Improving the Efficiency of Low Temperature Combustion Engines Using a Chamfered Ring-Land

Author(s):  
Jae Hyung Lim ◽  
Rolf D. Reitz

In the present study a chamfered piston crown design was used in order to reduce unburned hydrocarbon (UHC) emissions from the ring-pack crevice. Compared to the conventional piston design, the chamfered piston showed 17%∼41% reduction in the crevice-borne UHC emissions in homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) combustion. Through parametric sweeps 6 mm was identified to be a suitable chamfer size and the mechanism of the UHC reduction was revealed. Based on the findings in this study, the chamfered piston design was also tested in dual-fuel reactivity controlled compression ignition (RCCI) combustion. In the tested RCCI case using the chamfered piston the UHC and CO emissions were reduced by 79% and 36%, respectively, achieving 99.5% combustion efficiency. This also improved gross indicated thermal efficiency from 51.1% to 51.8% in a 9 bar IMEP RCCI combustion case.

Author(s):  
Jae Hyung Lim ◽  
Rolf D. Reitz

In the present study, a chamfered piston crown design was used in order to reduce unburned hydrocarbon (UHC) emissions from the ring-pack crevice. Compared to the conventional piston design, the chamfered piston showed 17–41% reduction in the crevice-borne UHC emissions in homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) combustion. Through parametric sweeps 6 mm was identified to be a suitable chamfer size and the mechanism of the UHC reduction was revealed. Based on the findings in this study, the chamfered piston design was also tested in dual-fuel reactivity controlled compression ignition (RCCI) combustion. In the tested RCCI case using the chamfered piston the UHC and CO emissions were reduced by 79% and 36%, respectively, achieving 99.5% combustion efficiency. This also improved gross indicated thermal efficiency (gITE) from 51.1% to 51.8% in a 9 bar indicated mean effective pressure (IMEP) RCCI combustion case.


Author(s):  
Lorenzo Bartolucci ◽  
Stefano Cordiner ◽  
Vincenzo Mulone ◽  
Sundar R. Krishnan ◽  
Kalyan K. Srinivasan

Abstract Dual fuel diesel-methane low temperature combustion (LTC) has been investigated by various research groups, showing high potential for emissions reduction (especially oxides of nitrogen (NOx) and particulate matter (PM)) without adversely affecting fuel conversion efficiency in comparison with conventional diesel combustion. However, when operated at low load conditions, dual fuel LTC typically exhibit poor combustion efficiencies. This behavior is mainly due to low bulk gas temperatures under lean conditions, resulting in unacceptably high carbon monoxide (CO) and unburned hydrocarbon (UHC) emissions. A feasible and rather innovative solution may be to split the pilot injection of liquid fuel into two injection pulses, with the second pilot injection supporting the methane combustion once the process is initiated by the first one. In this work, diesel-methane dual fuel LTC is investigated numerically in a single-cylinder heavy-duty engine operating at 5 bar brake mean effective pressure (BMEP) at 85% and 75% percentage of energy substitution (PES) by methane (taken as a natural gas surrogate). A multidimensional model is first validated in comparison with experimental data obtained on the same single-cylinder engine for early single pilot diesel injection at 310 CAD and 500 bar rail pressure. With the single pilot injection case as baseline, the effects of multiple pilot injections and different rail pressures on combustion emissions are investigated, again showing good agreement with experimental data. Apparent heat release rate and cylinder pressure histories as well as combustion efficiency trends are correctly captured by the numerical model. Results prove that higher rail pressures yield reductions of HC and CO by 90% and 75%, respectively, at the expense of NOx emissions, which increase by ∼30% from baseline. Furthermore, it is shown that post-injection during the expansion stroke does not support the stable development of the combustion front as the combustion process is confined close to the diesel spray core.


2020 ◽  
Vol 143 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorenzo Bartolucci ◽  
Stefano Cordiner ◽  
Vincenzo Mulone ◽  
Sundar R. Krishnan ◽  
Kalyan K. Srinivasan

Abstract Dual-fuel diesel–methane low-temperature combustion (LTC) has been investigated by various research groups, showing high potential for emissions reduction (especially oxides of nitrogen oxide (NOx) and particulate matter (PM)) without adversely affecting fuel conversion efficiency in comparison with conventional diesel combustion. However, when operated at low load conditions, dual-fuel LTC typically exhibits poor combustion efficiencies. This behavior is mainly due to low bulk gas temperatures under lean conditions, resulting in unacceptably high carbon monoxide (CO) and unburned hydrocarbon (UHC) emissions. A feasible and rather innovative solution may be to split the pilot injection of liquid fuel into two injection pulses, with the second pilot injection supporting CO and UHC oxidation once combustion is initiated by the first one. In this study, diesel–methane dual-fuel LTC is investigated numerically in a single-cylinder heavy-duty engine operating at 5 bar brake mean effective pressure (BMEP) at 85% and 75% percentage of energy substitution (PES) by methane (taken as a natural gas (NG) surrogate). A multidimensional model is first validated in comparison with the experimental data obtained on the same single-cylinder engine for early single pilot diesel injection at 310 crank angle degrees (CAD) and 500 bar rail pressure. With the single pilot injection case as baseline, the effects of multiple pilot injections and different rail pressures on combustion and emissions are investigated, again showing good agreement with the experimental data. Apparent heat release rate and cylinder pressure histories as well as combustion efficiency trends are correctly captured by the numerical model. Results prove that higher rail pressures yield reductions of HC and CO by 90% and 75%, respectively, at the expense of NOx emissions, which increase by ∼30% from baseline still remaining at very low level (under 1 g/kWh). Furthermore, it is shown that postinjection during the expansion stroke does not support the stable development of the combustion front as the combustion process is confined close to the diesel spray core.


Author(s):  
Shouvik Dev ◽  
Prasad Divekar ◽  
Kelvin Xie ◽  
Xiaoye Han ◽  
Xiang Chen ◽  
...  

Reduction of engine-out NOx emissions to ultra-low levels is facilitated by enabling low temperature combustion (LTC) strategies. However, there is a significant energy penalty in terms of combustion efficiency as evidenced by the high levels of hydrocarbon (HC), carbon monoxide (CO), and hydrogen emissions. In this work, the net fuel energy lost as a result of incomplete combustion in two different LTC regimes is studied—partially premixed compression ignition (PPCI) using in-cylinder injection of diesel fuel and reactivity controlled compression ignition (RCCI) of port injected gasoline and direct injected diesel. A detailed analysis of the incomplete combustion products was conducted. Test results indicated that carbon monoxide (CO), hydrogen, and light hydrocarbon (HC) made up for most of the combustion in-efficiency in the PPCI mode, while heavier HC and aromatics were significantly higher in the RCCI mode.


Author(s):  
A. Gharehghani ◽  
M. Mirsalim ◽  
A. Jazayeri ◽  
R. Hosseini

Low Temperature combustion (LTC) strategies are capable of simultaneous reduction in NOx and particulate matter (PM) emissions. However, this combustion process generally leads to higher HC and CO emissions together with more cyclic variation (unstable combustion) especially at light engine loads. These emissions could drastically be reduced using certain alternative fuels like natural gas and biodiesel in LTC or PCI combustion engines. In the present research, a single cylinder compression ignition engine has been modified to operate in dual fuel mode with natural gas injection into the intake manifold as the main fuel and biodiesel as the pilot fuel to ignite the gas/air mixture. The combustion characteristics, engine performance and exhaust emissions of the reactivity controlled compression ignition (RCCI) dual fueled CNG/biodiesel engine are investigated and compared with the conventional diesel engine mode at various load conditions. The analysis of the results revealed that biodiesel as the high reactivity fuel in RCCI mode leads to higher in-cylinder pressure together with shorter heat release rate duration, compared to the common diesel engine. Experimental results indicated that combining the low temperature combustion concept and alternative fuels (e.g. biodiesel and naturals gas) causes lower levels of unburned hydrocarbon (UHC) and carbon monoxide (CO) as well as nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions.


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