Combustion, Performance and Emissions of Ethanol n-Heptane Blends in HCCI Engine

Concern about the depletion of petroleum reserves, rising prices of conventional fuels, security of supply and global warming have driven research toward the development of renewable fuels for use in diesel engines. These fuels have different physical and chemical properties that affect the diesel combustion process. This paper compares between the autoignition, combustion, performance and emissions of soybean derived biodiesel, JP-8 and ultra low sulfur diesel (ULSD) in a high speed single-cylinder research diesel engine equipped with a common rail injection system. Tests were conducted at steady state conditions at different injection pressures ranging from 600 bar to 1200 bar. The ‘rate of heat release’ traces are analyzed to determine the effect of fuel properties on the ignition delay, premixed combustion fraction and mixing and diffusion controlled combustion fractions. Biodiesel produced the largest diffusion controlled combustion fraction at all injection pressures compared to ULSD and JP-8. At 600 bar injection pressure, the diffusion controlled combustion fraction for biodiesel was 53% whereas both JP-8 and ULSD produced 39%. In addition, the effect of fuel properties on engine performance, fuel economy, and engine-out emissions is determined. On an average JP-8 produced 3% higher thermal efficiency than ULSD. Special attention is given to the NOx emissions and particulate matter characteristics. On an average biodiesel produced 37% less NOx emissions compared to ULSD and JP-8.

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A comparative numerical study of the combustion performance of the syngas-fueled HCCI engine using a toroidal piston, square bowl piston, and flat piston shape at different loads

Journal of Energy Resources Technology ◽

10.1115/1.4050776 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-27

Author(s):

Kabbir Ali ◽

Changup Kim ◽

Yonggyu Lee ◽

Seungmook Oh ◽

Ki-Seong Kim

Keyword(s):

Numerical Study ◽

Pressure Rise ◽

Fuel Mixture ◽

Combustion Efficiency ◽

Maximum Pressure ◽

Cross Sectional ◽

Combustion Performance ◽

Hcci Engine ◽

Heat Loss Rate ◽

Piston Bowl

Abstract This study analyzes the combustion performance of a syngas-fueled homogenous charge compression ignition (HCCI) engine using a toroidal piston, square bowl, and flat piston shape, at low, medium, and high loads, with a constant compression ratio of 17.1. In this study, the square bowl shape is optimized by reducing the piston bowl depth and squish area ratio (squish area/cylinder cross-sectional area) from (34 to 20, 10, and 2.5) %, and compared with the flat piston shape and toroidal piston shape. This HCCI engine operates under an overly lean air–fuel mixture condition for power plant usage. ANSYS Forte CFD with GRI Mech3.0 chemical kinetics is used for combustion analysis, and the calculated results are validated by the experimental results. All simulations are accomplished at maximum brake torque (MBT) by altering the air–fuel mixture temperature at IVC with a constant equivalence ratio of 0.27. This study reveals that the main factors that affect the start of combustion , maximum pressure rise rate (MPRR), combustion efficiency, and thermal efficiency by changing the piston shape are the squish flow and reverse squish flow effects. Therefore, the square bowl piston D is the optimized piston shape that offers low MPRR and high combustion performance for the syngas-fueled HCCI engine, due to the weak squish flow and low heat loss rate through the combustion chamber wall, respectively, compared to the other piston shapes of square bowl piston A, B, and C, flat piston, and toroidal (baseline) piston shape.

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