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In internal combustion engines operating in Controlled Auto Ignition (CAI) mode, combustion phasing and heat-release rate is controlled by stratification of fuel, fresh air, and hot internally recirculated exhaust gases. Based on the Representative Interactive Flamelet (RIF) model, a two-dimensional flamelet approach is developed. As independent parameters, firstly the fuel mixture fraction and secondly the mixture fraction of internally recirculated exhaust gases are considered. The flamelet equations are derived from the transport equations for species mass fraction and total enthalpy, employing an asymptotic analysis. A subsequent coordinate transformation leads to the phase space formulation of the two-dimensional flamelet equations. By the use of detailed chemical reaction mechanisms, the effects of dilution, temperature, and chemical species composition due to the internally recirculated exhaust gases are represented.

Dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) offers the advantage to excite and dissociate molecules in the exhaust gas stream. Those dissociated and excited species are oxidizing or reducing harmful exhaust gas components. The advantage of a plasma chemical system in comparison to a catalytic measure for exhaust gas treatment is the instantaneous activity at ambient temperature from the starting of the engine. The investigations reviewed in this paper are dealing with the plasma chemical oxidation of hydrocarbons in the exhaust gas stream during cold start conditions. The article concerns the design and development of a plasma-system in order to decrease the hydrocarbon emissions from engine start till catalyst light off. Vehicle results in the New European Driving Cycle show a hydrocarbon conversion of more than 42% in the first 11 seconds from engine start. In this period nearly all types of hydrocarbon were reduced.

In this paper an online method for automatically reducing complex chemical mechanisms for simulations of combustion phenomena has been developed. The method is based on the Quasi Steady State Assumption (QSSA). In contrast to previous reduction schemes where chemical species are selected only when they are in steady state throughout the whole process, the present method allows for species to be selected at each operating point separately generating an adaptive chemical kinetics. The method is used for calculations of a natural gas fueled engine operating under Homogenous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) conditions. We discuss criteria for selecting steady state species and the influence of these criteria on the results such as concentration profiles and temperature.

Pilot injection (PI) during the negative-valve-overlap (NVO) period is one method to improve control of combustion in gasoline controlled auto-ignition engines. This is generally attributed to both chemical and thermal effects. However, there are little experimental data on active species formed by the combusting PI and their effect on main combustion in real engines. Thus, it is the objective of the current study to apply and assess optical in-cylinder diagnostics for these species. Firstly, the occurrence and nature of combustion during the NVO period is investigated by spectrally-resolved multi-species flame luminescence measurements. OH*, CH*, HCO*, CO-continuum chemiluminescence, and soot luminosity are recorded. Secondly, spectrally-, spatially-, and cycle-resolved laser-induced fluorescence measurements of formaldehyde are conducted. It is attempted to find a cycle-resolved measure of the chemical effect of PI.

The Representative Interactive Flamelet (RIF)-model offers a method of separating the numerical effort associated with solving the governing equations for the turbulent flow field from that of the chemistry. This is possible since the chemical time scales can be considered very small compared to those related to the turbulence. The concept has gained widespread recognition owing to its ability of capturing the essential physics underlying combustion. The objective of this paper is to show how a more accurate description of mainly the soot formation and oxidation processes in a high-speed small-bore Direct Injection (DI) diesel engine can be realized within the framework of the RIF-model. This is achieved by deriving a new model for the conditional scalar dissipation rate, describing the transport in the flamelet.