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Methyl butanoate (MB) and methyl decanoate (MD) are surrogates for biodiesel fuels. According to computational results with their detailed reaction mechanisms, MB and MD indicate shorter ignition delays than long alkanes such as n-heptane and n-dodecane do at an initial temperature over 1000 K. The high ignitability of these methyl esters was computationally analyzed by means of contribution matrices proposed by some of the authors. Due to the high acidity of an α-H atom in a carbonyl compound, hydroperoxy radicals are generated out of the equilibrium between forward and backward reactions of O₂ addition to methyl ester radicals by the internal transfer of an α-H atom in the initial stage of an ignition process. Some of the hydroperoxy methyl ester radicals can generate OH to activate initial reactions. MB has an efficient CH₃O formation path via CH₃ generated by the β-scission of an MB radical which has a radical site on the α-C atom to the carbonyl group.

The objective of this study is to explore the relation among mixture distribution condition, chemical character of fuel, combustion processes, and emissions characteristics with premixed charge compression ignition (PCCI) operation. The present experiment employs two fuel injectors which are capable of port injection and direct one. The former was used to supply a highly-homogeneous mixture and the latter with late injection timing was employed to control the mixture heterogeneity. Thus, these sets of injection equipments are capable of setting a wide variety of mixture heterogeneity. Furthermore, two primary reference fuels were used in order to know the influences of chemical character. The experiments were conducted in order to clarify the combustion and emissions characteristics through engine tests. Optical diagnostic was also performed to gain additional insight into the combustion processes for a wide variety of mixture distribution.

A diesel engine operating in premixed charge compression ignition (PCCI) mode promises the reduction of engine-out emissions of NOx and particulate matter. A serious issue for PCCI operation with the early injection timing during the compression stroke is the difficulty of controlling the mixture formation process. In this study, a mixed fuel consisting of high volatility fuel and high ignitability one is applied in order to develop a control technique for the mixture preparation. In particular, we focuses on a flash boiling phenomenon of mixed fuel. For pure substance, the quality of flashing spray is dominated by the degree of superheat. In contrast, that of mixed fuel is affected much by low boiling point fuel.

Authors propose the reformulation technique of physical properties of Biodiesel Fuel (BDF) by mixing lower boiling point fuels. In this study, waste cooking oil methyl ester (B100), which have been produced in Kyoto city, is used in behalf of BDF. N-Heptane (C7H16) and n-Dodecane (C12H26) are used as low and medium boiling point fuel. Mixed fuel of BDF with lower boiling point fuels have lighter quality as compared with neat BDF. This result is based on the chemical-thermo dynamical liquid-vapor equilibrium theory. This paper describes fundamental spray and combustion characteristics of mixed fuel of B100 with lower boiling point fuels as well as the reformulation technique. By mixing lower boiling point fuel, lighter quality fuels can be refined. Thus, mixed fuels have higher volatility and lower viscosity. Therefore, vaporization of mixed fuel spray is promoted and liquid phase penetration of mixed fuel shortens as compared with that of neat BDF.

A single cylinder engine has been run with direct-injection premixed charge compression ignition (PCCI) operation. The operation is fueled with primary reference fuels for a wide variety of injection timing and equivalence ratio to investigate the effect of charge stratification and octane rating on PCCI combustion. The test results showed that although the change of the injection timing can gain the high combustion efficiency for a wide range of equivalence ratio, the combustion phasing where the high combustion efficiency is accomplished is not varied only by changing the injection timings. Therefore, the only change of injection timings does not improve the thermal efficiency which is influenced by the combustion phasing. On the other hand, at the fixed compression ratio, inlet air temperature and so on, the octane rating is useful in altering the combustion phasing.

The authors have explored the potential of fuel to control spray and its combustion processes in a diesel engine. Fuel has some potential for low emission and high thermal efficiency because its volatility and ignitability are one of the ultimate performing factors of the engines. In present study, the ignition process of mixed fuel spray was investigated in a constant volume combustion vessel and in a rapid compression and expansion machine, The ignition delay based on the diagram of rate of the heat release, the imaging of natural flame emissions and the numerical simulation were carried out to clarify the effect of the physical and chemical properties of mixed fuel on ignition characteristics.

Fuel design for internal combustion engines has been proposed in our study. In this concept, the multicomponent fuel with high and low volatility fuels are used in order to control the spray and combustion processes in internal combustion engine. Therefore, it is necessary to understand the spray and combustion characteristics of the multicomponent fuels in detail. In the present study, the modeling of multicomponent spray vaporization was conducted using KIVA3V code. The physical fuel properties of multicomponent fuel were estimated using the source code of NIST Mixture Property Database. Peng-Robinson equation of state and fugacity calculation were applied to the estimation of liquid-vapor equilibrium in order to take account for non-ideal vaporization process. Two-zone model in which fuel droplet was divided into droplet surface and inner core was introduced in order to simply consider the temperature distribution in fuel droplet.

In this study, the novel fuel design concept has been proposed in order to realize the low emission and combustion control in engine systems. In this fuel design concept, the mixed fuels with a high volatility fuel (gasoline or gaseous fuel components) and a low volatility fuel (gas oil or fuel oil components) are used in order to improve the spray characteristics by flash boiling. In our previous papers on this study, the fundamental characteristics of spray and its combustion of mixed fuel were reported. In this paper, heat release and exhaust emission (smoke, NOx and THC) characteristics of single cylinder diesel engine operated with the mixed fuels were investigated under each load. The exhaust performance of diesel engine could be improved using mixed fuel, because fuel properties and spray characteristics were controlled by changing mixing fraction of the mixed fuel.