Alabama Transportation Institute

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Browsing Alabama Transportation Institute by Subject "COMBUSTION"

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    Experimental Study of the Effect of Start of Injection and Blend Ratio on Single Fuel Reformate RCCI
    (ASME, 2020) Hariharan, Deivanayagam; Gainey, Brian; Yan, Ziming; Mamalis, Sotirios; Lawler, Benjamin; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa; Clemson University; State University of New York (SUNY) System; State University of New York (SUNY) Stony Brook
    A new concept of single fuel reactivity-controlled compression ignition (RCCI) has been proposed through the catalytic partial oxidation (CPOX) reformation of diesel fuel. The reformed fuel mixture is then used as the low reactivity fuel and diesel itself is used as the high reactivity fuel. In this paper, two reformate mixtures from the reformation of diesel were selected for further analysis. Each reformate fuel mixture contained a significant fraction of inert gases (89% and 81%). The effects of the difference in the molar concentrations of the reformate mixtures were studied by experimenting with diesel as the direct injected fuel in RCCI over a varying start of injection timings and different blend ratios (i.e., the fraction of low and high reactivity fuels). The reformate mixture with the lower inert gas concentration had earlier combustion phasing and shorter combustion duration at any given diesel start of injection timing. The higher reactivity separation between reformate mixture and diesel, compared with gasoline and diesel, causes the combustion phasing of reformate-diesel RCCI to be more sensitive to the start of injection timing. The maximum combustion efficiency was found at a CA50 before top dead center (TDC), whereas the maximum thermal efficiency occurs at a CA50 after TDC. The range of energy-based blend ratios in which reformate-diesel RCCI is possible is between 25% and 45%, limited by ringing intensity (RI) at the low limit of blend ratios, and coefficient of variance (COV) of net indicated mean effective pressure (IMEPn) and combustion efficiency at the high limit. Intake boosting becomes necessary due to the oxygen deficiency caused by the low energy density of the reformate mixtures as it displaces intake air.
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    Exploring the Effects of Piston Bowl Geometry and Injector Included Angle on Dual-Fuel and Single-Fuel RCCI
    (ASME, 2021) Hariharan, Deivanayagam; Boldaji, Mozhgan Rahimi; Yan, Ziming; Gainey, Brian; Lawler, Benjamin; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa; Clemson University
    Reactivity control compression ignition (RCCI) is a low-temperature combustion technique that has been proposed to meet the current demand for high thermal efficiency and low engine-out emissions. However, its requirement of two separate fuel systems (i.e., a low-reactivity fuel system and a high-reactivity fuel system) has been one of its major challenges in the last decade. This leads to the single-fuel RCCI concept, where the secondary fuel (reformates of diesel) is generated from the primary fuel (diesel) through catalytic partial oxidation reformation. Following the in-depth analysis of the reformate fuel (reformates of diesel) and its benefit as the low-reactivity fuel with diesel, the effects of the start of injection (SOI) timing of diesel and the energy-based blend ratio were also studied in detail. In this study, the effects of piston profile and the injector included angles were experimentally examined using both conventional fuel pairs (gasoline-diesel and natural gas-diesel) and reformate RCCI. A validated computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model was also used for a better understanding of the experimental trends. Comparing a reentrant bowl piston with a shallow bowl piston at a constant compression ratio and SOI, the latter showed better thermal efficiency, regardless of the fuel combination, due to its 10% lower surface area for the heat transfer. Comparing the 150-degree included angle and 60-degree included angle on the shallow bowl piston, the latter showed better combustion efficiency, regardless of the fuel combination, due to its earlier combustion phasing (at constant SOI timing). The effect was particularly prominent on reformate RCCI because of its incredibly high diluent concentration, which retards the combustion further for the 150-deg injector. Later, using convergecfd, seven different injector included angles were studied at a constant SOI. With the change in injector included angle, the region of the cylinder targeted by the fuel spray varies significantly, and it was found to have a significant impact on the combustion efficiency and the engine-out emissions. As the injector included angle changed from 60-deg to 150-deg, the combustion efficiency increased by 15% and the CO, NOx, and HC emissions decreased by 96%, 70%, and 86%, respectively.