Technical Paper
On-board Fuel Tailoring with a Novel Catalytic Evaporator for HCCI Combustion
2016-04-05
2016-01-0751
The following study describes an on-board fuel tailoring process based on a novel and compact catalytic fuel evaporator, capable of optimizing Homogenous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) combustion. Evaporation tests with conventional diesel were performed revealing a significant amount of long-chain alkane cracking. As a consequence of these cracking reactions, the presented experiments demonstrate that the produced fuel vapor has altered combustion properties as compared to the feeding diesel stream. Further tests using a constant volume chamber at 30 bar, over the temperature range 500 to 1120 K, indicated that ignition delay time and auto ignition temperature of this fuel vapor can be shifted from diesel to gasoline. Thus, by performing dynamic on-board adjustment of the fuel properties, it is possible therefore to increase HCCI combustion to high loads.
