Thermodynamic analysis of using ethanol-methanol-gasoline (GEM) blends in a turbocharged, spark-ignition engine

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-28
Author(s):  
Hongqing Feng ◽  
Shuwen Xiao ◽  
Zhirong Nan ◽  
Di Wang ◽  
Chaohe Yang

Abstract Low-carbon alcohols have been universally acknowledged as an alternative to fossil fuel in the world, which is environmentally friendly and clean. In this paper, the detailed exergy and energy analysis were carried out on a turbocharged, spark-ignition (SI) engine fueled with methanol-ethanol-gasoline (GEM) under non-knock conditions. The results indicated that increasing the alcohols proportion in blends could slightly improve the exergy efficiency and thermal efficiency and increase the percentage of total irreversibility in the total exergy. The thermal efficiency and exergy efficiency increased to a maximum value and then decreased, while the proportion of total irreversibility in the total exergy increased significantly with the spark timing retarded from the earliest timing. The exergy efficiency and thermal efficiency increased as the engine load increased. Additionally, the total irreversibility increased but the proportion of total irreversibility in the total exergy presented a trend of decreasing as the engine load increased.

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (14) ◽  
pp. 6379
Author(s):  
Donatas Kriaučiūnas ◽  
Saugirdas Pukalskas ◽  
Alfredas Rimkus ◽  
Dalibor Barta

Biogas is one of the alternative solutions that could reduce the usage of fossil fuels and production of greenhouse gas emissions, as biogas is considered as an alternative fuel with a short carbon cycle. During biogas production, organic matter is decomposed during an anaerobic digestion process. Biogas mainly consists of methane and carbon dioxide, of which the ratio varies depending on the raw material and parameters of the production process. Therefore, engine parameters should be adjusted in relationship with biogas composition. In this research, a spark ignition engine was tested for mixtures of biogas with 0 vol%, 20 vol%, 40 vol% and 50 vol% of CO2. In all experiments, two cases of spark timing (ST) were used; the first one is a constant spark timing (26 crank angle degrees (CAD) before top dead center (BTDC)) and the second one is an advanced spark timing (optimal for biogas mixture). Results show that increasing the CO2 concentration and using constant spark timing increases the mass burned fraction combustion duration by 90%, reduces the in-cylinder pressure and leads to a reduction in the brake thermal efficiency and nitrogen oxides emissions at all measurement points. However, the choice of optimal spark timing increases the brake thermal efficiency as well as hydrocarbon and CO2 emission.


Author(s):  
Sachin Kumar Gupta ◽  
Mayank Mittal

Biogas is a promising alternative fuel to reduce the consumption of petroleum-based fuels in internal combustion (IC) engines. In this work, the effect of various biogas compositions on the performance, combustion, and emission characteristics of a spark-ignition (SI) engine is investigated. Additionally, the effect of Wobbe index (WI) of various fuel compositions was also evaluated on the operational limits of the engine. While considering a wide range of biogas compositions (including bio-methane), the percentage of carbon dioxide (CO2) (in a blend of methane and CO2) was increased from 0 to 50% (by volume). A single-cylinder, water-cooled, SI engine was operated at 1500 rpm over a wide range of operating loads with compression ratio of 8.5:1. With the increase in WI of the fuel, both low (limited by coefficient of variation (COV) of indicated mean effective pressure (IMEP)) and high (limited by pre-ignition) operating loads were decreased; however, it was found that the overall operating range was increased. Results also showed that for a given operating load, with the increase of CO2 percentage in the fuel, the brake thermal efficiency was decreased, and the flame initiation and combustion durations were increased. The brake thermal efficiency was decreased from 16.8% to 13.7%, when CO2 was increased from 0% to 40% in methane–CO2 mixture at 8 N·m load. Concerning to emissions, a considerable decrease was noted in nitric oxide, whereas hydrocarbon, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide emissions were increased, with the increase in CO2 percentage.


Author(s):  
A. Manivannan ◽  
R. Ramprabhu ◽  
P. Tamilporai ◽  
S. Chandrasekaran

This paper deals with Numerical Study of 4-stoke, Single cylinder, Spark Ignition, Extended Expansion Lean Burn Engine. Engine processes are simulated using thermodynamic and global modeling techniques. In the simulation study following process are considered compression, combustion, and expansion. Sub-models are used to include effect due to gas exchange process, heat transfer and friction. Wiebe heat release formula was used to predict the cylinder pressure, which was used to find out the indicated work done. The heat transfer from the cylinder, friction and pumping losses also were taken into account to predict the brake mean effective pressure, brake thermal efficiency and brake specific fuel consumption. Extended Expansion Engine operates on Otto-Atkinson cycle. Late Intake Valve Closure (LIVC) technique is used to control the load. The Atkinson cycle has lager expansion ratio than compression ratio. This is achieved by increasing the geometric compression ratio and employing LIVC. Simulation result shows that there is an increase in thermal efficiency up to a certain limit of intake valve closure timing. Optimum performance is attained at 90 deg intake valve closure (IVC) timing further delaying the intake valve closure reduces the engine performance.


Author(s):  
Hailin Li ◽  
Ghazi A. Karim ◽  
A. Sohrabi

The operation of spark ignition (SI) engines on lean mixtures is attractive, in principle, since it can provide improved fuel economy, reduced tendency to knock, and extremely low NOx emissions. However, the associated flame propagation rates become degraded significantly and drop sharply as the operating mixture is made increasingly leaner. Consequently, there exist distinct operational lean mixture limits beyond which satisfactory engine performance cannot be maintained due to the resulting prolonged and unstable combustion processes. This paper presents experimental data obtained in a single cylinder, variable compression ratio, SI engine when operated in turn on methane, hydrogen, carbon monoxide, gasoline, iso-octane, and some of their binary mixtures. A quantitative approach for determining the operational limits of SI engines is proposed. The lean limits thus derived are compared and validated against the corresponding experimental results obtained using more traditional approaches. On this basis, the dependence of the values of the lean mixture operational limits on the composition of the fuel mixtures is investigated and discussed. The operational limit for throttled operation with methane as the fuel is also established.


2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 168781401668884 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yu Li ◽  
Jinke Gong ◽  
Wenhua Yuan ◽  
Jun Fu ◽  
Bin Zhang ◽  
...  

Ethanol is known as the most widely used alternative fuel for spark-ignition engines. Compared to it, butanol has proved to be a very promising renewable fuel in recent years for desirable properties. The conjoint analysis on combustion, performance, and emissions characteristics of a port fuel injection spark-ignition engine fueled with butanol–gasoline blends was carried out. In comparison with butanol–gasoline blends with various butanol ratio (0–60 vol% referred as G100~B60) and conventional alcohol alternative fuels (methanol, ethanol, and butanol)–gasoline blends, it shows that B30 performs well in engine performance and emissions, including brake thermal efficiency, brake-specific fuel consumption, carbon monoxide, unburned hydrocarbons, and nitrogen oxides. Then, B30 was compared with G100 under various equivalence ratios ( Φ = 0.83–1.25) and engine loads (3 and 5-bar brake mean effective pressure). In summary, B30 presents an advanced combustion phasing, which leads to a 0.3%–2.8% lower brake thermal efficiency than G100 as the engine was running at the spark timing of gasoline’s maximum brake torque (MBT). Therefore, the sparking timing should be postponed when fueled with butanol–gasoline blends. For emissions, the lower carbon monoxide (2.3%–8.7%), unburned hydrocarbons (12.4%–27.5%), and nitrogen oxides (2.8%–19.6%) were shown for B30 compared with G100. Therefore, butanol could be a good alternative fuel to gasoline for its potential to improve combustion efficiency and reduce pollutant emissions.


Author(s):  
Mehrnoosh Dashti ◽  
Ali Asghar Hamidi ◽  
Ali Asghar Mozafari

With the declining energy resources and increase of pollutant emissions, a great deal of efforts has been focused on the development of alternatives for fossil fuels. One of the promising alternative fuels to gasoline in the internal combustion engine is natural gas [1–5]. The application of natural gas in current internal combustion engines is realistic due to its many benefits. The higher thermal efficiency due to the higher octane value and lower exhaust emissions including CO2 as a result of the lower carbon to hydrogen ratio of the fuel are the two important feature of using CNG as an alternative fuel. It is well known that computer simulation codes are valuable economically as a cost effective tool for design and analysis of the engine operations. In the present work the use of an exiting spark ignition engine to run on both gasoline and CNG is evaluated by thermodynamic simulation of the engine cycle. The stepwise calculations for pressure and temperature of the cylinder at compression process, ignition delay time, combustion and expansion processes have been considered. The first law of thermodynamics is applied for all steps and Newton-Raphson method is used for the numerical solution. Temperature dependent specific heat capacity and as a result specific enthalpy, entropy, internal energy and specific Gibbs functions are calculated in each step. Two zones model for the combustion process simulation has been used and the mass burning rate is predicted by considering the propagation of the flame front spherically. The performance characteristics including power, IMEP, ISFC, thermal efficiency and emissions concentration of SI engine on both gasoline and CNG fuel are determined by the model. In order to validate the model, the results are compared with the corresponding experimental data. It is found that the simulated results show reasonable agreement with the experimental data.


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