HCCI combustion is gaining increased attention amongst the research community to make it viable in both diesel and gasoline engines. Of late, technique of External mixture formation is being adopted to avoid the problems associated with the early injection and late injections of the direct injected diesel HCCI engine. This paper reports the numerical studies on the effect of External mixture formation using three-zone extended coherent flame (ECFM-3Z) CFD model of the STAR - CD package. Firstly, the results obtained through package were validated with the results available in the literature. Trade-off between HC, CO and NOx was clearly observed through simulation. The simulation results revealed decrease in in-cylinder pressures and NOx emissions with increase in EGR concentration. There is an under prediction of NOx emissions when compared with the experimental results. However, a significant reduction in NOx emissions was observed with external mixture formation, usage compared to direct diesel injection. In case of HC and CO emissions increasing trend was observed with increase in EGR concentration. Increase in HC and CO emissions was observed with external mixture formation when compared with a direct diesel injection. Also, reduction in turbulent kinetic energy and velocity magnitude levels were observed with increase in EGR concentration. Improved piston work is resulted at lower EGR concentrations. Studies revealed that for a given combustion bowl geometry, It is concluded that external mixture formation technique could be adopted to achieve HCCI combustion.
Combustion, performance and emission caracteristics of a HCCI engine fuelled with n-butanol/n-heptane blends