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Owing to the small size of engines and high injection pressures, it is difficult to avoid the fuel spray impingement on the combustion cylinder wall and piston head in Direct Injection Spark Ignition (DISI) engine, which is a possible source of hydrocarbons and soot emission. As a result, the droplets size and distribution are significantly important to evaluate the atomization and predict the impingement behaviors, such as stick, spread or splash. However, the microscopic behaviors of droplets are seldom reported due to the high density of small droplets, especially under high pressure conditions. In order to solve this problem, a “spray slicer” was designed to cut the spray before impingement as a sheet one to observe the droplets clearly. The experiment was performed in a constant volume chamber under non-evaporation condition, and a mini-sac injector with single hole was used.

In this paper, a control-oriented soot model was developed for real-time soot prediction and combustion condition optimization in a gasoline Partially Premixed Combustion (PPC) Engine. PPC is a promising combustion concept that achieves high efficiency, low soot and NOx emissions simultaneously. However, soot emissions were found to be significantly increased with high EGR and pilot injection, therefore a predictive soot model is needed for PPC engine control. The sensitivity of soot emissions to injection events and late-cycle heat release was investigated on a multi-cylinder heavy duty gasoline PPC engine, which indicated main impact factors during soot formation and oxidation processes. The Hiroyasu empirical model was modified according to the sensitivity results, which indicated main influences during soot formation and oxidation processes. By introducing additional compensation factors, this model can be used to predict soot emissions under pilot injection.

In order to comply with the stringent emission regulations, many researchers have been focusing on diesel-compressed natural gas (CNG) dual fuel operation in compression ignition (CI) engines. The diesel-CNG dual fuel operation mode has the potential to reduce both the soot and NOx emissions; however, the thermal efficiency is generally lower than that of the pure diesel operation, especially under the low and medium load conditions. The current experimental work investigates the potential of using diesel-1-butanol blends as the pilot fuel to improve the engine performance and emissions. Fuel blends of B0 (pure diesel), B10 (90% diesel and 10% 1-butanol by volume) and B20 (80% diesel and 20% 1-butanol) with 70% CNG substitution were compared based on an equivalent input energy at an engine speed of 1200 RPM. The results indicated that the diesel-1-butanol pilot fuel can lead to a more homogeneous mixture due to the longer ignition delay.

Fuel injection and fuel-air mixture formation processes have significant influence on the performance of spark ignition gas engines. In order to study the fuel enrichment injection process in the pre-chamber of a marine gas engine, the flow field in the pre-chamber during the gas fuel injection period was investigated by the particle image velocimetry (PIV) method. An organic glass model of pre-chamber was made for optical measurement. The flow fields in the pre-chamber with four different gas injection angles were analyzed, respectively. The measurement results were qualitatively compared to the CFD calculation results as the verification of the calculation. Based on the comparison of the PIV experiment results, an optimal gas fuel injection angle was chosen. Furthermore, 3D CFD calculation models with the baseline and optimal fuel injection angles of a marine spark ignited natural gas engine were generated to calculate the working process.

The abnormal combustion resulted by the auto-ignition of lubricating oil is a great challenge to the development of Otto-cycle gas engines. In order to investigate the mechanism of lubricating oil droplet vaporization process, a crucial sub-process of auto-ignition process, a new multi-component vaporization model was constructed for high temperature and pressure, and forced gas flow conditions as encountered in practical gas engines. The vaporization model has been conducted with a multi-diffusion sub-model considering the multi-component diffusivity coefficients in the gas phase. The radiation heat flux caused by ambient gas was taken into account in high temperature conditions, and a real gas equation of state was used for high pressure conditions. A correction for mass vaporization rate was used for forced gas flow conditions. Extensive verifications have been realized, and considerable results have been achieved.

The intersecting hole nozzle, in which each orifice is formed by the converging of two or more child-holes, was proposed for the purpose of enhancing the internal turbulence in diesel nozzle, so as to promote the fuel atomization. In this paper, the internal flow characteristics of a cylindrical hole nozzle and two intersecting hole nozzles are studied by CFD simulation. The results show that, compared with conventional cylindrical hole nozzle, the internal flow of intersecting hole nozzles is characterized with slower rate of pressure decrease in the hole, none or very little cavitation, as well as about 20% to 30% higher discharge coefficients, especially under conditions of high injection pressure. Additionally, the setting of the blind hole as a disturbing domain in the intersecting hole nozzle results in more perturbation for internal flow, which will be beneficial for fuel atomization.

To directly control the premixed combustion phasing, a novel method called Jet Controlled Compression Ignition (JCCI) is investigated. Experiments were conducted on a single cylinder natural aspirated diesel engine at 3000 r/min without EGR. Numerical model was validated by pressure and heat release rate curves at a fixed spark timing. The simulation results showed that the reacting active radical species with high temperature issued from ignition chamber played an important role on the onset of combustion in JCCI system. The combustion of diesel pre-mixtures was initiated rapidly by the combustion products issued from ignition chamber. Consequently, the experiments of spark timing sweep were conducted to verify the above deduction. The results showed a good linear relationship between spark timing and CA10 and CA50, which validated the ability for direct combustion phasing control in diesel premixed combustion.