An Experimental and Numerical Study of Combustion Chamber Design for Lean-Burn Natural Gas Engines

1996 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. L. Evans ◽  
J. Blaszczyk ◽  
P. Matys
Author(s):  
R. L. Evans

Two different methods to improve the thermal efficiency and reduce the emissions from lean-burn natural gas fuelled engines have been developed, and are described in this paper. One method used a “squish-jet” combustion chamber designed specifically to enhance turbulence generation, while the second method provided a partially stratified-charge mixture near the spark plug in order to enhance the ignition of lean mixtures of natural gas and air. The squish-jet combustion chamber was found to reduce Bsfc by up to 4.8% in a Ricardo Hydra engine, while the NOx – efficiency tradeoff was greatly improved in a Cummins L-10 engine. The partially stratified-charge combustion system extended the lean limit of operation in the Ricardo Hydra by some 10%, resulting in a 64% reduction in NOx emissions at the lean limit of operation. Both techniques were also shown to be effective in increasing the stability of combustion, thereby reducing cyclic variations in cylinder pressure.


Author(s):  
R. L. Evans

Two different methods to improve the thermal efficiency and reduce the emissions from lean-burn natural-gas fueled engines have been developed and are described in this paper. One method used a “squish-jet” combustion chamber designed specifically to enhance turbulence generation, while the second method provided a partially stratified-charge mixture near the spark plug in order to enhance the ignition of lean mixtures of natural gas and air. The squish-jet combustion chamber was found to reduce brake specific fuel consumption by up to 4.8% in a Ricardo Hydra engine, while the NOx efficiency trade-off was greatly improved in a Cummins L-10 engine. The partially stratified-charge combustion system extended the lean limit of operation in the Ricardo Hydra by some 10%, resulting in a 64% reduction in NOx emissions at the lean limit of operation. Both techniques were also shown to be effective in increasing the stability of combustion, thereby reducing cyclic variations in cylinder pressure.


Author(s):  
Usama J. Mizher ◽  
Peter A. Velmisov

Abstract. The search for new solutions in the field of energy, preventing negative impact on the environment, is one of the priority tasks for modern society. Natural gas occupies a stable position in the demand of the UES of Russia for fossil fuel. Biogas is a possible alternative fuel from organic waste. Biogas has an increased content of carbon dioxide, which affects the speed of flame propagation, and a lower content of methane, which reduces its heat of combustion. However, the combined combustion of natural gas and biogas, provided that the mixture of fuel and oxidizer is well mixed, can, on the one hand, reduce the maximum adiabatic temperature in the combustion chamber of power boilers at TPPs, and, on the other, increase the stability of biogas combustion. For the combined combustion of natural gas and biogas in operating power boilers, it is necessary to reconstruct the existing burners. For a high-quality reconstruction of burners capable of providing stable and low-toxic combustion of fuel, it is important to have theoretical data on the combustion effect of combustion of combinations of organic fuels on the temperature distribution in the combustion zone and on its maximum value. In this paper, self-similar solutions of the energy equation for axisymmetric motion of a liquid (gas) in a model of a viscous incompressible medium are obtained. Basing on them, a stationary temperature field in swirling jets is constructed. A set of programs based on the ANSYS Fluent software solver has been developed for modeling and researching of thermal and gas-dynamic processes in the combustion chamber. On the basis of the k - ϵ (realizable) turbulence model, the combustion process of a swirling fuel-air mixture is simulated. The results of an analytical and numerical study of the temperature and carbon dioxide distribution in the jet are presented.


2020 ◽  
Vol 59 (34) ◽  
pp. 14423-14428 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deniz Zengel ◽  
Pirmin Koch ◽  
Bentolhoda Torkashvand ◽  
Jan‐Dierk Grunwaldt ◽  
Maria Casapu ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
Jinlong Liu ◽  
Cosmin E. Dumitrescu

Increased utilization of natural-gas (NG) in the transportation sector can decrease the use of petroleum-based fuels and reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. Heavy-duty diesel engines retrofitted to NG spark ignition (SI) can achieve higher efficiencies and low NOx, CO, and HC emissions when operated under lean-burn conditions. To investigate the SI lean-burn combustion phenomena in a bowl-in-piston combustion chamber, a conventional heavy-duty direct-injection CI engine was converted to SI operation by replacing the fuel injector with a spark plug and by fumigating NG in the intake manifold. Steady-state engine experiments and numerical simulations were performed at several operating conditions that changed spark timing, engine speed, and mixture equivalence ratio. Results suggested a two-zone NG combustion inside the diesel-like combustion chamber. More frequent and significant late burn (including double-peak heat release rate) was observed for advanced spark timing. This was due to the chamber geometry affecting the local flame speed, which resulted in a faster and thicker flame in the bowl but a slower and thinner flame in the squish volume. Good combustion stability (COVIMEP < 3 %), moderate rate of pressure rise, and lack of knocking showed promise for heavy-duty CI engines converted to NG SI operation.


2020 ◽  
pp. 146808742097775
Author(s):  
Ziqing Zhao ◽  
Zhi Wang ◽  
Yunliang Qi ◽  
Kaiyuan Cai ◽  
Fubai Li

To explore a suitable combustion strategy for natural gas engines using jet ignition, lean burn with air dilution, stoichiometric burn with EGR dilution and lean burn with EGR dilution were investigated in a single-cylinder natural gas engine, and the performances of two kinds of jet ignition technology, passive jet ignition (PJI) and active jet ignition (AJI), were compared. In the study of lean burn with air dilution strategy, the results showed that AJI could extend the lean limit of excess air ratio (λ) to 2.1, which was significantly higher than PJI’s 1.6. In addition, the highest indicated thermal efficiency (ITE) of AJI was shown 2% (in absolute value) more than that of PJI. Although a decrease of NOx emission was observed with increasing λ in the air dilution strategy, THC and CO emissions increased. Stoichiometric burn with EGR was proved to be less effective, which can only be applied in a limited operation range and had less flexibility. However, in contrast to the strategy of stoichiometric burn with EGR, the strategy of lean burn with EGR showed a much better applicability, and the highest ITE could achieve 45%, which was even higher than that of lean burn with air dilution. Compared with the most efficient points of lean burn with pure air dilution, the lean burn with EGR dilution could reduce 78% THC under IMEP = 1.2 MPa and 12% CO under IMEP = 0.4 MPa. From an overall view of the combustion and emission performances under both low and high loads, the optimum λ would be from 1.4 to 1.6 for the strategy of lean burn with EGR dilution.


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