A new technique for the visualization of vapor phase in an evaporating spray, the SSI (Silicone particle Scattering Imaging) method, was proposed to investigate the structure of the vapor phase regions of the spray.

Two kinds of planar soot imaging techniques, laser induced incandescence (LII) and laser induced scattering (LIS) techniques were applied simultaneously to an unsteady free spray flame achieved in a rapid compression machine. An analysis of LII and LIS images yielded three kinds of qualitative images of soot concentration, size of soot particles, and number density of soot in the flame. These images revealed the fact that the soot is formed mainly in the center region of a flame resulting in an appearance of soot cloud with high number density and small particle size in this region, and then the soot size increases and the number density decreases while soot is conveyed downstream.

The formation and oxidation processes of soot particles in unsteady spray flames were investigated in a quiescent atmosphere using 2-D laser sheet visualization. The mid-plane of a flame was illuminated twice during a short time-interval by a laser sheet from a double-pulsed YAG laser. An image pair of the scattered light from soot particles was taken by two intensified gated cameras in succession. The velocity vectors of soot clouds at various location in the sooting region were estimated using the spatial correlation between the image pair. The results of temporal and spatial variation of velocity and scattering intensity in the evolving soot clusters made it clear that soot is mainly formed in the periphery of the flame tip where the air entrainment is less and flame temperature favors soot formation.

Flame temperature and KL factor in a DI diesel engine are measured optically by the two-color method. Some differences are observed between the measure values at visible and infrared wavelengths. These differences are caused by: (1) effect of change of index α in time at infrared wavelength during combustion period; (2) effect of distributions of temperature and soot concentration along optical path; and (3) effect of reflection at the walls. The optical characteristics and some other problems on the instrumentation of the two-color method at both wavelengths are also discussed.

The two-color method regarding the visible wavelength radiation from soot particles in flames was closely studied in order to establish it as a measuring technique of the flame temperature and soot concentration in diesel engines. The accuracy of the temperature calibration of the measuring equipment was assured by a newly developed high temperature black body furnace and a standard tungsten lamp. The emissivity of diesel flames, which is the most important value in this method, was investigated through both the spectroscopic analysis of soot sampled from a diesel flame and the comparative measurements between the two-color method and the emission-absorption method. The examined two-color method was applied to a direct injection diesel engine. The time and space resolved values of temperature and soot concentration were obtained for the first time.

Spark-assisted diesel engines operated with alcohol fuels usually display misfiring or knocking problems. This paper presents an analysis of the factors influencing the ignition characteristics of ethanol in a swirl chamber diesel engine with a multi-spark ignitor. In the experiments, cycle-to-cycle combustion variations and the degree of knocking were investigated by changing engine parameters over a wide operating range. The results of the investigations showed that stable ignition and smooth combustion is achieved when a flammable mixture is formed in the vicinity of the spark plug when only a small amount of the injected fuel has evaporated. By optimizing the design factors, operation with high efficiency and low exhaust emissions was achieved.

A DI diesel engine with an air cell was developed as one of the combustion systems for reducing soot emission from diesel engines: The air is accumulated in the air cell during the compression stroke and is injected into the main chamber during a period after the end of injection. The air jet stirs the stagnant flame and promotes soot oxidation. A comparative experiments with the conventional system made it clear that the air-cell system effectively reduces soot emission at a medium and high load condition.

To monitor emission-related components/systems and to evaluate the presence of malfunctioning or failures that can affect emissions, current diesel engine regulations require the use of on-board diagnostics (OBD). For diesel particulate filters (DPF), the pressure drop across the DPF is monitored by the OBD as the pressure drop is approximately linear related to the soot mass deposited in a filter. However, sudden acceleration may cause a sudden decrease in DPF pressure drop under cold start conditions. This appears to be caused by water that has condensed in the exhaust pipe, but no detailed mechanism for this decrease has been established. The present study developed an experimental apparatus that reproduces rapid increases of the exhaust gas flow under cold start conditions and enables independent control of the amount of water as well as the gas flow rate supplied to the DPF.

Soot emission from diesel engines generally increases with shorter ignition lags. However, the detailed process and mechanism of this phenomenon has not been well understood. This investigation attempts to observe and analyze the in-chamber soot formation process at various ignition lags by high-speed photography of the direct flame images and laser shadowgraphs as well as the laser light extinction. In the experiment, the separation of soot concentration from the soot-fuel mixture concentration was established by subtracting the laser light extinction intensity through a non-firing chamber from that through a firing chamber. It was found that the soot concentration in the swirl chamber reached a maximum value immediately after the start of combustion, and then decreased rapidly. With shorter ignition lags, the maximum and final soot concentrations in the chamber increased.

This study makes use of the detailed mechanisms of n-heptane combustion, from gas reactions to soot particle formation and oxidation, and a two-stage model based on the CHEMKIN reactor network is developed and used to investigate the trade-off between soot and NOx emissions. The effects of the equivalence ratio, EGR, ambient pressure and temperature, and initial particle diameter are observed for various residence times. The results show that high rates of NOx formation are unavoidable under conditions where high reduction rates of soot particles are obtained. This suggests that suppression of the amount of soot during the formation stage is essential for simultaneous reductions in engine-out soot and NOx emissions.

Some problems associated with applying LDA to the measurement of air motion in the engine’s cylinder are studied experimentally for both the forward and the back scattering technique in a motored diesel engine. The effects of the doppler broadening caused by the velocity gradient and the diameters of the scattering particles are discossed. The decaying process and the structure of the in-cylinder flow field are studied using the measurements of the main flow velocity, the turbulent intensity and macro scales and normalised power spectrum of the turbulence. A comparison measurement is also made between the forward scattering and the back scattering techniques.

The oxidations of Crapped diesel soots containing catalytic metals such as Ca, Ba, Fe, or Ni were characterized through thermogravimetric analysis with a thermobalance. Soot particles were generated by a single cylinder IDI diesel engine with metallic fuel additives. A two-stage oxidation process was observed with the metalcontalning soots. It was found that the first stage of oxidation is catalytically promoted by metal additives resulting in an enhanced reaction rate and a reduced activation energy. Soot reduction in the rapid first stage increases with increases in metal content. Soots containing Ba and Ca are oxidized most rapidly due to the larger reduction during the first stage. The second stage of oxidation is also slightly promoted by metal addition. The ignition temperature of the collected soot is substantially reduced by the metal additives.

Ultra-low NOx and smokeless operation at higher loads up to half of the rated torque is attempted with large ratios of cold EGR. NOx decreases below 6 ppm (0.05 g/(kW·h)) and soot significantly increases when first decreasing the oxygen concentration to 16% with cold EGR, but after peaking at 12-14% oxygen, soot then deceases sharply to essentially zero at 9-10% oxygen while maintaining ultra low NOx and regardless of fuel injection quantity. However, at higher loads, with the oxygen concentration below 9-10%, the air/fuel ratio has to be over-rich to exceed half of rated torque, and thermal efficiency, CO, and THC deteriorate significantly. As EGR rate increases, exhaust gas emissions and thermal efficiency vary with the intake oxygen content rather than with the excess air ratio.

Experiments on a large number of soluble fuel additives were systematically conducted for diesel soot reduction. It was found that Ca and Ba were the most effective soot suppressors. The main determinants of soot reduction were: the metal mol-content of the fuel, the excess air factor, and the gas turbulence in the combustion chamber. The soot reduction ratio was expressed by an exponential function of the metal mol-content in the fuel, depending on the metal but independent of the metal compound. A rise in excess air factor or gas turbulence increased the value of a coefficient in the function, resulting in larger reductions in soot with the fuel additives. High-speed soot sampling from the cylinder showed that with the metal additive, the soot concentration in the combustion chamber was substantially reduced during the whole period of combustion. It is thought that the additive acts as a catalyst not only to improve soot oxidation but also to suppress soot formation.

The characteristics of smokeless low temperature diesel combustion in various fuel-air mixing was investigated by engine tests with high rates of cooled exhaust gas recirculation (EGR), three compression ratios, and fuels of various cetane numbers, as well as by computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation of the in-cylinder distributions of mixture concentration and temperature. The results show that besides combustion temperature, fuel-air mixing is also vital to efficient, smokeless, and low NOx diesel combustion. Smokeless and low NOx diesel combustion can be realized even with insufficient fuel-air mixing as long as the combustion temperature is sufficiently low. However low combustion temperature and insufficient oxygen due to ultra-high EGR cause very high UHC and CO emissions, and a severe deterioration in combustion efficiency.