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1 An all fiber-optic sensor has been developed to measure H2O mole fraction and gas temperature in an HCCI engine. This absorption-spectroscopy-based sensor utilizes a broad wavelength (1320 to 1380 nm) source (supercontinua generated by a microchip laser) and a series of fiber Bragg gratings (19 gratings centered on unique water absorption peaks) to track the formation and temperature of combustion water vapor. The spectral coverage of the system promises improved measurement accuracy over two-line diode-laser based systems. Meanwhile, the simplicity of the fiber Bragg grating chromatic dispersion approach significantly reduces the data reduction time and cost relative to previous supercontinuum-based sensors. The data provided by the system is expected to enhance studies of the chemical kinetics which govern HCCI ignition as well as HCCI modeling efforts.

This paper deals with some recent advances in the field of 1D fluid dynamic modeling of unsteady reacting flows in complex s.i. engine pipe-systems, involving a catalytic converter. In particular, a numerical simulation code has been developed to allow the simulation of chemical reactions occurring in the catalyst, in order to predict the chemical specie concentration in the exhaust gas from the cylinder to the tailpipe outlet, passing through the catalytic converter. The composition of the exhaust gas, discharged by the cylinder and then flowing towards the converter, is calculated by means of a thermodynamic two-zone combustion model, including emission sub-models. The catalytic converter can be simulated by means of a 1D fluid dynamic and chemical approach, considering the laminar flow in each tiny channel of the substrate.

In this work a detailed model to simulate the transient behavior of catalytic converters is presented. The model is able to predict the unsteady and reacting flows in the exhaust ducts, by solving the system of conservation equations of mass, momentum, energy and transport of reacting chemical species. The en-gine and the intake system have not been included in the simulation, imposing the measured values of mass flow, gas temperature and chemical composition as a boundary condition at the inlet of the exhaust system. A detailed analysis of the diffusion stage triggering is proposed along with simplifications of the physics, finalized to the reduction of the calculation time. Submodels for water condensation and its following evaporation on the monolith surface have been taken into account as well as oxygen storage promoted by ceria oxides.

This work describes an experimental and numerical investigation of the thermal transient of i.c. engine exhaust systems. A prototype of exhaust system has been investigated during a NEDC cycle in two different configurations. Firstly an uncoated catalyst has been adopted to consider only the effect of the gas-wall heat transfer. The measurements have been repeated on the same exhaust system equipped with a coated catalyst to point out the contribution of the chemical reactions to the thermal transient of the system. The measured values have been compared to the predicted results carried out with a 1D thermo fluid dynamic code, developed in-house to account for the thermal transient of the system and the chemical reactions occurring in the catalyst.

This paper describes some recent advances of the research work concerning the 1D fluid dynamic modeling of unsteady reacting flows in s.i. engine pipe-systems, including pre-catalysts and main catalysts. The numerical model GASDYN developed in previous work has been further enhanced to enable the simulation of the catalyst. The main chemical reactions occurring in the wash-coat have been accounted in the model, considering the mass transfer between gas and solid phase. The oxidation of CO, C3H6, C3H8, H2 and reduction of NO, the steam-reforming reactions of C3H6, C3H8, the water-gas shift reaction of CO have been considered. Moreover, an oxygen-storage sub-model has been introduced, to account for the behavior of Cerium oxides. A detailed thermal model of the converter takes into account the heat released by the exothermic reactions as a source term in the heat transfer equations. The influence of the insulating mat is accounted.

Growing interest in pollutant emission reduction has increased the importance of numerical simulations of spark ignition as a first step in IC engine combustion. In this work, we present simulations involving the coupling of flow, chemical reactions and molecular transport with the discharge processes. The main focus hereby is to investigate the early stages of the formation of a flame kernel in a two-dimensional, cylindrical geometry with electrodes. The computational results shown here include the initial shock-determined phase after the breakdown of the channel, but also the transition to flame propagation for a methane-air mixture.

A chemical sub-model for realistic CFD simulations of Diesel engines is developed and demonstrated by application to some test cases. The model uses a newly developed progress variable approach to incorporate a realistic treatment of chemical reactions into the description of the reactive flow. The progress variable model is based on defining variables that represent the onset and temporal development of chemical reactions before and during self ignition, as well as the stage of the actual combustion. Fundamental aspects of the model, especially its physical motivation and finding a proper progress variable, are discussed, as well as issues of practical implementation. Sample calculations of Diesel-typical combustion scenarios are presented which are based on the progress-variable model, showing the capability of the model to realistically describe the ignition-and combustion phase.

3M is committed to continuously improving products and their manufacture toward the goal of sustainability. The 3M Life Cycle Management (LCM) program has been established to implement this goal. It utilizes a matrix tool to facilitate the review. The matrix consists of LCM Stage (Material Acquisition, R&D Operations, Manufacturing Operations, and Customer Use/Disposal) and Impact (Environment, Health, Safety, and Energy/Resources). The program is coordinated at the staff level by the Corporate Product Responsibility group. The corporate goal is to apply LCM to all new and existing products. The LCM program started with evaluations of new products within business units. Since 3M produces more than 60,000 products manufactured from more than 10,000 different raw materials, the routine evaluation of individual products challenges available staff and business unit resources. A technology-based approach for doing LCMs has been implemented to meet the challenge.

In this paper, a new 1D combustion model is presented. It is expected to combine good predictive capacities with a contained CPU time, and could be used for engine design. It relies on a eulerian approach, based on Musculus 1D transient spray model. The latter has been extended to model vaporizing, reacting sprays. The general features of the model are first presented. Then various sub models (spray angle and dilatation, vaporization, thermodynamic properties) are detailed. Chemical kinetics are described with a global scheme to keep computational time low. The spray discretization (mesh) and angle model are first discussed through a sensitivity analysis. The model results are then compared to experiments from ECN data base (SANDIA) realized in constant volume bombs, for both inert and reacting cases. Some detailed analysis of model results are performed, including comparisons of vaporizing and non-vaporizing cases, as well as inert and reacting cases.

In this work, a 5-zone model has been applied to replicate the in-cylinder conditions evolution of a Rapid Compression-Expansion Machine (RCEM) in order to improve the chemical kinetic analyses by obtaining more accurate simulation results. To do so, CFD simulations under motoring conditions have been performed in order to identify the proper number of zones and their relative volume, walls surface and temperature. Furthermore, experiments have been carried out in an RCEM with different Primary Reference Fuels (PRF) blends under homogeneous conditions to obtain a database of ignition delays and in-cylinder pressure and temperature evolution profiles. Such experiments have been replicated in CHEMKIN by imposing the heat losses and volume profiles of the experimental facility using a 0-D 1-zone model. Then, the 5-zone model has been analogously solved and both results have been compared to the experimental ones.

Wear of brake disc is normally faced with sophisticated experimental methods, a basic overview on the phenomena related to disc wear is presented in this paper. DTV consists in a heterogeneous wear of the disc surface and it is caused by two factors: run-out and the mechanism of disc wear. The importance of DTV is due to the vehicle vibrations that high DTV values can cause during braking. A model, that considers iron oxide layer evolution on disc surface, can evidence some of the principal characteristics of disc wear. In this model the wear rates of disc gray cast iron and iron oxide layer are considered as some of the principal factors in DTV evolution, as well as the kinetics of the chemical reactions involved.

FLOWTRAN and PROCESS are engineering design packages which simulate the steady state operation of units commonly used in the chemical and petroleum industries. Given a rigorously structured data input file, these packages calculate stream properties (flow rate, composition, etc.) and unit design variables (distillation column size, pump rpm, etc.). FLOW.CPL has been developed to provide a graphical interface that will generate a FLOWTRAN compatible input file using the MEDUSA CAD system. The CAD model is built by interactively abstracting elements (representing unit operations) from a symbol library and placing them on a MEDUSA drawing sheet. The connectivity between the unit operations is provided by the user simply by connecting inputs to outputs. Additional stream information (temperature, pressure, composition, etc.) is provided by using associative blocks called clumps.

Exhaust gas flow maldistribution can strongly affect the performance of catalytic converters. As part of an on-going programme concerned with optimising converter designs, flow maldistribution within catalyst monoliths resulting from the use of different shaped inlet cones was investigated. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) techniques were used to predict gas velocities within the catalyst, and reaction of low levels of hydrogen sulfide in the gas was used to visualise the velocity profile on monoliths coated with a lead acetate indicator. This was done both in laboratory-scale experiments at room temperature with low flow-rates, and in a vehicle exhaust system under reduced temperature conditions. Flow patterns were produced for an underfloor catalyst system under real driving conditions with this unobtrusive chemical technique.

High fidelity engine simulation requires realistic fuel models. Although typical automotive fuels consist of more than few hundreds of hydrocarbon species, researches show that the physical and chemical properties of the real fuels could be represented by appropriate surrogate fuel models. It is desirable to represent the fuel using the same set of physical and chemical surrogate components. However, when the reaction mechanisms for a certain physical surrogate component is not available, the chemistry of the unmatched physical component is described using that of a similar chemical surrogate component at the expense of accuracy. In order to reduce the prediction error while maintaining the computational efficiency, a method of on-the-fly reactivity adjustment (ReAd) of chemical reaction mechanism along with fuel re-distribution based on reactivity is presented and tested in this study.

Precipitation Hardened Stainless Steel (PHSS) is one of the martensitic steels that possess exceptional strength and corrosion resistance. Because of its characteristics, this PHSS is exclusively adopted in numerous engineering uses such as nuclear, chemical and marine industries. Welding is one of the important methods of joining that helps to make weldments with better performance characteristics. Corrosion behaviour is one of the important characteristics that contribute hugely to marine and other corrosion-related environments and also this is the most common problem for most of the manufacturing industries. The goal of this study was to analyze the PHSS weldments’ corrosive behavior and compare it with that of the two commonly used welding processes, namely MIG and TIG. The corrosive properties of the weldments were evaluated using various mediums, such as nitric acid, ferric chloride, and Oxalic acid.

Three different models, the law-of-the-wall, a modified law-of-the-wall, and an approximate one-dimensional solution to the energy equation are compared for the spatially-resolved prediction of engine heat tranfer. The multidimensional hydrodynamic code KIVA is used for the fluid mechanic simulation. Two different engine geometries are studied; one being a pancake-shaped chamber, and the other a bowl-in-piston geometry. The comparisons are done for a range of initial conditions of gas flow. Rates-of-pressure-rise were also varied to represent rates typical of those encountered in motored engines, and those found in fired engines. Comparisons with experimental results show that the heat transfer predictions using the law-of-the-wall may be in error when source terms such as the transient, work and chemical energy terms have a significant effect in determining the temperature profile in the boundary layer.

Accumulation of fuel, water, acids, insolubles, and metals in engine oil is documented and compared for variable-fueled (fuel containing up to 85 percent methanol) and gasoline-fueled vehicles in short-trip service. The oil temperature at which various contaminants are removed is noted. As a consequence of emulsion formation, the viscosity of the oil in the M85-fueled vehicles increased. Due to the presence of gasoline, the viscosity of the oil in the gasoline-fueled vehicles decreased. Equations were developed to explain both the viscosity reduction due to gasoline and the viscosity increase due to emulsion-forming contaminants (water and methanol).

Since the base oil component of engine oils, driveline fluids and industrial lubricants typically exceeds 80 wt. % of the formulation, the complex chemical composition of base oils is a critical parameter in defining the ultimate performance of the finished products into which they are blended. Using both statistical and Neural Network methods, we have correlated the relative distribution of molecular types such as aromatics, naphthenes, paraffins and certain sulfur-containing species to lubricant performance in the ASTM Sequence IIIE and VE gasoline engine tests as well as the ASTM D-943 test which measures the long-term oxidative stability of industrial oils. For all cases, the “modeling” procedures enable approximately 20 input variables (compositional parameters, VI, aniline point) to be used to predict the output ratings of the respective test procedures.

This work is based in a model of neural and wavelets networks using published experimental data. The objective is to compare a neural and a wavelet network estimating the creep rupture strength based on chemical composition of Fe-2.25Cr-Mo and Fe-(9-12)Cr steels, and on its heat treatment temperature and life time. It will be determined the configuration that provides the best fit of the data.

Comparisons are given between various launch vehicles, transfer vehicles, and propulsion methods to launch satellites into low Earth orbital parking orbits and then into a final geosynchronous orbit. The studies indicate that a Thermionic Space Nuclear Power System (TI-SNPS) can have significant advantages over solar array power systems for both orbital transfer capabilities and mission applications. Also, by utilizing a relatively inexpensive Atlas IIAS launch vehicle, a particular TI-SNPS hybrid design with a specific impulse of 950 sec can place a satellite weighing 3,511 kg into GEO orbit, as compared to only a corresponding 1,104 kg satellite capability when using conventional chemical propulsion techniques.