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With the rising interest in hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (FCV) to reduce the global warming impact of the automotive sector, the industry and car manufacturers are shifting towards producing H2-based or electricity-based vehicles. Plug-in passenger FCVs with a range-extender architecture (FCREx), could be a more versatile with a lower total cost of ownership (TCO) alternative to other FCV configurations, given the current H2 cost. In this investigation, a validated fuel cell (FC) stack model was integrated into a complete FCREx model to study the potential of this architecture in terms of H2 consumption and cradle-to-grave GHG and NOX emissions. First, the FC stack model was calibrated using experimental data. Then, a FC system model including the balance of plant (BoP) was developed and adjusted to the stack specifications. The BoP air management strategy was optimized to ensure maximum performance in steady conditions.

Combustion processes operating under fuel lean conditions are a promising technology for internal combustion engines, achieving low emissions and very high efficiency. In traditional spark ignition engines, the charge dilution affects the flame propagation speed, leading to a combustion instability. A way to overcome these limits consists on the replacement of the spark with a pre-chamber ignition system. The combustion starts in the pre-chamber and develops in the main chamber through multiple and distributed ignition points, ensuring fast burn rate and stability. This paper focuses on the performance evaluation of a pre-chamber spark ignition system operating under ultra-lean conditions. An experimental campaign is carried out using a rapid compression-expansion machine fueled with liquid iso-octane as a surrogate fuel for gasoline.

In this work, a 5-zone model has been applied to replicate the in-cylinder conditions evolution of a Rapid Compression-Expansion Machine (RCEM) in order to improve the chemical kinetic analyses by obtaining more accurate simulation results. To do so, CFD simulations under motoring conditions have been performed in order to identify the proper number of zones and their relative volume, walls surface and temperature. Furthermore, experiments have been carried out in an RCEM with different Primary Reference Fuels (PRF) blends under homogeneous conditions to obtain a database of ignition delays and in-cylinder pressure and temperature evolution profiles. Such experiments have been replicated in CHEMKIN by imposing the heat losses and volume profiles of the experimental facility using a 0-D 1-zone model. Then, the 5-zone model has been analogously solved and both results have been compared to the experimental ones.

The influence of pressure and temperature on some of the important thermodynamic properties of diesel fuels has been assessed for a set of fuels. The study focuses on the experimental determination of the speed of sound, density and compressibility (via the bulk modulus) of these fuels by means of a method that is thoroughly described in this paper. The setup makes use of a common-rail injection system in order to transmit a pressure wave through a high-pressure line and measure the time it takes for the wave to travel a given distance. Measurements have been performed in a wide range of pressures (from atmospheric pressure up to 200 MPa) and temperatures (from 303 to 353 K), in order to generate a fuel properties database for modelers on the field of injection systems for diesel engines to incorporate to their simulations.

The Fick's law is commonly used to model diffusion problems, but from some time ago it has been also used to model liquid jet atomization and mixing into gaseous atmosphere under certain hypothesis. An OpenFOAM computer model based on this principle has been developed and validated on axisymmetric geometries. This model has also been used to study the atomization process on the Engine Combustion Network (ECN) single-hole Spray A injector. Results have been compared to X-Ray and Mie-Scattering experimental data, showing that the Fick's law and its variants predict well the liquid core but tend to over-predict the spray angle/width in the first millimeters after the nozzle exit.

Several new combustion concepts have been developed during last decade with the aim of reducing pollutant emissions. Specifically, these strategies allow a simultaneous reduction of NOx and soot emissions by reducing the local combustion temperatures, enhancing the fuel/air mixing (PCCI, HCCI…). In spite of their benefits, these concepts present difficulties controlling the appropriate combustion phasing as well as high knocking levels and therefore, their operating range is reduced to low-medium loads. In this work gasoline is considered as a fuel in order to improve combustion strategies based on fully or partially premixed combustion in CI engines. Its use provides more flexibility to achieve lean and low combustion temperature, however the concept has demonstrated difficulty under light load conditions using gasoline with ON up to 95.

In-cylinder emission control strategies, such as modifications of injection pressure and injection timing, have been used by researchers in order to reduce exhaust emissions and to comply with the legislation standards. Since some years ago post-injections have been studied and are well known as being efficient for soot emissions reduction. Although is well known that diesel gaseous and particle mass emissions have been reduced progressively over the last twenty years in response to the restrictive emission legislation and due to the application of new technologies The aim of this work is to help develop and understand the effect of the post-injection on diesel exhaust particle size distributions. The approach is to use a modern, well instrumented research engine equipped with a flexible high pressure fuel injection system. The results of this work are available to help provide guidelines for strategies to achieve reductions of the particle size distributions in diesel engines.

Post injections are a commonly used strategy to reduce soot and NOx emissions in DI diesel engines. This strategy has been widely explored and studied for several years, however, there are still some aspects of the behavior of the combustion process when it is used that are not completely well known. In this paper a numerical study is carried out in order to better understand the improvement on mixing/combustion phenomena using post injection compared with a single injection case. For this purpose, CFD simulations using commercial code Star CD were performed in realistic engine conditions: the combustion of a single injection case (Pilot + Main injection) was compared with that of post injection case (Pilot + Main + Post) evaluating different post injection timings and comparing the simulated results with previously developed experimental tests which reveal the mentioned improvement on combustion behavior.

In this paper, a special technique for visualizing the first 1.5 millimetres of the spray has been applied to examine the link between cavitation phenomenon inside the nozzle and spray behaviour in the near nozzle field. For this purpose, a real Diesel axi-symmetric nozzle has been analyzed. Firstly, the nozzle has been geometrically and hydraulically characterized. Mass flow measurements at stationary conditions have allowed the detection of the pressure conditions for mass flow choking, usually related with cavitation inception in the literature. Nevertheless, with the objective to get a deeper knowledge of cavitation phenomenon, near nozzle field visualization technique has been used to detect cavitation bubbles injected in a pressurized chamber filled with Diesel fuel. Using backlight illumination, the differences in terms of density and refractive index allowed the distinction between vapour and liquid fuel phases.

The aim of this paper is to present an experimental study of the influence of using biodiesel blended fuels on a standard injection system taken from a DI commercial Diesel engine. The effects have been evaluated through injection rate measurements, spray momentum and spray visualization at ambient temperature (non-evaporating condition). These tests have been done using five different injection pressures, from 300 to 1600 bar, and three back pressures: 20, 50 and 80 bar. It is well known that fuel properties like density or kinematic viscosity are higher in vegetable oils and strongly affect how injection system operates. The tests showed that the use of biodiesel fuels leads to a higher mass flow when the injector is fully open. The spray pattern is also affected, biodiesel penetrates more and the spray is narrower. Some explanations are provided in this paper in order to understand better the injection process when vegetable oils are used.

A comprehensive study is carried out in order to better understand combustion behavior in a direct injection Diesel engine working under multiple injection strategies, in particular when using post-injections. The aim of the study is to provide criteria to more easily define optimized injection strategies. During the study two main phenomena have been observed and characterized: an acceleration of the final stage of combustion and an apparent disconnection between the combustions of the two pulses (“split flame”). Thanks to the combustion acceleration phenomenon, if the post-injection is placed near enough the main injection, the end of combustion can take place even earlier compared to the case with a single main injection. In such conditions NOx emissions increase (most likely due to a higher temperature level during the last stage of combustion), but soot and specific fuel consumption decrease (due to a faster last phase of combustion).

It is known that one of the main parameters that govern the spray penetration development is spray momentum flux. In this paper, a model capable to predict the development of the spray penetration using as an input the temporal variation of the spray momentum flux is presented. The model is based on the division of the momentum flux signal in momentum packets sequentially injected and the tracking of them inside and at the tip of the spray. These packets follow a theoretical equation which relates the penetration with the ambient density, momentum and time. In order to validate the method, measures of momentum flux (impingement force) and macroscopic spray visualization in high density conditions have been performed on several mono-orifice nozzles. High agreement has been obtained between spray penetration prediction from momentum flux measurements and real spray penetration from macroscopic visualization.

This paper deals with the problem of quantifying and predicting the macroscopic spray behaviour as a function of the parameters governing the injection process. The parameters studied were ambient gas density as a representative parameter external to the system, and nozzle hole diameter and injection pressure as influential system parameters. The main purpose of this research is to validate and extend the different correlations available in the literature to the actual Diesel engine conditions, i.e. high injection pressure, small nozzle holes, severe cavitating conditions, etc. The sprays from five axi-symmetrical nozzles with different diameters are characterized in two different test rigs that can reproduce the real engine in-cylinder air density and pressure. The wide parametric study that was performed has permitted to quantify the effects of the injection pressure, nozzle hole diameter and environment gas density on the spray tip penetration.

In Diesel injection Systems, cavitation often appears in the injection nozzle holes. This paper analyses how cavitation affects the Diesel spray behavior. For this purpose two spray parameters, mass flux and momentum flux, have been measured at different pressure. We know that cavitation brings about the mass flux choke, but there are few studies about how the cavitation affects the momentum and the outlet velocity. The key of this study is just the measurement of the spray momentum under cavitation conditions.

A study of the feasibility of using engine operating parameters to predict and minimise exhaust emissions from a direct injection H.D. Diesel engine through the use of Neural Networks (NN) was conducted. The objective is to create a mathematical tool that, learning from a large number of experimental data obtained under different operating conditions, is able to parametrize oxides of nitrogen (NOx) and particulate matter (PM) exhaust emissions as a function of engine operating parameters. Once satisfactory NN predictive results were obtained, the tool was also used to simultaneously optimise several operating parameters for low exhaust emissions. The optimisation was based on a minimising process related to EURO IV standards regulations.

The aim of this paper is to identify and quantify the influence of injection parameters and running conditions on the air/fuel mixing and diffusion combustion process in a D.I. Diesel engine. With this work, it is intended to improve the understanding of some of the processes that take place in the combustion chamber of D.I. Diesel engines. An analysis of the relationship between the injection rate and the rate of heat release through the physical variables that directly participate in the injection-combustion process is performed. To approach the problem, a parameter called “Apparent Combustion Time (ACT)” is defined. A theoretical analysis that allows the identification and quantification of the main physical variables that directly affect the air/fuel mixing process has been performed. This theoretical approach enabled to find out the relationship between the ACT and the injection and in-cylinder conditions in the diffusion combustion phase.

Traditionally, combustion noise in Diesel engines has been quantified by means of a global noise level determined in many cases through the estimation of the attenuation curve of the block using the traditional discrete Fourier transform technique. In this work, the wavelet transform is used to establish a more reliable correlation between in-cylinder pressure (sources) and noise (effect) during the combustion of a new generation 2 liter DI Diesel engine. Then, in a qualitative sense, the contribution of each source intrinsic to the combustion process is determined for four engine operating conditions and two injection laws. The results have shown high variations in both the in-cylinder pressure and noise power harmonics along the time, which indicates the non-stationary character of this process.

New future emission regulations for HD Diesel engines in Europe will require a further reduction in NOx and particulate emission levels compared with nowadays values. The work presented here is an analysis of the EGR influence on the DI Diesel combustion process, based upon a parametric study combining cooled EGR with intake pressure increase. The independent variation of EGR rate and intake pressure allows to analyse the influence of the oxygen concentration and the equivalent fuel/air ratio on the combustion process in an independent way. Tests were performed with a 1.8 litre single-cylinder engine. The study combines performance and emissions measurements together with heat release law analysis. Five representative operative conditions from the European Steady - state test Cycle (ESC) have been considered. For each one, EGR rate (from 0 to 30%) and intake pressure (from 0 to 0.03 MPa over nominal pressure) have been varied independently.