scholarly journals Analysis of Ignition Behavior in a Turbocharged Direct Injection Dual Fuel Engine Using Propane and Methane as Primary Fuels

2013 ◽  
Vol 135 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
A. C. Polk ◽  
C. M. Gibson ◽  
N. T. Shoemaker ◽  
K. K. Srinivasan ◽  
S. R. Krishnan

Dual fuel engine combustion utilizes a high-cetane fuel to initiate combustion of a low-cetane fuel. The performance and emissions benefits (low NOx and soot emissions) of dual fuel combustion are well-known. Ignition delay (ID) of the injected high-cetane fuel plays a critical role in quality of the dual fuel combustion process. This paper presents experimental analyses of the ID behavior for diesel-ignited propane and diesel-ignited methane dual fuel combustion. Two sets of experiments were performed at a constant engine speed (1800 rev/min) using a four-cylinder direct injection diesel engine with the stock electronic conversion unit (ECU) and a wastegated turbocharger. First, the effects of fuel–air equivalence ratios (Фpilot ∼ 0.2–0.6 and Фoverall ∼ 0.2–0.9) on IDs were quantified. Second, the effects of gaseous fuel percent energy substitution (PES) and brake mean effective pressure (BMEP) (from 2.5 to 10 bars) on IDs were investigated. With constant Фpilot (>0.5), increasing Фoverall with propane initially decreased ID but eventually led to premature propane auto-ignition; however, the corresponding effects with methane were relatively minor. Cyclic variations in the start of combustion (SOC) increased with increasing Фoverall (at constant Фpilot) more significantly for propane than for methane. With increasing PES at constant BMEP, the ID showed a nonlinear trend (initially increasing and later decreasing) at low BMEPs for propane but a linearly decreasing trend at high BMEPs. For methane, increasing PES only increased IDs at all BMEPs. At low BMEPs, increasing PES led to significantly higher cyclic SOC variations and SOC advancement for both propane and methane. Finally, the engine ignition delay (EID), defined as the separation between the start of injection (SOI) and the location of 50% of the cumulative heat release, was also shown to be a useful metric to understand the influence of ID on dual fuel combustion. Dual fuel ID is profoundly affected by the overall equivalence ratio, pilot fuel quantity, BMEP, and PES. At high equivalence ratios, IDs can be quite short, and beyond a certain limit, can lead to premature auto-igniton of the low-cetane fuel (especially for a reactive fuel like propane). Therefore, it is important to quantify dual fuel ID behavior over a range of engine operating conditions.

Author(s):  
A. C. Polk ◽  
C. M. Gibson ◽  
N. T. Shoemaker ◽  
K. K. Srinivasan ◽  
S. R. Krishnan

This paper presents experimental analyses of the ignition delay (ID) behavior for diesel-ignited propane and diesel-ignited methane dual fuel combustion. Two sets of experiments were performed at a constant speed (1800 rev/min) using a 4-cylinder direct injection diesel engine with the stock ECU and a wastegated turbocharger. First, the effects of fuel-air equivalence ratios (Φpilot ∼ 0.2–0.6 and Φoverall ∼ 0.2–0.9) on IDs were quantified. Second, the effects of gaseous fuel percent energy substitution (PES) and brake mean effective pressure (BMEP) (from 2.5 to 10 bar) on IDs were investigated. With constant Φpilot (> 0.5), increasing Φoverall with propane initially decreased ID but eventually led to premature propane autoignition; however, the corresponding effects with methane were relatively minor. Cyclic variations in the start of combustion (SOC) increased with increasing Φoverall (at constant Φpilot), more significantly for propane than for methane. With increasing PES at constant BMEP, the ID showed a nonlinear (initially increasing and later decreasing) trend at low BMEPs for propane but a linearly decreasing trend at high BMEPs. For methane, increasing PES only increased IDs at all BMEPs. At low BMEPs, increasing PES led to significantly higher cyclic SOC variations and SOC advancement for both propane and methane. Finally, the engine ignition delay (EID) was also shown to be a useful metric to understand the influence of ID on dual fuel combustion.


2021 ◽  
pp. 146808742110419
Author(s):  
Prabhat R Jha ◽  
Kendyl R Partridge ◽  
Sundar R Krishnan ◽  
Kalyan K Srinivasan

In this study, cyclic variations in dual fuel combustion with diesel ignition of three different low reactivity fuels (methane, propane, and gasoline) are examined under identical operating conditions. Experiments were performed on a single cylinder research engine (SCRE) at a low load of 3.3 bar brake mean effective pressure (BMEP). The start of injection (SOI) of diesel was varied from 280 to 330 absolute crank angle degrees (CAD). Engine speed, rail pressure, and boost pressure were held constant at 1500 rpm, 500 bar, and 1.5 bar, respectively. The energy substituted by the low reactivity fuel was fixed at 80% of the total energy input. It was found that diesel-methane (DM) and diesel-propane (DP) combustion were affected by diesel mixing to a greater extent than diesel-gasoline (DG) combustion due to the higher reactivity of gasoline. The magnitude of low temperature heat release was greatest for DG combustion followed by DM and DP combustion for all SOIs. The ignition delay for DG combustion was the shortest, followed by DM and DP combustion. DM and DP combustion exhibited more cyclic variations than DG combustion. Cyclic variations decreased for DM and DP combustion when SOI was advanced; however, DG combustion cyclic variations remained essentially constant for all SOIs. Earlier SOIs (280, 290, 300, and 310 CAD) for DM and (280, 290, and 300 CAD) for DP combustion indicated some prior-cycle effects on the combustion and IMEP (i.e. some level of determinism).


Author(s):  
Mahdiar Khosravi ◽  
Jeremy Rochussen ◽  
Jeff Yeo ◽  
Patrick Kirchen ◽  
Gordon McTaggart-Cowan ◽  
...  

Its inherent economic and environmental advantages as an internal combustion engine fuel make natural gas (NG) an attractive alternative to diesel fuel as the primary energy source for some compression ignition (CI) engine applications. Diesel pilot-ignition of NG is an attractive fueling strategy as it typically requires minimal modification of existing CI engines. Furthermore, this strategy makes use of the highly developed direct injection (DI) diesel fuel systems already employed on modern CI engines for to control dual-fuel (DF) combustion. Despite the increasing popularity of the dual-fuel NG engine concept, the fundamental understanding of the fuel conversion mechanisms and the impact of the fueling parameters is still incomplete. A conceptual understanding of the relevant physics is necessary for further development of fueling and pilot-ignition strategies to address the shortcomings of dual-fuel combustion, such as low-load emissions and combustion stability. An experimental facility supporting optical diagnostics via a Bowditch piston arrangement in a 2-litre, single-cylinder research engine (Ricardo Proteus) was used in this study to consider the effect of fueling parameters on the fuel conversion process in a dual fuel engine. Fueling was achieved with port injected CH4 and diesel direct injection using a common rail system. Simultaneous, high-speed natural luminosity (NL) and OH* chemiluminescence imaging was used to characterize dual-fuel combustion and the influence of pilot injection pressure (300 bar vs. 1300 bar) and relative diesel-CH4 ratios (pilot ratio, PR), as these have been noted as key operating dual-fuel control metrics. The pilot injection pressure was observed to have a significant impact on the fuel conversion process. At higher pilot injection pressures, the auto-ignition sites were concentrated around the piston bowl periphery and the reaction zone propagated towards the center of the bowl. At lower pilot injection pressures, ignition initiated in the vicinity of the pilot fuel jet structures and resulted in a more heterogeneous fuel conversion process with regions of intense natural luminosity, attributed to particulate matter. An increase in the pilot ratio (i.e., increased diesel fraction) resulted in a more aggressive combustion event, due to a larger fraction of energy released in a premixed auto-ignition event. This was coupled with a decrease in the fraction of the combustion chamber with significant OH* or NL light emission, indicating incomplete fuel conversion in these regions. The insight to the dual-fuel conversion processes presented in this work will be ultimately used to develop dual-fuel injection strategies, as well as provide much needed validation data for modeling efforts.


2021 ◽  
pp. 146808742110183
Author(s):  
Jonathan Martin ◽  
André Boehman

Compression-ignition (CI) engines can produce higher thermal efficiency (TE) and thus lower carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions than spark-ignition (SI) engines. Unfortunately, the overall fuel economy of CI engine vehicles is limited by their emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx) and soot, which must be mitigated with costly, resource- and energy-intensive aftertreatment. NOx and soot could also be mitigated by adding premixed gasoline to complement the conventional, non-premixed direct injection (DI) of diesel fuel in CI engines. Several such “dual-fuel” combustion modes have been introduced in recent years, but these modes are usually studied individually at discrete conditions. This paper introduces a mapping system for dual-fuel CI modes that links together several previously studied modes across a continuous two-dimensional diagram. This system includes the conventional diesel combustion (CDC) and conventional dual-fuel (CDF) modes; the well-explored advanced combustion modes of HCCI, RCCI, PCCI, and PPCI; and a previously discovered but relatively unexplored combustion mode that is herein titled “Piston-split Dual-Fuel Combustion” or PDFC. Tests show that dual-fuel CI engines can simultaneously increase TE and lower NOx and/or soot emissions at high loads through the use of Partial HCCI (PHCCI). At low loads, PHCCI is not possible, but either PDFC or RCCI can be used to further improve NOx and/or soot emissions, albeit at slightly lower TE. These results lead to a “partial dual-fuel” multi-mode strategy of PHCCI at high loads and CDC at low loads, linked together by PDFC. Drive cycle simulations show that this strategy, when tuned to balance NOx and soot reductions, can reduce engine-out CO2 emissions by about 1% while reducing NOx and soot by about 20% each with respect to CDC. This increases emissions of unburnt hydrocarbons (UHC), still in a treatable range (2.0 g/kWh) but five times as high as CDC, requiring changes in aftertreatment strategy.


MTZ worldwide ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 79 (6) ◽  
pp. 60-67
Author(s):  
Florian Sprenger ◽  
Paul Fasching ◽  
Christina Granitz ◽  
Helmut Eichlseder

2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 484-496 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos Guardiola ◽  
Benjamín Pla ◽  
Pau Bares ◽  
Alvin Barbier

This work presents a closed-loop combustion control concept using in-cylinder pressure as a feedback in a dual-fuel combustion engine. At low load, reactivity controlled compression ignition combustion was used while a diffusive dual-fuel combustion was performed at higher loads. The aim of the presented controller is to maintain the indicated mean effective pressure and the combustion phasing at a target value, and to keep the maximum pressure derivative under a limit to avoid engine damage in all the combustion modes by cyclically adapting the injection settings. Various tests were performed at steady-state conditions showing good abilities to fulfil the expected operating conditions but also to reject disturbances such as intake pressure or exhaust gas recirculation variations. Finally, the proposed control strategy was tested during a load transient resulting in a combustion switching-mode and the results exhibited the closed-loop potential for controlling such combustion concept.


Author(s):  
Sascha Andree ◽  
Dmitry Goryntsev ◽  
Martin Theile ◽  
Björn Henke ◽  
Karsten Schleef ◽  
...  

Abstract The simulation of a diesel natural gas dual fuel combustion process is the topic of this paper. Based on a detailed chemical reaction mechanism, which was applied for such a dual fuel combustion, the complete internal combustion engine process was simulated. Two single fuel combustion reaction mechanisms from literature were merged, to consider the simultaneous reaction paths of diesel and natural gas. N-heptane was chosen as a surrogate for diesel. The chemical reaction mechanisms are solved by applying a tabulation method using the software tool AVL Tabkin™. In combination with a Flamelet Generated Manifold (FGM) combustion model, this leads to a reduction of computational effort compared to a direct solving of the reaction mechanism, because of a decoupling of chemistry and flow calculations. Turbulence was modelled using an unsteady Reynolds-Averaged Navier Stokes (URANS) model. In comparison to conventional combustion models, this approach allows for detailed investigations of the complex ignition process of the dual fuel combustion process. The unexpected inversely proportional relationship between start of injection (SOI) and start of combustion (SOC), a later start of injection makes for an earlier combustion of the main load, is only one of these interesting combustion phenomena, which can now be analyzed in detail. Further investigations are done for different engine load points and multiple pilot injection strategies. The simulation results are confirmed by experimental measurements at a medium speed dual fuel single cylinder research engine.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (19) ◽  
pp. 4133 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wang ◽  
Zhang ◽  
Wang ◽  
Han ◽  
Chen

Engine knock has become the prime barrier to significantly improve power density and efficiency of the engines. To further look into the essence of the abnormal combustion, this work studies the working processes of normal combustion and knock combustion under practical engine operating conditions using a three-dimensional computation fluid dynamics (CFD) fluid software CONVERGE (Version 2.3.0, Convergent Science, Inc., Madison, USA). The results show that the tumble in the cylinder is gradually formed with the increase of the valve lift, enhances in the compression stroke and finally is broken due to the extrusion of the piston. The fuel droplets gradually evaporate and move to the intake side under the turbulent and high temperature in the cylinder. During the normal combustion process, the flame propagates faster on the intake side and it facilitates mixture in cylinder combustion. During the knock combustion simulation, the hotspots near the exhaust valve are observed, and the propagating detonation wave caused by multiple hotspots auto-ignition indicates significant effects on knock intensity of in-cylinder pressure.


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