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Based on a composed PRF/ethanol/PAH mechanism, simulations were conducted to investigate the combustion characteristics of n-heptane spray under premixed ethanol/air and iso-octane/air atmosphere in a combustion vessel. The effects of premixed ethanol and iso-octane on ignition delay, important soot precursors and soot volume fraction of n-heptane spray were studied. Also, simulated results with and without considering the cooling effects of premixed fuel vaporization were compared. When the cooling effect of premixed fuel vaporization was not considered, simulations showed that premixed ethanol could increase the ignition delay of n-heptane spray at ambient temperatures below 850K. However, premixed iso-octane showed little inhibition effect on ignition of n-heptane spray. Also, it was found that both premixed ethanol and iso-octane contributed to faster ignition under high ambient temperatures.

Partially-premixed low-temperature combustion avoids the soot and NOx generation area on the Ф-T diagram to reduce both engine NOx and soot emissions. Compared with the HCCI combustion mode, partially-premixed combustion (PPC) has better combustion controllability. The purpose of controlling the combustion phase can be achieved by adjusting injection timing and strategy. Based on a 4 cylinder turbocharged diesel engine, this paper aims at investigating the influence of injection strategy to the engine combustion and emission formation under the condition of single injection and split injection PPC strategy respectively, in which the primary purpose focus on the emission characteristics of particles. Results show that the early-injection PPC formed by single injection can reduce the quantity, quality and geometric mean diameter (GMD) of particles obviously.

In this paper, experiments and simulations were conducted to investigate the cyclic variations of gasoline/diesel and ethanol/diesel dual-fuel combustion. For both dual-fuel modes, gasoline and ethanol were injected into the intake port during the intake stroke and diesel was directly injected into the cylinder. The influences of engine load and port fuel proportion on the cyclic variability of both dual-fuel modes were investigated. At each test condition, in-cylinder pressure traces of 150 consecutive cycles were acquired. Then the cyclic variations of ignition timing (CA5), combustion phasing (CA50), accumulated heat release (Qf) and indicated mean effective pressure (IMEP) were calculated based on the in-cylinder pressure. The experimental results showed that the cyclic variation of IMEP was mainly caused by the variation of Qf for both dual-fuel modes.

The partially premixed combustion (PPC) was realized in a 6-cylinder heavy turbocharged diesel engine with single injection and EGR strategies. Combined with chemical reaction mechanism, the combustion and emission processes of this mode was analyzed using level-set turbulent flame propagation model. Based on the experiments and simulations, the impacts of PPC on the heat release, NOx and PM emissions were further investigated. The results show that both the early-injection and late-injection strategies have a two-stage heat release and significantly higher premixed combustion proportion than the conventional combustion mode, however, mixing controlled combustion was also observed in the late-injection mode. The NOx and PM emission was reduced simultaneously in PPC. However, in the late-injection strategy, this was achieved at the expense of increased HC emission. The dynamic process of the core components in PPC was much different from those in conventional diesel spray combustion.

With a focus on a heavy diesel engine, complete set of multi-field coupling methodology aimed at analyzing and optimizing for fatigue-strength of cylinder head is proposed. A detailed model of the engine consisting of both the coolant galleries and the surrounding metal components is employed in both fluid-dynamic and structural analyses to accurately mimic the influence of the thermo-mechanical load on the cylinder head and block structural reliability. This model carries out several simulating experiments like 3-dimensional CFD of in-cylinder combustion and engine cooling jacket, simulation of cylinder head temperature field which use fluid-structure interaction, stress and strain analysis under thermal-mechanical coupling conditions and high cycle fatigue analysis. In order to assess a proper CFD setup useful for the optimization, the experimentally measured temperature distribution within the engine head is compared to the CFD forecasts.

PPCI in diesel engine is a combustion mode between conventional diesel combustion and homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) combustion, which has the potential to simultaneously reduce NOX and soot emissions and improve thermal efficiency. N-butanol as a kind of clean and renewable biofuel can effectively prolong ignition delay and enhance fuel/air mixing because of their low cetane number, high volatility fuel characteristics, which make it a better alternative fuel to achieve PPCI. In this paper, PPCI combustion in a boosted four-cylinder diesel engine fueled with n-butanol-diesel blends is realized by adjusting injection timing and EGR rate based on single injection. The results show that both early and late injection have long premixed duration, which is helpful to form more homogeneous mixture, and no diffusion combustion is found in heat release rate curve. Premixed combustion and low temperature combustion are the key factors to reduce PM and NOX.

The performance of Partially Premixed Combustion (PPC) relies heavily on the proper mixing between the injected fuel and the in-cylinder gas mixture. This pre-mixing aims to eliminate over-rich regions where the mixture forms soot, and at the same time to avoid the NOX formation region by lowering the combustion temperature by introduction of a large amount of EGR The main effort of this paper focuses on investigating the characteristic of PPC combustion and a suitable injection strategy for achieving the PPC combustion mode. Two injection strategies (i.e. double and single injection) were investigated on a four-cylinder heavy-duty diesel engine operating at low, medium and high load conditions.

Premixed charge compression ignition (PCCI) is a new combustion mode to reduce NOX and soot emission. It requires the optimization of the injection timing and pressure, fuel mass in pilot injection and EGR rate. A 6-cylinder, turbocharged, common rail heavy-duty diesel engine was used in this study. The effect of multiple injection strategies on diesel fuel combustion process, heat release rate, emission and economy of diesel engine is studied. The multiple injection strategies include different EGR level, pilot injection timing, pilot injection mass and post injection timing to achieve the homogeneous compression ignition and lower temperature combustion of diesel engine. Based on endoscope technology, the two-color method was applied to take the flame images in the engine cylinder and obtain soot concentration distribution, to understand the PCCI combustion in diesel engines.

Ethanol direct injection plus gasoline port injection (EDI+GPI) is a new technology to make the use of ethanol fuel more effective and efficient in spark ignition engines. It takes the advantages of ethanol fuel, such as its greater latent heat of vaporization than that of gasoline fuel, to enhance the charge cooling effect and consequently to increase the compression ratio and improve the engine thermal efficiency. Experimental investigation has shown improvement in the performance of a single cylinder spark ignition engine equipped with EDI+GPI. It was inferred that the charge cooling enhanced by EDI played an important role. To investigate it, a CFD model has been developed for the experimentally tested engine. The Eulerian-Lagrangian approach and Discrete Droplet Model were used to model the evolution of the fuel sprays. The model was verified by comparing the numerical and experimental results of cylinder pressure during the intake and compression strokes.