Hydrogen-Enhanced Gasoline Stratified Combustion in SI-DI Engines

Author(s):  
Enrico Conte ◽  
Konstantinos Boulouchos

Experimental investigations were carried out to assess the use of hydrogen in a gasoline direct injection (GDI) engine. Injection of small amounts of hydrogen (up to 27% on energy basis) in the intake port creates a reactive homogeneous background for the direct injection of gasoline in the cylinder. In this way, it is possible to operate the engine with high exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) rates and, in certain conditions, to delay the ignition timing as compared to standard GDI operation, in order to reduce NOx and HC emissions to very low levels and possibly soot emissions. The results confirmed that high EGR rates can be achieved and NOx and HC emissions reduced, showed significant advantage in terms of combustion efficiency and gave unexpected results relative to the delaying of ignition, which only partly confirmed the expected behavior. A realistic application would make use of hydrogen-containing reformer gas produced on board the vehicle, but safety restrictions did not allow using carbon monoxide in the test facility. Thus, pure hydrogen was used for a best-case investigation. The expected difference in the use of the two gases is briefly discussed.

Author(s):  
Enrico Conte ◽  
Konstantinos Boulouchos

Experimental investigations were carried out to assess the use of hydrogen in a Gasoline Direct Injection (GDI) engine. Injection of small amounts of hydrogen (up to 27% on energy basis) in the intake port creates a reactive homogeneous background for the direct injection of gasoline in the cylinder. In this way, it is possible to operate the engine with high EGR rates and, in certain conditions, to delay the ignition timing as compared to standard GDI operation, in order to reduce NOx and HC emissions to very low levels and possibly soot emissions. The results confirmed that high EGR rates can be achieved and NOx and HC emissions reduced, showed significant advantage in terms of combustion efficiency and gave unexpected results relative to the delaying of ignition, which only partly confirmed the expected behavior. A realistic application would make use of hydrogen-containing reformer gas produced on board the vehicle, but safety restrictions did not allow using carbon monoxide in the test facility. Thus pure hydrogen was used for a best-case investigation. The expected difference in the use of the two gases is briefly discussed.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (12) ◽  
pp. 168781402110381
Author(s):  
Li Wang ◽  
Zhaoming Huang ◽  
Wang Tao ◽  
Kai Shen ◽  
Weiguo Chen

EGR and excess-air dilution have been investigated in a 1.5 L four cylinders gasoline direct injection (GDI) turbocharged engine equipped with prechamber. The influences of the two different dilution technologies on the engine performance are explored. The results show that at 2400 rpm and 12 bar, EGR dilution can adopt more aggressive ignition advanced angle to achieve optimal combustion phasing. However, excess-air dilution has greater fuel economy than that of EGR dilution owing to larger in-cylinder polytropic exponent. As for prechamber, when dilution ratio is greater than 37.1%, the combustion phase is advanced, resulting in fuel economy improving. Meanwhile, only when the dilution ratio is under 36.2%, the HC emissions of excess-air dilution are lower than the original engine. With the increase of dilution ratio, the CO emissions decrease continuously. The NOX emissions of both dilution technologies are 11% of those of the original engine. Excess-air dilution has better fuel economy and very low CO emissions. EGR dilution can effectively reduce NOX emissions, but increase HC emissions. Compared with spark plug ignition, the pre chamber ignition has lower HC, CO emissions, and higher NO emissions. At part load, the pre-chamber ignition reduces NOX emissions to 49 ppm.


Author(s):  
Justin Johnson ◽  
Karen R. Den Braven

Gasoline direct injection (GDI) two-stroke engine technology has been developed for use in snowmobile applications. Applying GDI to a two-stroke engine significantly reduces emissions of unburned hydrocarbons and improves fuel economy by reducing or eliminating the short circuiting of fuel that occurs in conventional carbureted two-stroke engines. The GDI design allows for two different modes of combustion, stratified and homogeneous. Stratified combustion is typically used during idle and light to moderate loads at low engine speeds while homogeneous combustion is used at moderate to high loads and medium to high engine speeds. This work presents the process and results of determining which mode of combustion provides better fuel economy during cruise point operation, and where the transition from stratified to homogeneous combustion should occur in snowmobile operation. Results show that homogeneous calibration is the superior mode of combustion for the cruise points of a snowmobile.


Author(s):  
Jihad A. Badra ◽  
Jaeheon Sim ◽  
Ahmed Elwardany ◽  
Mohammed Jaasim ◽  
Yoann Viollet ◽  
...  

Gasoline compression ignition (GCI), also known as partially premixed compression ignition (PPCI) and gasoline direct injection compression ignition (GDICI), engines have been considered an attractive alternative to traditional spark ignition engines. Lean burn combustion with the direct injection of fuel eliminates throttle losses for higher thermodynamic efficiencies, and the precise control of the mixture compositions allows better emission performance such as NOx and particulate matter (PM). Recently, low octane gasoline fuel has been identified as a viable option for the GCI engine applications due to its longer ignition delay characteristics compared to diesel and lighter evaporation compared to gasoline fuel [1]. The feasibility of such a concept has been demonstrated by experimental investigations at Saudi Aramco [1, 2]. The present study aims to develop predictive capabilities for low octane gasoline fuel compression ignition engines with accurate characterization of the spray dynamics and combustion processes. Full three-dimensional simulations were conducted using CONVERGE as a basic modeling framework, using Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) turbulent mixing models. An outwardly opening hollow-cone spray injector was characterized and validated against existing and new experimental data. An emphasis was made on the spray penetration characteristics. Various spray breakup and collision models have been tested and compared with the experimental data. An optimum combination has been identified and applied in the combusting GCI simulations. Linear instability sheet atomization (LISA) breakup model and modified Kelvin-Helmholtz and Rayleigh-Taylor (KH-RT) break models proved to work the best for the investigated injector. Comparisons between various existing spray models and a parametric study have been carried out to study the effects of various spray parameters. The fuel effects have been tested by using three different primary reference fuel (PRF) and toluene primary reference fuel (TPRF) surrogates. The effects of fuel temperature and chemical kinetic mechanisms have also been studied. The heating and evaporative characteristics of the low octane gasoline fuel and its PRF and TPRF surrogates were examined.


Author(s):  
Jacek Misztal ◽  
Hongming Xu ◽  
Miroslaw L. Wyszynski ◽  
Athanasios Tsolakis ◽  
Jun Qiao

Despite the fact that homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) has been demonstrated as a combustion technology feasible for implementation with different fuels in various types of engines, cylinder-to-cylinder variations (CTCVs) in multicylinder HCCI engines remain one of the technical obstacles to overcome. A reduction in CTCV requires further developments in control technology. This study has been carried out with regard to the overall engine parameters, involving geometric differences between individual cylinders, coolant paths through the engine, combustion chamber deposits, and also the differences in the inlet temperature distributions between the cylinders. Experimental investigations on the Jaguar V6 HCCI research engine with negative valve overlapping and cam profile switching show that the differences in the rate of pressure rise between the cylinders can be larger than 1 bar/CA deg and that the load differences can be as high as 5–10%. It has been found that some individual cylinders will approach the misfiring limit far earlier than the others. The complex interaction between a number of parameters makes the control of the multicylinder engine a serious challenge. In order to avoid these differences, an active cylinder balancing strategy will be required. It has been observed that spark assistance and split injection strategy deliver the best control for the cylinder balance. However, spark assistance is restricted to low loads and low engine speeds, while split injection requires a considerable effort to optimize its possible settings. This paper defines the most important parameters influencing cylinder-to-cylinder variations in the HCCI engine and aims to put forward suggestions that can help to minimize the effect of cylinder-to-cylinder variations on the overall engine performance.


Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 990 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jinze Li ◽  
Longfei Deng ◽  
Jianjun Guo ◽  
Min Zhang ◽  
Zhenyuan Zi ◽  
...  

The direct injection of natural gas (NG), which is an important research direction in the development of NG engines, has the potential to improve thermal efficiency and emissions. When NG engines operate in low-load conditions, combustion efficiency decreases and hydrocarbon (HC) emissions increase due to lean fuel mixtures and slow flame propagation speeds. The effect of two combustion modes (partially premixed compression ignition (PPCI) and high pressure direct injection (HPDI)) on combustion processes was investigated by CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics), with a focus on different injection strategies. In the PPCI combustion mode, NG was injected early in the compression stroke and premixed with air, and then the pilot diesel was injected to cause ignition near the top dead center. This combustion mode produced a faster heat release rate, but the HC emissions were higher, and the combustion efficiency was lower. In the HPDI combustion mode, the diesel was injected first and ignited, and then the NG was injected into the flame. This combustion mode resulted in higher emissions of NOx and soot, with a diffusion combustion in the cylinder. HC emissions significantly decreased. Compared with PPCI combustion, HPDI had a higher thermal efficiency.


2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 295-315 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reza Golzari ◽  
Hua Zhao ◽  
Jonathan Hall ◽  
Mike Bassett ◽  
John Williams ◽  
...  

Introduction of ever more stringent emission regulations on internal combustion engines beyond 2020 makes it necessary for original equipment manufacturers to find cost-effective solutions to improve the combustion engine efficiency and decrease its emissions. Highly efficient combustion engines can benefit from technologies such as cooled external exhaust gas recalculation and water injection. Among these technologies water injection can be used as a promising method to mitigate knock and significantly reduce the CO2 emissions. This is particularly important in highly downsized boosted engines which run under much higher intake pressures and are more prone to knocking combustion. In addition to anti-knock behaviour, water injection is also an effective method for reducing NOx emissions and exhaust gas temperature at high loads, which can protect the turbine in turbocharged engines. This study shows the influence of intake port injection of water on efficiency and emissions of a boosted downsized single-cylinder gasoline direct-injection engine in detail. Six different steady-state speed and load combinations were selected to represent the conditions that knocking combustion start to occur. Water ratio sweep tests were performed to find out the optimum water/fuel ratio at each test point and the impact on the combustion and emissions. In addition to gaseous emissions, impact of water injection on particle emissions was also investigated in this study. The results show the net indicated efficiency improved significantly (by a maximum of around 5% at medium load and around 15% at high load) up to a maximum level by increasing the injected water mass. Improvement in efficiency was mainly due to the increased heat capacity of charge and cooling effect of the injected water evaporation which reduced the in-cylinder temperature and pressure. Thus, knock sensitivity was reduced and more advanced spark timings could be used, which shifted the combustion phasing closer to the optimum point. However, increasing the water/fuel ratio further (more than 1 at medium load and more than 1.5 at high load) deteriorated the combustion efficiency, prolonged the flame development angle and combustion duration, and caused a reduction in the net integrated area of the P-V diagram. Efficiency improvements were lower at higher engine speed (3000 r/min) as the knock sensitivity was already reduced intrinsically. In terms of other, harmful, non-CO2 emissions, water injection was effective in reducing the NOx emissions significantly (by a maximum of around 60%) but increased the HC emissions as the water/fuel ratio increased. The results also show a significant reduction in particle emissions by adding water to the mixture and advancing the spark timing at medium and high loads. In addition, water injection also reduced the exhaust gas temperature by around 80°C and 180°C at medium and high loads, respectively.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document