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A numerical simulation was performed to investigate the pilot ignited natural gas combustion process in a direct injection natural gas engine. Various mixture distribution characteristics were compared in terms of the evolution of mixture equivalent ratio distributions and mixture concentration stratifications around top dead center (TDC). Based on above, the pilot injections were specially designed to investigate ignition core formation and its effects on natural gas combustion process. The result shows that pilot ignition sites have great impacts on pilot fuel ignition process and natural gas combustion process. The pilot ignition site on the region with rich NG/Air mixture is disadvantageous to the pilot fuel ignition due to a lack of oxygen, which is not beneficial to ignition core formation.

In this study, the characteristics and the advantages on engine performance of the reformed molecule HCCI (RM-HCCI) combustion fueled with gasoline were investigated by exergy analysis. The processes of fuel reforming and the closed portion of the engine cycle were simulated integrated with chemical kinetics mechanism at varied compression ratio (CR) and constant speed conditions. Results showed the fuel reforming under high temperature and oxygen-free condition by the exhaust heat recovery and electric heating assistance could drive gasoline to transform to the small-molecule gas fuels, meanwhile enhanced the chemical exergy of the fuel. The reformed fuel contributed to extending ignition delay, so less dilution required in RM-HCCI engine when expanding high load compared with gasoline HCCI engine. Thus, RM-HCCI engine could achieve higher load than gasoline HCCI engine, with the improvements by 12%, 26%, and 31% at CR17, CR19, and CR21, respectively.

To explore the exergy loss of engine combustion process, entropy generations were numerically analyzed through detailed chemical kinetics. It revealed that the reformed fuel with simpler molecular tended to produce lower combustion irreversibility. Furthermore, a promising high efficiency RM- HCCI (Reformed molecule HCCI) combustion principle was proposed. In a RM-HCCI engine, hydrocarbon fuels were reformed into small molecule fuels under high temperature and low/no oxygen atmosphere before injection into the cylinder when the exhaust gas enthalpy to a certain extent was recovered, further improving the engine efficiency. The second law efficiency (η2nd) of a RM-HCCI combustion with a CR of 10 can be increased from 36.78% to 45.47% by coordination of multiple control parameters, and to 67.79% by raising CR from 10 to 100.

In this study, experimental and simulation investigations on the roles of charge density (ρtdc), temperature (Τtdc) at the top dead center and oxygen concentration (φO2) on the combustion paths, emissions and thermal efficiency of a high load operation diesel engine were conducted. Experimental engine was a modified single-cylinder engine equipped with variable mechanisms of boost, exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) and intake valve closing timing (IVCT) to regulate the Ptdc, φO2 and Τtdc. Simulations of engine combustion processes were performed with an ECFM-3Z combustion model. The results revealed that higher Ptdc, leading to lower overall fuel/oxygen equivalence ratio (Φm), enhanced the rate of mixing and chemical reaction and benefited improvement of the thermal efficiency.

In this study, Partially Premixed Combustion (PPC) on a modified heavy-duty diesel engine was realized by hybrid combustion control strategy with flexible fuel injection timing, injection rate pattern modulation and high ratio of exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) at different engine loads. It features with different degrees of fuel/air mixture stratifications. The very low soot emissions of the experiments called for further understanding on soot formation mechanism so that to promote the capability of prediction. A new soot model was developed with highlight in effects of surface activity on soot growth for soot formation prediction in partially premixed combustion diesel engine. According to previous results from literatures on the importance of acetylene as growth specie of PAH and soot surface growth, a gas-phase reduced kinetic model of acetylene formation was developed and integrated into the new soot model.

This paper investigated the effects of late intake valve closing timing (IVCT) and two-stage turbocharger systems matching based on partially premixed combustion strategy. Tests were performed on a 12-liter L6 heavy-duty engine at loads up to 10 bar BMEP at various speed. IVCT (where IVCT is -80°ATDC, -65°ATDC and -55°ATDC at 1300 rpm, 1600 rpm and 1900 rpm, respectively) lowered the intake and exhaust difference pressure, reducing pumping loss and improved the effective thermal efficiency by 1%, 1.5% and 2% at BMEP of 5 bar at 1300 rpm, 1600 rpm and 1900 rpm. For certain injection timings and EGR rate, it is found that a significant reduction in soot (above 30%) and NOx (above 70%) emissions by means of IVCT. This is due to that IVCT lowered effective compression ratio and temperature during the compression stroke, resulting in a longer ignition delay as the fuel mixed more homogeneous with the charge air ahead of ignition.

Combustion control strategy for high efficiency and low emissions in a heavy duty (H D) diesel engine was investigated experimentally in a single cylinder test engine with a common rail fuel system, EGR (Exhaust Gas Recirculation) system, boost system and retarded intake valve closing timing actuator. For the operation loads of IMEPg (Gross Indicated Mean Effective Pressure) less than 1.1 MPa the low temperature combustion (LTC) with high rate of EGR was applied. The fuel injection modes of either single injection or multi-pulse injections, boost pressure and retarded intake valve closing timing (RIVCT) were also coupled with the engine operation condition loads for high efficiency and low emissions. A higher boost pressure played an important role in improving fuel efficiency and obtaining ultra-low soot and NOx emissions.

The Premixed Charge Compression Ignition (PCCI) engine has the potential to reduce soot and NOx emissions while maintaining high thermal efficiency at part load conditions. However, several technical barriers must be overcome. Notably ways must be found to control ignition timing, expand its limited operation range and limit the rate of heat release. In this paper, comparing with single fuel injection, the superiority of multiple-pulse fuel injection in extending engine load, improve emissions and thermal efficiency trade-off using high exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) and boost in diesel PCCI combustion is studied by engine experiments and simulation study. It was found that EGR can delay the start of hot temperature reactions, reduce the reaction speed to avoid knock combustion in high load, is a very useful method to expand high load limit of PCCI. EGR can reduce the NOx emission to a very small value in PCCI.

The Lambert-Beer's coefficient K was measured in a wide range of temperatures (400-1200K) and pressures (2-8.2 MPa) in this paper. Based on the measured MAP of K and principle of energy conservation in the sprays mass and transfer, a quantitative presentation of equivalence ratio and temperature in vapor phase sprays at diesel engine like conditions was put forward. The experimental range of temperatures was 800-1100K and 20-100 kg/m₃ for density. It was found that the maximum equivalence ratio of vapor phase spray remained fairly constant at about 3.0 and the maximum equivalence ratio appearance earlier as the ambient density increased, while the ambient temperature in the constant volume vessel was set at 800K. The maximum equivalence ratio of vapor phase spray increased from about 3.0 to about 3.7 as ambient temperature increased from 800 to 1100K.

Engine experiments and CFD modeling studies have been carried out and shown that high density-low temperature combustion (H Density-LTC) has the potential of realizing high thermal efficiency and very low engine-out emissions at high and full engine loads. Parametric studies were conducted to explore the mechanism of formation of pollutants in high charge density in this paper. It was found that high charge density was normally favorable to spray atomization, evaporation and fuel/air mixing throughout the entire combustion process, but there was a turning value of charge density above which the improvement of thermal efficiency was reduced. The conversion of CO to CO₂ was accelerated and CO emission was decreased with increasing charge density, which was also proved to be beneficial to re-oxidation of soot formed. The oxygen concentration brings a conflict effect to NOx emissions and exhaust soot. The high density combustion relieved the conflict effect of oxygen concentration.

A concept of high density-low temperature combustion (HD-LTC) is put forward in this paper, showing potential of its high thermal efficiency and very low engine-out emissions by engine experimental and CFD modeling study. A single cylinder test engine has been built-up equipped with mechanisms of variable boost pressure and intake valve closing timing (IVCT). By delaying IVCT and raising boost pressure to certain values according to engine loads, the in-cylinder charge density is regulated much higher than in conventional engines. It is found that the high charge density can play the role of rising of heat capacity as exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) does. Thereby low temperature combustion is realized with less EGR (about 18~19% oxygen concentration) to achieve very low NOx and soot emissions, which is extremely important at high and full loads.

In order to understand premixed charge compression ignition (PCCI) combustion, a new combustion model of kinetic-and-turbulent characteristic-time has been developed. A ununiformity function H(ϕ)was presented by analysis of the effect of fuel/air distributions on the role of turbulent timescale in the combustion model, then an analytical turbulent timescale coefficient f was deduced, which was proved to be able to correlate the fuel ununiformity with the turbulent timescale in the combustion model. The new model was employed for simulation of a PCCI combustion organized by various multi-pulse injection strategies in a heavy duty diesel engine. The simulation results agreed with the experimental data well. The ignition process of a PCCI combustion organized by multi-pulse injection was a separated volume autoignition process, which was strongly influenced by the condition of fuel stratification.

Both in conventional diesel combustion and the low temperature combustion represented by PCCI and EGR-diluted combustion, high mixing rate at the whole combustion history is the key to achieve comparative clean and high-efficiency combustion. In this study, a newly developed combustion chamber, vortex-induced combustion chamber which can enhance middle and late cycle combustion is developed based on BUMP combustion chamber investigated in previous study. And then, the combustion and emission characteristics in the circumstances of diluted combustion are studied. For low oxygen concentration cases, heat release rate goes down and combustion efficiency decreases due to decreased mixing efficiency. The results of chamber design indicate complex structure of flow can be realized by special designed chamber geometry. The velocity difference in the interface of the vortexes will benefit to mixing of fuel and air, therefore combustion and emissions.

Diesel-fueled HCCI combustion was achieved by multi-pulse injection before top dead center (TDC). However, the multi-pulse injections strategies have not been sufficiently studied previously due to the large number of parameters to be considered. In the present work, a series of multi-pulse injection modes with four or five pulses in each mode are designed, and their effects on diesel HCCI Combustion are experimentally studied. The results showed that the HCCI diesel combustion was extremely sensitive to injection mode. There were many modes to achieve very low NOx and smoke emissions, but the injection parameters of these modes must be optimized for higher thermal efficiency. A micro-genetic algorithm coupled with a modified 3D engine simulation code is utilized to optimize the injection parameters including the injection pressure, start-of-first-injection timing (SOI), fuel mass in each pulse injection and dwell time between consecutive pulse injections.

The influence of injection pressure fluctuations on cavitation inside a nozzle hole under diesel engine conditions was simulated using a two-fluid model. Injection pressure fluctuations with different amplitudes and frequencies were introduced at the inlet boundary. A comparison of the calculated results with experimental results available in the literatures was performed to verify the model. The simulation results indicate that both partial cavitation and supercavitation are just sensitive to the inlet pressure fluctuations with higher amplitude. As the amplitude decreases, the influence of the pressure fluctuations on cavitation process diminishes and it becomes negligible at the amplitude of around 5%. The frequency of inlet pressure fluctuation has an obvious influence on the inception of cavitation and quasi-periodic behaviors of supercavitation.

Engine experiments have shown that simultaneous reductions of NOx and soot emissions can be achieved by the so called BUMP (Bump-up mixing process) combustion chamber. In order to understand the underlying mechanism of emission reduction, a STAR-CD based multi-dimensional combustion modeling was carried out for a heavy-duty diesel engine with the BUMP combustion chamber. The results from an impingement gas jet experiment were also presented and compared with computer modeling. The results showed that complex air motion with high turbulence was obtained by adoption of the bump ring. The fuel/air mixing rate was promoted greatly. Therefore, for the BUMP combustion chamber, much fuel fell in the optimum equivalence ratio range than that of the baseline chamber.

In order to understand the effects of pulse injection mode on power output and emissions in an HCCI diesel engine, the pulse injection mode modulation was investigated. A computer simulation code of common rail injector FIRCRI was developed based on previous work by the authors, including the simulation of dynamic response and injected fuel amount. Then the injector parameters were partly revised to meet the requirement of pulse injections. By variation of control signals, a series of injection modes were realized based on the prejudgment of combustion requirement. The designed injection modes included so called even mode, staggered mode, hump mode and progressive increase mode with four, five and six pulses. Engine test was conducted with the designed injection modes. The experimental results showed that the HCCI diesel combustion was extremely sensitive to injection mode.

The paper has presented a new reduced chemical kinetic model for the Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) combustion of n-heptane in an engine, which contains 41 species and 63 reactions. The new model includes three sub-models: the first is the low-temperature reaction sub-model, which is established by determining particular aldehydes and small hydrocarbons in the model developed by Li et al. The second is the sub-model for large molecules decomposing directly into small molecules that is developed for linking the low-temperature reaction with high-temperature reaction. The third is used for high-temperature reaction, which is derived by several modifications to the model developed by Griffiths et al., eliminating several reactions, adding two oxidization reactions related to CO and CH3O.

This paper presents a compound combustion technology of Premixed Combustion and “Lean Diffusion Combustion” for realizing the concept of HCCI combustion in a D I diesel engine. The premixed combustion is achieved by the technology of multi-pulse fuel injection. The start of pulse injection, injection-pulse number, injection period of each pulse and the dwell time between the injection pulses are controlled. The objective of controlling the pulse injection is to limit the spray penetration of the pulse injection so that the fuel will not impinge on the cylinder liner, and to enhance the mixing rate of each fuel parcel by promoting the disturbance to the fuel parcels. The last or main injection pulse is set around TDC. A flash mixing technology is developed from the development of a so-called BUMP combustion chamber, which is designed with some special bump rings.

A sequential port injection, lean-burn, fully electronically-controlled compressed natural gas (CNG)/Diesel dual-fuel engine has been developed based on a turbo-charged and inter-cooled direct injection (D.I.) diesel engine. During the optimization of engine overall performance, the effects of pilot diesel and pre-mixed CNG/air mixture equivalence ratio on emissions (CO, HC, NOx, soot), knocking, misfire and fuel economy are studied. The rich and lean boundaries of the pre-mixed CNG/air mixture versus engine load are also provided, considering the acceptable values of NOx and THC emissions, respectively. It is interesting to find that there is a critical amount of pilot diesel for each load and speed point, which proved to be the optimum amount of pilot fuel. Any decrease in the amount of pilot diesel from this optimum amount results in an increase of NOx emissions, because the pre-mixed CNG/air mixture must be made richer, otherwise THC emissions would increase.