Implementation of a Multi-Zone Numerical Blow-by Model and Its Integration with CFD Simulations for Estimating Collateral Mass and Heat Fluxes in Optical Engines

Nowadays reducing green-house gas emissions and pushing the fossil fuel savings in the field of light-duty vehicles is compulsory to slow down climate change. To this aim, the use of new combustion modes and dilution strategies to increase the stability of operations rich in diluent is an effective technique to reduce combustion temperatures and heat losses in throttled operations. Since the combustion behavior in those solutions highly differs from that of typical market systems, fundamental analyses in optical engines are mandatory in order to gain a deep understanding of those and to tune new models for improving the mutual support between experiments and simulations. However, it is known that optical accessible engines suffer from significant blow-by collateral flow due to the installation of the optical measure line. Thus, a reliable custom blow-by model capable of being integrated with both mono-dimensional and three-dimensional simulations was developed and validated against experimental data. The model can work for two different configurations: (a) stand-alone, aiming at providing macroscopic data on the ignitable mixture mass loss/recover through the piston rings; (b) combined, in which it is integrated in CFD engine simulations for the local analysis of likely collateral heat release induced by blow-by. Furthermore, once the model was validated, the effect of the engine speed and charge dilution on the blow-by phenomenon in the optical engine were simulated and discussed in the stand-alone mode.

Combustion Study of Polyoxymethylene Dimethyl Ethers and Diesel Blend Fuels on an Optical Engine

Polyoxymethylene dimethyl ethers (PODE) are a newly appeared promising oxygenated alternative that can greatly reduce soot emissions of diesel engines. The combustion characteristics of the PODE and diesel blends (the blending ratios of PODE are 0%, 20%, 50% and 100% by volume, respectively) are investigated based on an optical engine under the injection timings of 6, 9, 12 and 15-degree crank angles before top dead center and injection pressures of 100 MPa, 120 MPa and 140 MPa in this study. The results show that both the ignition delay and combustion duration of the fuels decrease with the increasing of PODE ratio in the blends. However, in the case of the fuel supply of the optical engine being fixed, the heat release rate, cylinder pressure and temperature of the blend fuels decrease with the PODE addition due to the low lower heating value of PODE. The addition of PODE in diesel can significantly reduce the integrated natural flame luminosity and the soot formation under all injection conditions. When the proportion of the PODE addition is 50% and 100%, the chemical properties of the blends play a leading role in soot formation, while the change of the injection conditions have an inconspicuous effect on it. When the proportion of the PODE addition is 20%, the blend shows excellent characteristics in a comprehensive evaluation of combustion and soot reduction.

High-Speed Infrared Measurement of Injector Tip Temperature during Diesel Engine Operation

Pre-catalyst engine emissions and detrimental injector deposits have been widely associated with the near-nozzle fluid dynamics during and after the injection events. Although the heating and evaporation of fuel films on the nozzle surface directly affects some of these processes, there are no experimental data for the transient evolution of nozzle surface temperature during typical engine conditions. In order to address this gap in knowledge, we present a non-intrusive approach for the full-cycle time resolved measurement of the surface temperature of production nozzles in an optical engine. A mid-wave infrared high-speed camera was calibrated against controlled conditions, both out of engine and in-engine to account for non-ideal in surface emissivity and optical transmissivity. A custom-modified injector with a thermocouple embedded below the nozzle surface was used to validate the approach under running engine conditions. Calibrated infrared thermography was then applied to characterise the nozzle temperature at 1200 frames per second, during motored and fired engine operation, thus revealing for the first time the effect of transient operating conditions on the temperature of the injector nozzle’s surface.

A wall-adapted zonal URANS/LES methodology for the scale-resolving simulation of engine flows

In the present paper, a comprehensive, wall-adapted zonal URANS/LES methodology is shown for the multidimensional simulation of modern direct-injection engines. This work is the latest update of a zonal hybrid turbulence modeling approach, specifically developed by the authors for a flexible description of in-cylinder turbulent flow features with an optimal balance between computational costs and accuracy. Compared to the previous developments, a specific near-wall treatment is added, in order to preserve full-URANS behavior in the first near-wall cells, having in mind typically available mesh resolution in this part of the fluid domain. The updated methodology is applied to the multi-cycle simulation of a reference single-cylinder optical engine, which features a twin-cam, overhead-valve pent-roof cylinder head, and is representative of the current generation of spark-ignited direct-injection thermal power units. Results based on phase-specific flow field statistics and synthetic quality indices demonstrate the consistency and effectiveness of the proposed methodology, which is then qualified as a suitable candidate for affordable scale-resolving analyses of cycle to cycle variability (CCV) phenomena in direct-injection engines.