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Butanol, which is a renewable biofuel, has been regarded as a promising alternative fuel for internal combustion engines. When blended with diesel and applied to pilot ignited natural gas engines, butanol has the capability to achieve lower emissions without sacrifice on thermal efficiency. However, high blend ratio of butanol is limited by its longer ignition delay caused by the higher latent heat and higher octane number, which restricts the improvement of emission characteristics. In this paper, the potential of increasing butanol blend ratio by adding hot exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) is investigated. 3D CFD model based on a detailed kinetic mechanism was built and validated by experimental results of natural gas engine ignited by diesel/butanol blends. The effects of hot EGR is then revealed by the simulation results of the combustion process, heat release traces and also the emissions under different diesel/butanol blend ratios.

In order to comply with the stringent emission regulations, many researchers have been focusing on diesel-compressed natural gas (CNG) dual fuel operation in compression ignition (CI) engines. The diesel-CNG dual fuel operation mode has the potential to reduce both the soot and NOx emissions; however, the thermal efficiency is generally lower than that of the pure diesel operation, especially under the low and medium load conditions. The current experimental work investigates the potential of using diesel-1-butanol blends as the pilot fuel to improve the engine performance and emissions. Fuel blends of B0 (pure diesel), B10 (90% diesel and 10% 1-butanol by volume) and B20 (80% diesel and 20% 1-butanol) with 70% CNG substitution were compared based on an equivalent input energy at an engine speed of 1200 RPM. The results indicated that the diesel-1-butanol pilot fuel can lead to a more homogeneous mixture due to the longer ignition delay.

Dual-fuel combustion combining a premixed charge of compressed natural gas (CNG) and a pilot injection of diesel fuel offer the potential to reduce diesel fuel consumption and drastically reduce soot emissions. In this study, dual-fuel combustion using methane ignited with a pilot injection of No. 2 diesel fuel, was studied in a single cylinder diesel engine with optical access. Experiments were performed at a CNG substitution rate of 70% CNG (based on energy) over a wide range of equivalence ratios of the premixed charge, as well as different diesel injection strategies (single and double injection). A color high-speed camera was used in order to identify and distinguish between lean-premixed methane combustion and diffusion combustion in dual-fuel combustion. The effect of multiple diesel injections is also investigated optically as a means to enhance flame propagation towards the center of the combustion chamber.

Cavitation plays a significant role in the spray characteristics and the subsequent mixing and combustion process in engines. Cavitation has beneficial effects on the development of the fuel sprays by improving injection velocity and promoting primary break-up. On the other hand, intense pressure peaks induced by the vapor collapse may lead to erosion damage and severe degradation of the injector performance. In the present paper, the transient cavitating flow in the injector-like geometry was investigated using the modified turbulence model and cavitation criterion. A local density correction was used in the Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes turbulence model to reduce the turbulent viscosity, which facilitates the cavitation development. The turbulent stress was also considered in the cavitation inception stage. The modified model is capable of reproducing the cavitating flow with an affordable computational cost.

CNG-diesel dual fuel combustion mode has been regarded as a practical operation strategy because it not only can remain high thermal efficiency but also make full use of an alternative fuel, natural gas. However, it is suffering from misfire and high HC emissions under cold start and low load conditions. As known, hydrogen has high flammability. Thus, a certain proportion of hydrogen can be added in the natural gas (named HCNG) to improve combustion performance. In this work, the effect of hydrogen volume ratio on combustion characteristics was investigated on an optically accessible single-cylinder CNG-diesel engine using a Phantom v7.3 color camera. HCNG was compressed into the tank under different hydrogen volume ratios varied from 0% to 30%, while the energy substitution rate of` HCNG remained at 70%.

This work presents a comprehensive computational study of diesel - natural gas (NG) dual fuel engine. A complete computational model is developed for the operation of a diesel - NG dual fuel engine modified from an AVL 5402 single cylinder diesel test engine. The model is based on the KIVA-3V program and includes customized sub-models. The model is validated against test cell measurements of both pure diesel and dual fuel operation. The effects of NG on ignition and combustion in dual fuel operation are analyzed in detail. Zero-dimensional computations with a diesel surrogate reaction mechanism are conducted to discover the effects of NG on ignition and combustion and to reveal the fundamental chemical mechanisms behind such effects. Backed by the detailed theoretical analysis, the engine operation parameters are optimized with genetic algorithm (GA) for the dual fuel operation of the modified AVL 5402 test engine.

The primary breakup of a planar liquid sheet produced by an air-blast atomizer was studied through numerical simulations, in order to reveal physical mechanisms involved during this process. The reliability of simulations was verified by comparing the macroscopic parameters, e.g. breakup time and spatial growth rate, with experimental data. Shear instability and RT (Rayleigh-Taylor) instability were found to play important roles during the primary breakup. By analyzing the acceleration of a fluid parcel within liquid sheet using Discrete Particle Method, and measuring the wave length of transverse unstable wave, RT instability was found to be partially responsible for transverse instability. The predictions of LISA (Linearized Instability Sheet Atomization) model on breakup time were compared to experiments, and obvious differences were found to exist.

Ignition location is one of the important factors that affect the thermal efficiency, exhaust emissions and knock sensitivity in premixed-charge ignition engines. However, the ignition initiation locations of pre-chamber generated turbulent jet ignition, which is a promising ignition enhancement method, are not clearly understood due to the complex physics behind it. Motivated by this, the ignition initiation location of a transient turbulent jet in a constant volume combustor is analyzed by the use of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations. In the CFD simulations of this work, commercial codes KIVA-3 V release 2 and an in-house-developed chemical solver with a detailed mechanism for H2/air mixtures are used. Comparisons are performed between simulated and experimental ignition initiation locations, and they agree well with one another. A detailed parametric study of the influence of in-cylinder temperature on the ignition initiation location is also performed.