Computational Investigation of Combustion Phasing and Emissions for GDCI Engine Operations

Author(s):  
Mianzhi Wang ◽  
Suya Gao ◽  
Chia-fon F. Lee

The gasoline direct-injection compression-ignition (GDCI) combustion strategy is studied in this work based on the numerically constructed ignition phase curves. Previous research has shown that for GDCI operation, the engine efficiency can reach as high as that of diesel engines yet the NOx and soot emissions can be reduced simultaneously. A comparison between GDCI and diesel operation is made by investigating two combustion regimes, partially premixed combustion (PPC) and conventional direct-injection compression-ignition (DICI). The injection timing, which determines the controllability of GDCI operation, spans over a wide range to study its effect on the combustion phasing. Fundamental processes, such as fuel evaporation, transport, and ignition are used to explain the differences between these two operating regimes. Finally, the effects of heating intake air, boosting intake air pressure, applying warm EGR are also studied. The emissions are correlated to the instantaneous parameters of the mixture at the moment of ignition, providing insights about the fundamental mechanisms of the emission reduction by adopting GDCI combustion.

Author(s):  
Zhang Ming ◽  
Zhong Jun ◽  
Capelli Stefano ◽  
Lubrano Luigi

The development process of a down-sized turbocharged gasoline direct-injection (GDI) engine/vehicle was partially introduced with the focus on particulate matter (PM)/particle number (PN) emission reduction. To achieve this goal, the injection system was upgraded to obtain higher injection pressure. Two types of prototype injectors were designed and compared under critical test conditions. Combined numerical and experimental analysis was made to select the right injector in terms of particle emission. With the selected injector, the effect of injection parameters calibration (injection pressure, start of injection (SOI) timing, number of injection pulses, etc.) on PM/PN emission was illustrated. The number of fuel injection pulses, SOI timing, and injection pressure were found playing the leading role in terms of the particle emission suppression. With single-injection strategy, the injection pressure and SOI timing were found to be a dominant factor to reduce particle emission in warm-up condition and cold condition, respectively; a fine combination of injection timing and injection pressure is generally able to decrease up to 50% of PM emission in a wide range of the engine map. While with multiple injection, up to an order of magnitude PM emission reduction can be achieved. Several New European Driving Cycle (NEDC) emission cycles were arranged on a demo vehicle to evaluate the effect of the injection system upgrade and adjusted calibration. This work will provide a guide for the emission control of GDI engines/vehicles fulfilling future emission legislation.


Author(s):  
Shouvik Dev ◽  
Tongyang Gao ◽  
Xiao Yu ◽  
Mark Ives ◽  
Ming Zheng

Homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) has been considered as an ideal combustion mode for compression ignition (CI) engines due to its superb thermal efficiency and low emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx) and particulate matter. However, a challenge that limits practical applications of HCCI is the lack of control over the combustion rate. Fuel stratification and partially premixed combustion (PPC) have considerably improved the control over the heat release profile with modulations of the ratio between premixed fuel and directly injected fuel, as well as injection timing for ignition initiation. It leverages the advantages of both conventional direct injection compression ignition and HCCI. In this study, neat n-butanol is employed to generate the fuel stratification and PPC in a single cylinder CI engine. A fuel such as n-butanol can provide additional benefits of even lower emissions and can potentially lead to a reduced carbon footprint and improved energy security if produced appropriately from biomass sources. Intake port fuel injection (PFI) of neat n-butanol is used for the delivery of the premixed fuel, while the direct injection (DI) of neat n-butanol is applied to generate the fuel stratification. Effects of PFI-DI fuel ratio, DI timing, and intake pressure on the combustion are studied in detail. Different conditions are identified at which clean and efficient combustion can be achieved at a baseline load of 6 bar IMEP. An extended load of 14 bar IMEP is demonstrated using stratified combustion with combustion phasing control.


Author(s):  
Ratnak Sok ◽  
Jin Kusaka

Abstract Injected gasoline into the O2-depleted environment in the recompression stroke can be converted into light hydrocarbons due to thermal cracking, partial oxidation, and water-gas shift reaction. These reformate species influence the combustion phenomena of gasoline direct injection homogeneous charge compression ignition (GDI-HCCI) engines. In this work, a production-based single-cylinder research engine was boosted to reach IMEPn = 0.55 MPa in which its indicated efficiency peaks at 40–41%. Experimentally, the main combustion phases are advanced under single-pulse direct fuel injection into the negative valve overlap (NVO) compared with that of the intake stroke. NVO peak in-cylinder pressures are lower than that of motoring, which emphasizes that endothermic reaction occurs during the interval. Low O2 concentration could play a role in this evaporative charge cooling effect. This phenomenon limits the oxidation reaction, and the thermal effect is not pronounced. For understanding the recompression reaction phenomena, 0D simulation with three different chemical reaction mechanisms is studied to clarify that influences of direct injection timing in NVO on combustion advancements are kinetically limited by reforming. The 0D results show the same increasing tendencies of classical reformed species of rich-mixture such as C3H6, C2H4, CH4, CO, and H2 as functions of injection timings. By combining these reformed species into the main fuel-air mixture, predicted ignition delays are shortened. The effects of the reformed species on the main combustion are confirmed by 3D-CFD calculation, and the results show that OH radical generation is advanced under NVO fuel injection compared with that of intake stroke conditions thus earlier heat release and cylinder pressure are noticeable. Also, parametric studies on injection pressure and double-pulse injections on engine combustion are performed experimentally.


Author(s):  
Sayop Kim ◽  
Riccardo Scarcelli ◽  
Yunchao Wu ◽  
Johannes Rohwer ◽  
Ashish Shah ◽  
...  

Abstract Lean and dilute gasoline compression ignition (GCI) operation in spark ignition (SI) engines are an attractive strategy to attain high fuel efficiency and low NOx levels. However, this combustion mode is often limited to low-load engine conditions due to the challenges associated with autoignition controllability. In order to overcome this constrain, multi-mode (MM) operating strategies, consisting of advanced compression ignition (ACI) at low load and conventional SI at high load, have been proposed. In this 3-D CFD study the concept of multi-mode combustion using two RON98 gasoline fuel blends (Co-Optima Alkylate and E30) in a gasoline direct injection (GDI) engine were explored. To this end, a new reduced mechanism for simulating the kinetics of E30 fuel blend is introduced in this study. To cover the varying engine load demands for multi-mode engines, primary combustion dynamics observed in ACI and SI combustion modes was characterized and validated against experimental measurements. In order to implement part-load conditions, a strategy of mode-transition between SI and ACI combustion (i.e., mixed-mode combustion) was then explored numerically by creating a virtual test condition. The results obtained from the mixed-mode simulations highlight an important feature that deflagrative flame propagation regime coexists with ignition-assisted end-gas autoignition. This study also identifies a role of turbulent flow property adjacent to premixed flame front in characterizing the mixed-mode combustion. The employed hybrid combustion model was verified to perform simulations aiming at suitable range of multi-mode engine operations.


Author(s):  
Zuohua Huang ◽  
Seiichi Shiga ◽  
Takamasa Ueda ◽  
Nobuhisa Jingu ◽  
Hisao Nakamura ◽  
...  

Abstract Effect of fuel injection timing relative to ignition timing on natural gas direct-injection combustion was studied by using a rapid compression machine. The ignition timing was fixed at 80 ms from the compression start. When the injection timing was relatively earlier (injection start at 60 ms), the heat release pattern showed slower burn in the initial stage and faster burn in the late stage, which is similar to that of flame propagation of a premixed gas. In contrast to this, when the injection timing was relatively later (injection start at 75 ms), the heat release rate showed faster burn in the initial stage and slower burn in the late stage, which is similar to that of diesel combustion. The shortest duration was realized at the injection end timing of 80 ms (the same timing as the ignition timing) over the wide range of equivalence ratio. The degree of charge stratification and the intensity of turbulence generated by the fuel jet is considered to cause these behaviors. Earlier injection leads to longer duration of the initial combustion, whereas the later injection does longer duration of the late combustion. Earlier injection showed relatively lower CO emission while later injection produces relatively lower NOx emission. It was suggested that earlier injection leads to lower mixture stratification combustion and later injection leads to higher mixture stratification combustion. Combustion efficiency maintained high value over the wide range of equivalence ratio.


Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (20) ◽  
pp. 5790 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barouch Giechaskiel ◽  
Tero Lähde ◽  
Ricardo Suarez-Bertoa ◽  
Victor Valverde ◽  
Michael Clairotte

For the type approval of compression ignition (diesel) and gasoline direct injection vehicles, a particle number (PN) limit of 6 × 1011 p/km is applicable. Diesel vehicles in circulation need to pass a periodical technical inspection (PTI) test, typically every two years, after the first four years of circulation. However, often the applicable smoke tests or on-board diagnostic (OBD) fault checks cannot identify malfunctions of the diesel particulate filters (DPFs). There are also serious concerns that a few high emitters are responsible for the majority of the emissions. For these reasons, a new PTI procedure at idle run with PN systems is under investigation. The correlations between type approval cycles and idle emissions are limited, especially for positive (spark) ignition vehicles. In this study the type approval PN emissions of 32 compression ignition and 56 spark ignition vehicles were compared to their idle PN concentrations from laboratory and on-road tests. The results confirmed that the idle test is applicable for diesel vehicles. The scatter for the spark ignition vehicles was much larger. Nevertheless, the proposed limit for diesel vehicles was also shown to be applicable for these vehicles. The technical specifications of the PTI sensors based on these findings were also discussed.


Energies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (10) ◽  
pp. 1845 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haifeng Liu ◽  
Xichang Wang ◽  
Diping Zhang ◽  
Fang Dong ◽  
Xinlu Liu ◽  
...  

The effects of three kinds of oxygenated fuel blends—i.e., ethanol-gasoline, n-butanol-gasoline, and 2,5-dimethylfuran (DMF)-gasoline-on fuel consumption, emissions, and acceleration performance were investigated in a passenger car with a chassis dynamometer. The engine mounted in the vehicle was a four-cylinder, four-stroke, turbocharging gasoline direct injection (GDI) engine with a displacement of 1.395 L. The test fuels include ethanol-gasoline, n-butanol-gasoline, and DMF-gasoline with four blending ratios of 20%, 50%, 75%, and 100%, and pure gasoline was also tested for comparison. The original contribution of this article is to systemically study the steady-state, transient-state, cold-start, and acceleration performance of the tested fuels under a wide range of blending ratios, especially at high blending ratios. It provides new insight and knowledge of the emission alleviation technique in terms of tailoring the biofuels in GDI turbocharged engines. The results of our works showed that operation with ethanol–gasoline, n-butanol–gasoline, and DMF–gasoline at high blending ratios could be realized in the GDI vehicle without any modification to its engine and the control system at the steady state. At steady-state operation, as compared with pure gasoline, the results indicated that blending n-butanol could reduce CO2, CO, total hydrocarbon (THC), and NOX emissions, which were also decreased by employing a higher blending ratio of n-butanol. However, a high fraction of n-butanol increased the volumetric fuel consumption, and so did the DMF–gasoline and ethanol–gasoline blends. A large fraction of DMF reduced THC emissions, but increased CO2 and NOX emissions. Blending n-butanol can improve the equivalent fuel consumption. Moreover, the particle number (PN) emissions were significantly decreased when using the high blending ratios of the three kinds of oxygenated fuels. According to the results of the New European Drive Cycle (NEDC) cycle, blending 20% of n-butanol with gasoline decreased CO2 emissions by 5.7% compared with pure gasoline and simultaneously reduced CO, THC, NOX emissions, while blending ethanol only reduced NOX emissions. PN and particulate matter (PM) emissions decreased significantly in all stages of the NEDC cycle with the oxygenated fuel blends; the highest reduction ratio in PN was 72.87% upon blending 20% ethanol at the NEDC cycle. The high proportion of n-butanol and DMF improved the acceleration performance of the vehicle.


Author(s):  
Doohyun Kim ◽  
Angela Violi ◽  
André Boehman

Increased Particulate Matter (PM) emissions from Gasoline Direct Injection (GDI) engines compared to conventional Port Fuel Injection (PFI) engines have been raising concerns because of the PM’s detrimental health effects and the stringent emissions regulations. One of the widely accepted hypotheses is that local rich pockets inside the combustion chamber are the primary reason for the increased PM emissions. In this paper, we investigate the effects of injection strategies on the charge composition and local thermodynamic conditions of a light duty GDI engine, and determine their impact on PM emissions. The operation of a 1.6L GDI engine is simulated using a 3-D Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) code. Combustion characteristics of a 3-component gasoline surrogate (n-heptane/iso-octane/toluene) are analyzed and the effects of injection timing (300° vs 240° vs 180° BTDC) and injected fuel mass (globally stoichiometric vs fuel rich) are explored at 2000 rpm, 9.5 bar BMEP condition, focusing on the homogeneity of the charge and the formation of the gaseous species that are soot precursors. The results indicate that when the physical time for air/fuel mixing is not long enough, fuel-rich pockets are present until combustion occurs, where high concentrations of soot precursors are found, such as acetylene and pyrene. In addition, simulation results indicate that the location of wetted surface as well as the in-cylinder flow structure induced by the fuel jet hitting the piston bowl is significantly influenced by varying the injection timing, which affects subsequent air/fuel mixing. When the injected fuel mass is increased, the equivalence ratio distribution inside the combustion chamber shifts toward fuel-rich side, generating more mixtures with Φ > 1.5, where formation of acetylene and pyrene are favored.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document