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A comparative study was performed by use of blends of Jatropha oil-diesel fuel and Jatropha oil-kerosene in order to investigate the feasibility of direct utilization of Jatropha oil in a DI diesel engine. Experimental results at low load demonstrated that mixing 60 vol.% of Jatropha oil into both diesel fuel and kerosene gave less impact on indicated thermal efficiency, whereas further increase of Jatropha oil deteriorated it. Jatropha oil-kerosene decreased particulate matter compared to Jatropha oil-diesel fuel, although particulate matter increased with the increase of Jatropha oil fraction. At partial load where double injection was applied, mixing 80 vol.% of Jatropha oil gave no significant impact on indicated thermal efficiency, exhaust gas emissions and particulate matter and no significant difference was observed between diesel fuel blends and kerosene blends.

A new lean combustion process for internal combustion engines has been developed. This newly devised combustion system, designated as “Active Thermo-Atmosphere Combustion” (ATAC), differs from conventional gasoline and diesel engine combustion processes. ATAC can be applied most easily to two-stroke cycle gasoline engines. Stable combustion can be achieved with lean mixtures at part-throttle operation. With ATAC the fuel consumption and exhaust emissions of two-stroke cycle spark-ignition engines are remarkably improved, and noise and vibration are reduced.

One of the most effective means of improving the thermal efficiency and the specific fuel consumption in spark ignition engines is the increase of the compression ratio. However, there is a limit to it because of the generation of knocking combustion due to the rise of temperature and pressure in the unburnt mixture. Also in turbo charged spark ignition engines, the ignition timing cannot be advanced until MBT in order to avoid the knocking phenomena. Generally speaking, it is very difficult to investigate the phenomena in an actual engine, because there are many restriction and the phenomena are too complex and too fast. According-ly, it is advantageous to reveal the phenomena fundamentally, including the autoignition process of the end-gas by using simplified model equipment. Therefore, a rapid compression and expansion machine (RCEM) with a pan-cake combustion chamber was designed and developed for the experiments presented here.

Fuel design approach has been proposed as the control technique of spray and combustion processes in diesel engine to improve thermal efficiency and reduce exhaust emissions. In order to kwow if this approach is capable of controlling spray flame structure and interaction between the flame and a combustion chamber wall, the present study investigated ignition and flame characteristics of dual-component fuels, while varying mixing fraction, fuel temperature and ambient conditions. Those characteristics were evaluated through chemiluminescence photography and luminous flame photography. OH radical images and visible luminous flame images were analyzed to reveal flame shape aspect ratio and its fractal dimension.

This paper presents an atomization mechanism of a spray injected into the low-pressure field, as the subject of injection system in a suction manifold of gasoline engine. Pure liquid fuel, which is n-Pentane or n-Hexane is injected into quiescent gaseous atmosphere at room-temperature and low- pressure through pintle type electronic control injector. Fuel sprays are observed by taking photographs for variation of the back pressure and the changes in spray characteristics with the back pressure below atmospheric pressure are examined in detail. In particular, in the case of the back pressure below the saturated vapor pressure of fuel, the atomization mechanism is discussed from a viewpoint of flash boiling phenomena, those are bubble growth rate and so on.

We propose a new concept on simultaneous reduction of NO and soot emissions in Diesel engine exhaust by the diesel fuel oil (n-Tridecane) with liquefied CO2 dissolved. The CO2 dissolved fuel is expected to undergo flash boiling or gas separation when being injected into the combustion chamber and improve spray atomization and mixing process both of which are primary factors to govern soot formation. Also the internal EGR effect caused by CO2 injected with the fuel is expected to NO formation. In order to assess this concept, combustion experiments were carried out using a rapid compression and expansion machine. Thus, flame characteristics and heat release rate were analyzed for the combustion process of diesel fuel and CO2 mixed fuel. And, it is revealed that the diesel fuel-liquefied CO2 mixed fuel can successfully reduce NO emission in a diesel combustion system.

There is a concept that the increase in the temperature of charge in a combustion chamber and the shield of heat transferred through a chamber wall can facilitate the oxidation of soot and reduce the discharge of soot from the engine. In the experiments presented here in, an IDI diesel engine was used to inspect the concept. The engine was installed a bigger sized cylindrical swirl chamber which was equipped with two flat quarts windows, in order to observe the combustion phenomena and to apply the optical measurement. The experiments were carried out using two types of divided chambers, that is, the swirl chamber made of ceramics and that made of steel, to examine the the effects mentioned above.

A transient gas jet seems to be a model of a diesel spray because it has no vaporization process. Recently, CNG is utilized in a diesel engine. In the case of diesel engine, sprays or jets have the free state in some cases, and they are impinging surely on the piston surface in the other cases. The 2-D image of acetylene gas with tracer particles was taken by high-speed photography. In both jets, the outer shape was measured on the images and the characteristics of the internal flow was obtained by particle image velocimetry. Then, the physical models of these jets were constructed by use of experimental results.

CNG is one of the future fuel for a CI engine. Recently, the general tendency is the use of the high pressure injection system over 100 MPa in a CI engine for the near future severe regulation. Combustion phenomenon in a CI engine with such injection system is like a transient gas diffusion flame. The flow in a gas diffusion flame was investigated by the particle image velocimetry on its 2-D images, the relative soot concentration, the temperature and the relative CO2 concentration was detected in the experiments. And the model of transient gas diffusion flame was constructed by use of experimental data.

The OSKA-DH diesel engine employed a unique system (hereafter called OSKA system) which is composed of a single-hole fuel injector, an impinging disk and a re-entrant type combustion chamber. This study is concerned with the combustion observation of both OSKA-DH diesel engine and conventional DI diesel engine by the high-speed photography and video system. This video system enables us to take combustion photographs under the warm-up condition of the engine. From the observation of those photographs, the OSKA-DH engine shows the shorter ignition delay compared with a DI diesel engine and the combustion flame of OSKA-DH diesel engine are concentrated in the center of the combustion chamber and a relatively monotonous flame intensity are observed. THE AUTHORS HAVE DEVELOPED a new type of Direct Injection Stratified Charge Engine called “Direct Fuel Injection Impingement Diffusion Stratified Charge System” (hereafter called OSKA System).

It is unavoidable that a DI diesel engine exhausts a blue and white smoke at starting, especially in the cold atmosphere. In the experiments presented here, a small DI diesel engine started under the conditions of coolant and suction air whose minimum temperatures were 255 K and 268 K, respectively. The flame was photographed by high-speed photography, the temperature of flame and the soot concentration were measured by two-color method, and CO2 concentration was detected by luminous method. The engine cannot be started over several cycles when the coolant temperature is 255 K and suction air temperature is 268 K. As the temperature of coolant and suction air are decreasing, the maxima of the cylinder pressure, the flame temperature, the soot concentration and CO2 concentration are decreasing. Luminous small dots or small lumps of flame become scattered in the piston cavity.

A diesel engine operating in premixed charge compression ignition (PCCI) mode promises the reduction of engine-out emissions of NOx and particulate matter. A serious issue for PCCI operation with the early injection timing during the compression stroke is the difficulty of controlling the mixture formation process. In this study, a mixed fuel consisting of high volatility fuel and high ignitability one is applied in order to develop a control technique for the mixture preparation. In particular, we focuses on a flash boiling phenomenon of mixed fuel. For pure substance, the quality of flashing spray is dominated by the degree of superheat. In contrast, that of mixed fuel is affected much by low boiling point fuel.

This paper confirms a structure for the soot formation process inside a burning diesel jet plume of oxygenated fuels. An explanation of how the soot formation process changes by the use of oxygenated fuel in comparison with that for using a conventional diesel fuel, and why oxygenated fuel drastically suppresses the soot formation has been derived from the chemical kinetic analysis. A detailed chemical kinetic mechanism, which is combined with various proposed chemical kinetic models including normal paraffinic hydrocarbon oxidation, oxygenated hydrocarbon oxidation, and poly-aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) formation, was developed in present study. The calculated results are presented to elucidate the influence of fuel mixture composition and fuel structure, especially relating to oxygenated fuels, on PAH formation. The analysis also provides a new insight into the initial soot formation process in terms of the temperature range of PAH formation.

This work investigates the soot formation process in diesel jet flame using a detailed kinetic soot model implemented into the KIVA-3V multidimensional CFD code and 2D imaging by use of time-resolved laser induced incandescence (LII). The numerical model is based on the KIVA code which is modified to use CHEMKIN as the chemistry solver using Message Passing Interface (MPI). This allows for the chemical reactions to be simulated in parallel on multiple CPUs. The detailed soot model used is based on the method of moments, which begins with fuel pyrolysis, followed by the formation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, their growth and coagulation into spherical particles, and finally, surface growth and oxidation of the particles. The model can describe the spatial and temporal characteristics of soot formation processes such as soot precursors distributions, nucleation rate and surface reaction rate.

This study is concerned with development of a new type of Diesel engine by impingement of fuel jet. The impinging part is installed on the cylinder head (OSKA-DH), against which the fuel jet is injected to spread and form fuel-air mixture. As a fundamental study on the mixture formation process, the observation of the impinged fuel jet was studied by using a pressurized vessel. High-speed combustion photographs of the OSKA and DI Diesel engine were also taken by using the experimental transparent engine. A single cylinder 4 stroke cycle prototype OSKA-DH engine (ø 118 x 108 mm) was developed. Pintle type single hole fuel injector is used and relatively low opening pressure of 15.3 MPa is employed. The re-entrant type combustion chamber and relatively high compression ratio of 20.4: 1 are employed. Experiments with a single cylinder proto-type engine showed that the lower NOx and smoke emissions compared with the conventional DI diesel engine.

The mixture formation by fuel spray impingement (OSKA system) was applied to a small direct-injection diesel engine in order to reduce the wall quenching- induced emissions, i.e., the emissions of THC and soluble organic fractions (SOF). Experiments were carried out using a single-cylinder engine, fitted with various piston cavity geometries, ran under a wide range of compression ratios and fuel injection specifications. The piston cavity was designed as a centrally located reentrant type. The combination of the high squish flow and the weak penetration of the OSKA spray was very effective in reducing harmful emissions. A short ignition delay, under the retarded fuel injection timing, was obtained because of the high compression ratio. The OSKA DI diesel engine showed reduced NOx, smoke, and THC emissions without deterioration of the fuel consumption compared to modern DI diesel engines used in automotive applications.

A direct injection stratified charge engine using New Mixture Formation Technology (OSKA) has been developed. Experiments on a single cylinder engine, with methanol and gasoline fuels showed the following results: 1) With methanol, the maximum IMEP was 1.3 MPa and the best indicated thermal efficiency was 46 %. 2) With gasoline, the maximum IMEP was 1.16 MPa and the best indicated thermal efficiency was 43 %. Analysis of the cylinder pressure diagram showed the following results: 1) High indicated thermal efficiency was observed by low time loss. 2) A relatively short combustion duration was observed even if the engine was operated with an overall lean fuel-air mixture in the part-load condition. This fact suggests that a stratified charge was attained. 3) From observation of the heat release rate,it will be predicted that combustion is characterized by flame propagation.

Distribution of injected fuel droplets, total hydrocarbon concentration and soot concentration in the combustion chamber of a diesel engine with a swirl chamber have been measured microscopically with regard to the time and the space by means of optical method. As a result of this study, effect of the swirl flow on atomized droplet distribution, relation between the droplets and hydrocarbon concentration, and relation between the change in concentration gradient of hydrocarbon with the time and the velocity of the swirl flow, and effect of non-luminous flame on the time of heat release rate raising period have been obtained. And from spatial distributions of hydrocarbon concentration, soot concentration, and local temperature in the combustion chamber at each time, the locational characteristics of soot generation are clarified. Further, effects of hydrocarbon and local temperature on soot generation have been considered.

Some papers on the combustion in a diesel engine have been already presented to discuss the effect of the additive called ADOIL TAC. A bottom view DI diesel engine driven at 980rpm with no load was used in the experiment presented here, in order to make clear this effect. JIS second class light diesel fuel oil was injected through a hole nozzle at the normal test run. The additive was intermixed 0.01 vol. % in this fuel oil, in the experiments to compare with the normal combustion. The flame was taken by direct high-speed photography. Profiles of flame temperature and KL were detected on the film by image processing, applying the two-color method. Soot was visualized by high-speed laser shadowgraphy, and the heat release rate was calculated using the cylinder pressure diagram. Discussion on the effect of the additive on the combustion phenomena was made by using all the data.

Research on alternative fuels is necessary to reduce CO2 emissions. Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil (HVO) of light fuel physically improves spray and combustion characteristics. Fatty Acid Methyl Ester (FAME) is an oxygenated fuel and its combustion characteristics are chemically improved, although its spray characteristics such as penetration and atomization are deteriorated. The purpose of this study is to understand the effects of blending HVO, which has carbon neutral (CN) characteristics, with FAME, which also has CN characteristics, on spray and combustion characteristics, and to further improve emission such as THC and Smoke. This report presents the effect of the combination of improved spray characteristics and oxygenated fuel on emissions. Spray characteristics such as penetration, spray angle and spray volume were investigated by shadowgraph photography.