Experimental Investigation and Numerical Modeling of Spray Combustion and Emission in a Diesel Engine

Author(s):  
Xiao-Bei Cheng ◽  
Rong-Hua Huang ◽  
Wang Zhi ◽  
Mei-Lin Zhu

An improved multi-dimensional CFD code has been employed to simulate the spray, combustion and pollution formation process within a diesel engine cylinder. The computational results are compared with experimental data from an optical high-speed research engine equipped with a high-pressure injection system. Several spray sub-models have been implemented into the code, and their influence on the predicted droplet characteristic was evaluated. These models account for liquid core atomization, droplet secondary breakup, spray/wall interaction, droplet turbulent dispersion and evaporation. These models improve the prediction of the droplet sizes within a diesel spray and provides a more accurate initial condition for the evaporation, combustion models. The combustion sub-model employed has two components: one for predicting auto-ignition and one for computing the subsequent combustion of the ignited gas. Thermal NOx formation is calculated according to the extended Zeldovich mechanism, which gives the NOx formation as a function of temperature and O, H and OH radical concentrations. Soot formation process adopted in present study is modeled according to a hybrid chemical kinetics/turbulent mixing controlled rate expression. For the engine configurations and operating conditions considered, in most case the calculated cylinder averaged results show good agreement between measured and global pressure, heat release rate and emission data, but in some case they have limitations. Discrepancies are highlighted and possible reasons suggested. The major influences of the injection timing and combustion chamber geometry on the pollutant formation processes have been identified. The calculated results provide a detailed insight into the processes governing combustion and pollutant formation in spray flames under diesel engine conditions. The good agreement indicates that computer models are available for use by the engine industry to provide directions for engine design.

Author(s):  
Dimitrios T. Hountalas ◽  
Spiridon Raptotasios ◽  
Antonis Antonopoulos ◽  
Stavros Daniolos ◽  
Iosif Dolaptzis ◽  
...  

Currently the most promising solution for marine propulsion is the two-stroke low-speed diesel engine. Start of Injection (SOI) is of significant importance for these engines due to its effect on firing pressure and specific fuel consumption. Therefore these engines are usually equipped with Variable Injection Timing (VIT) systems for variation of SOI with load. Proper operation of these systems is essential for both safe engine operation and performance since they are also used to control peak firing pressure. However, it is rather difficult to evaluate the operation of VIT system and determine the required rack settings for a specific SOI angle without using experimental techniques, which are extremely expensive and time consuming. For this reason in the present work it is examined the use of on-board monitoring and diagnosis techniques to overcome this difficulty. The application is conducted on a commercial vessel equipped with a two-stroke engine from which cylinder pressure measurements were acquired. From the processing of measurements acquired at various operating conditions it is determined the relation between VIT rack position and start of injection angle. This is used to evaluate the VIT system condition and determine the required settings to achieve the desired SOI angle. After VIT system tuning, new measurements were acquired from the processing of which results were derived for various operating parameters, i.e. brake power, specific fuel consumption, heat release rate, start of combustion etc. From the comparative evaluation of results before and after VIT adjustment it is revealed an improvement of specific fuel consumption while firing pressure remains within limits. It is thus revealed that the proposed method has the potential to overcome the disadvantages of purely experimental trial and error methods and that its use can result to fuel saving with minimum effort and time. To evaluate the corresponding effect on NOx emissions, as required by Marpol Annex-VI regulation a theoretical investigation is conducted using a multi-zone combustion model. Shop-test and NOx-file data are used to evaluate its ability to predict engine performance and NOx emissions before conducting the investigation. Moreover, the results derived from the on-board cylinder pressure measurements, after VIT system tuning, are used to evaluate the model’s ability to predict the effect of SOI variation on engine performance. Then the simulation model is applied to estimate the impact of SOI advance on NOx emissions. As revealed NOx emissions remain within limits despite the SOI variation (increase).


2021 ◽  
pp. 146808742110012
Author(s):  
Nicola Giramondi ◽  
Anders Jäger ◽  
Daniel Norling ◽  
Anders Christiansen Erlandsson

Thanks to its properties and production pathways, ethanol represents a valuable alternative to fossil fuels, with potential benefits in terms of CO2, NOx, and soot emission reduction. The resistance to autoignition of ethanol necessitates an ignition trigger in compression-ignition engines for heavy-duty applications, which in the current study is a diesel pilot injection. The simultaneous direct injection of pure ethanol as main fuel and diesel as pilot fuel through separate injectors is experimentally investigated in a heavy-duty single cylinder engine at a low and a high load point. The influence of the nozzle hole number and size of the diesel pilot injector on ethanol combustion and engine performance is evaluated based on an injection timing sweep using three diesel injector configurations. The tested configurations have the same geometric total nozzle area for one, two and four diesel sprays. The relative amount of ethanol injected is swept between 78 – 89% and 91 – 98% on an energy basis at low and high load, respectively. The results show that mixing-controlled combustion of ethanol is achieved with all tested diesel injector configurations and that the maximum combustion efficiency and variability levels are in line with conventional diesel combustion. The one-spray diesel injector is the most robust trigger for ethanol ignition, as it allows to limit combustion variability and to achieve higher combustion efficiencies compared to the other diesel injector configurations. However, the two- and four-spray diesel injectors lead to higher indicated efficiency levels. The observed difference in the ethanol ignition dynamics is evaluated and compared to conventional diesel combustion. The study broadens the knowledge on ethanol mixing-controlled combustion in heavy-duty engines at various operating conditions, providing the insight necessary for the optimization of the ethanol-diesel dual-injection system.


Author(s):  
Hongqiang Yang ◽  
Shijin Shuai ◽  
Zhi Wang ◽  
Jianxin Wang

Partially premixed compression ignition (PPCI) and multiple premixed compression ignition (MPCI) mode of straight-run naphtha have been investigated under different injection strategies. The MPCI mode is realized by the multiple premixed combustion processes in a sequence of “spray-combustion-spray-combustion” around the compression top dead center. The spray and combustion events are preferred to be completely separated, without any overlap in the temporal sequence in order to ensure the multiple-stage premixed compression ignition. The PPCI mode is well known as the “spray-spray-combustion” sequence, with the start of combustion separated from the end of injection. Straight-run naphtha with a research octane number (RON) of 58.8 is tested in a single cylinder compression ignition engine whose compression ratio is 16.7 and displacement is 0.5 l. Double and triple injection strategies are investigated as the last injection timing sweeping at 1.0 MPa IMEP and 1800 rpm conditions. The MPCI mode is achieved using the double injection strategy, but its soot emission is higher than the PPCI mode under triple injection strategy. This is mainly because of the lower RON of the straight-run naphtha and the ignition delay is too short to form an ideally premixed combustion process after the second injection of straight-run naphtha. Diesel fuel is also tested under the same operating conditions, except for employing a single injection strategy. The naphtha PPCI and MPCI mode both have lower fuel consumption and soot emission than diesel fuel single injection mode, but the THC emissions are both higher than that of diesel fuel.


Author(s):  
Michael J. Bergin ◽  
Rolf D. Reitz

CFD simulations were conducted with the KIVA-3v code with improved spray and combustion sub-models. Combustion analysis was performed using micro-genetic optimizations for a 1.9L HSDI diesel engine at a high load operating conditions (∼15 bar imep). The study explored injector spray configurations, including the number of injector nozzle holes, the hole diameters, and their orientations. The engine swirl ratio and start-of-injection timing were also varied. The optimizations considered injector nozzles with 14, 12, 10 and 8 injector holes. Each configuration included consideration of a pair of injector holes. Variations in the orientation angle of the first hole were explored. For the second hole, both the orientation angle and the azimuthal spacing relative to the first hole were varied. The chosen parameters allowed the holes to be symmetrically spaced or coincident azimuthally. The performance of each simulation was based on a merit function which accounts for fuel economy, NOx and soot emissions. For the test conditions chosen, an 8-hole injector configuration was found to be the best. This is explained by the improved fuel spray penetration and mixing associated with a smaller number of large diameter nozzle holes. For all injector configurations, the optima selected groups of holes where the total angular spacing between holes was less than eight degrees. The optimum swirl ratio found was approximately that of the baseline engine design.


Author(s):  
Eduardo Barrientos ◽  
Ivan Bortel ◽  
Michal Takats ◽  
Jiri Vavra

Engine induced swirl improves mixing of fuel and air and at optimal values accelerates burn, improves the combustion stability and can decrease particulate matter (PM). However, swirl increases convective heat loss and cylinder charge loss and could increase nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions. High intensity of swirl could impede flame development and increases emissions of total hydrocarbons (THC) and carbon monoxide (CO). Therefore, careful and smart selection of optimal swirl values is paramount in order to obtain beneficial impact on combustion and emissions performance. This study is conducted on a 0.5L single cylinder research engine with common rail (CR) diesel injection system, with parameters corresponding to modern engines of passenger cars. The engine has three separate ports in the cylinder head. The change of swirl ratio is defined by closing appropriate ports. There are three levels of swirl ratio under study — 1.7, 2.9 and 4.5, corresponding to low, medium and high swirl levels respectively. This study highlights the influence of intake induced swirl on combustion parameters and emissions. Assessed combustion parameters are, among others, heat release rate, cylinder pressure rise and indicated mean effective pressure. Assessed emissions are standard gaseous emissions and smoke, with emphasis on PM emissions. An engine speed of 1500 rpm was selected, which well represents common driving conditions of this engine size. Various common rail pressures are used at ambient inlet manifold pressure (without boost pressure) and at 1 bar boosted pressure mode. It is found that when the swirl level is increased, the faster heat release during the premixed combustion and during early diffusion-controlled combustion causes a quick increase in both in-cylinder pressure and temperature, thus promoting the formation of NOx. However, since swirl enhances mixing and potentially produces a leaning effect, PM formation is reduced in general. However, maximum peak temperature is lower for high swirl ratio and boosted modes due to the increase of heat transfer into cylinder walls. Furthermore, it is necessary to find optimal values of common rail pressures and swirl ratio. Too much mixing allows increase on PM, THC and CO emissions without decrease on NOx emissions in general. Common rail injection system provides enough energy to achieve good mixing during all the injection time in the cases of supercharged modes and high common rail pressure modes. Positive influence of swirl ratio is found at lower boost pressures, lower revolution levels and at lower engine loads. The results obtained here help providing a better understanding on the swirl effects on diesel engine combustion and exhaust emissions over a range of engine operating conditions, with the ultimate goal of finding optimal values of swirl operation.


Author(s):  
T-G Fang ◽  
R E Coverdill ◽  
C-F F Lee ◽  
R A White

An optically accessible high-speed direct-injection diesel engine was used to study the effects of injection angles on low-sooting combustion. A digital high-speed camera was employed to capture the entire cycle combustion and spray evolution processes under seven operating conditions including post-top-dead centre (TDC) injection and pre-TDC injection strategies. The nitrogen oxide (NO x) emissions were also measured in the exhaust pipe. In-cylinder pressure data and heat release rate calculations were conducted. All the cases show premixed combustion features. For post-TDC injection cases, a large amount of fuel deposition is seen for a narrower-injection-angle tip, i.e. the 70° tip, and ignition is observed near the injector tip in the centre of the bowl, while for a wider-injection-angle tip, namely a 110° tip, ignition occurs near the spray tip in the vicinity of the bowl wall. The combustion flame is near the bowl wall and at the central region of the bowl for the 70° tip. However, the flame is more distributed and centralized for the 110° tip. Longer spray penetration is found for the pre-TDC injection timing cases. Liquid fuel impinges on the bowl wall or on the piston top and a fuel film is formed. Ignition for all the pre-TDC injection cases occur in a distributed way in the piston bowl. Two different combustion modes are observed for the pre-TDC injection cases including a homogeneous bulky combustion flame at earlier crank angles and a heterogeneous film combustion mode with luminous sooting flame at later crank angles. In terms of soot emissions, NO x emissions, and fuel efficiency, results show that the late post-TDC injection strategy gives the best performance.


2013 ◽  
Vol 388 ◽  
pp. 217-222
Author(s):  
Mohamed Mustafa Ali ◽  
Sabir Mohamed Salih

Compression Ignition Diesel Engine use Diesel as conventional fuel. This has proven to be the most economical source of prime mover in medium and heavy duty loads for both stationary and mobile applications. Performance enhancements have been implemented to optimize fuel consumption and increase thermal efficiency as well as lowering exhaust emissions on these engines. Recently dual fueling of Diesel engines has been found one of the means to achieve these goals. Different types of fuels are tried to displace some of the diesel fuel consumption. This study is made to identify the most favorable conditions for dual fuel mode of operation using Diesel as main fuel and Gasoline as a combustion improver. A single cylinder naturally aspirated air cooled 0.4 liter direct injection diesel engine is used. Diesel is injected by the normal fuel injection system, while Gasoline is carbureted with air using a simple single jet carburetor mounted at the air intake. The engine has been operated at constant speed of 3000 rpm and the load was varied. Different Gasoline to air mixture strengths investigated, and diesel injection timing is also varied. The optimum setting of the engine has been defined which increased the thermal efficiency, reduced the NOx % and HC%.


2013 ◽  
Vol 664 ◽  
pp. 926-930
Author(s):  
Wei Zhang ◽  
Xiao Dong Wang ◽  
Rui Sun ◽  
Jian Wei Sun ◽  
Wei Han

The effects of EGR operating mode on particulate morphology were investigated for a 5.79-liter diesel engine which was equipped with a turbocharged and inter-cooled air induction system, a common-rail direct fuel injection system, and an EGR system. Morphological characteristics, such as primary particle size, number concentration and aggregate particle size were investigated by a transmission electron microscope (TEM) analysis and a electrical low pressure impactor (ELPI) under engine operating conditions of 0.41 in fuel/air ratio at different exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) rate from 0~35%. The experimental results indicated that primary particle were in the range of 17.05nm~18.34nm, which increased with increased EGR rate. As EGR rate increased, aggregate particle size were measured in a narrow range from 120nm to 170nm.


Author(s):  
A. K. Kathpal ◽  
Anirudh Gautam ◽  
Avinash Kumar Agarwal ◽  
R. Baskaran

The diesel fuel-injection system of ALCO DLW 251 engine consists of single cylinder injection pumps, delivery pipes, and fuel injector nozzles. Fuel injection into the combustion chamber through multi-hole nozzles delivers designed power and fuel efficiency. The two most important variables in a fuel injection system of a diesel engine are the injection pressure and injection timing. Proper timing of the injection process is essential for satisfactory diesel engine operation and performance. Injection timing needs to be optimised for an engine based on requirements of power, fuel economy, mechanical and thermal loading limitations, smoke and emissions etc. Since each of these requirements varies with the operating conditions, sometimes contrary to the requirements of the other parameters, the map of optimised injection timing can be very complex. The ALCO DLW 251 engine’s fuel injection pump is jerk type to permit accurate metering and timing of the fuel injected. The pump has a ported barrel and constant-stroke plunger incorporating a bottom helix for fuel delivery control with constant injection timing. From the point of view of good power and fuel economy, combustion should take place so that the peak firing pressure occurs at about 10–15° after TDC and is usually a few degrees after combustion starts. For this to happen, fuel should be injected at an appropriate time, depending on Injection delay and Ignition delay. Both these factors are dependent on the speed and load. Changing the operating point of the engine may change either one or both types of delay, altering the moment of start of combustion. Various researchers have shown that both the Injection and the Ignition delay are reduced as the engine speed is decreased resulting in advancement of injection timing at lower speeds (and loads). This condition will be corrected by varying the static injection timing, which can be achieved by providing a modified helix on the plunger to delay the start of fuel injection, for the lower speeds and loads. A new double helix (upper and lower helix) fuel injection pump for the ALCO DLW 251 16 V engine has been designed. The new fuel injection pump has been tested on the engine test cell at Research Designs & Standards Organisation and has shown an improvement of 1.2% in locomotive duty cycle fuel consumption. This paper describes the design & development of double helix fuel injection pump and discusses the engine tests completed to verify the projected improvements in fuel efficiency.


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