A Study on the Effect of Elevated Coolant Temperatures on HD Engines

In recent years, stricter regulations on emissions and higher demands for more fuel efficient vehicles have led to a greater focus on increasing the efficiency of the internal combustion engine. Nowadays, there is increasing interest in the recovery of waste heat from different engine sources such as the coolant and exhaust gases using, for example, a Rankine cycle. In diesel engines 15% to 30% of the energy from the fuel can be lost to the coolant and hence, does not contribute to producing work on the piston. This paper looks at reducing the heat losses to the coolant by increasing coolant temperatures within a single cylinder Scania D13 engine and studying the effects of this on the energy balance within the engine as well as the combustion characteristics. To do this, a GT Power model was first validated against experimental data from the engine. Using a Water-PEG mixture as coolant, the coolant temperature was then varied from 60°C to 200°C for both the liner and the cylinderhead. This sweep was done for multiple combinations of engine loads and speeds as well as for different air-fuel ratios. It was found that at the higher air-fuel ratios, an increase in coolant temperature led to an increase in indicated efficiency as well as an increase in exhaust gas temperature and enthalpy. However at lower air-fuel ratios there is a decrease in indicated efficiency with higher coolant temperatures. It was also seen that ignition delay at higher temperatures was shorter with the combustion duration being longer. The change in combustion phasing was found to be dependent on engine load. While the higher coolant temperature simplifies heat recovery from the coolant itself, the consequently higher exhaust gas temperatures observed means that the heat losses are moved more towards the exhaust where energy recovery is easier

Unburned Hydro Carbon (HC) estimation using a self-tuned heat release method

An estimation model which uses the gross heat release data and the fuel energy to estimate the total amount of emissions and unburned Hydro Carbon (HC) is developed. Gross heat release data is calculated from a self-tuned heat release method which uses in-cylinder pressure data for computing the energy released during combustion. The method takes all heat and mass losses into account. The method estimates the polytropic exponent and pressure offset during compression and expansion using a nonlinear least square method. Linear interpolation of polytropic exponent and pressure offset is then performed during combustion to calculate the gross heat release during combustion. Moreover the relations between the emissions specifically HC and Carbon Monoxide (CO) are investigated. The model was validated with experimental data and promising results were achieved

Medium and high load performance of partially premixed combustion in a wave-piston multi-cylinder engine with diesel and PRF70 fuel

European and US emission legislation on diesel compression ignition engines has pushed for the development of new types of combustion concepts to reduce hazardous pollutants and increase fuel e ciency. Partially premixed combustion (PPC) has been proposed as one solution to future restrictions on emissions while providing high gross indicated e ciency. The conceptual idea is that the time for the mixing between fuel and air will be longer when ignition delay is increased by addition of high amounts of exhaust gas recirculation (EGR). Increased air-fuel mixing time will lead to lower soot emissions and the high EGR rates will reduce both NOx emissions and combustion flame temperature, which decreases the overall heat transfer. Previous research in heavy-duty gasoline PPC has mostly focused on emissions and e ciency at low and medium load in single-cylinder engines. In this paper a Volvo D13 heavy-duty single-stage VGT engine with a newly developed Wave piston was run at medium and high engine load with a variation in fuel injection pressure. The Wave piston was specifically designed to enhance air-fuel mixing and increase combustion velocity. Two fuels were used in the experiments, PRF70 and Swedish MK1 diesel. Soot-NOx trade-o, combustion characteristics and e ciency were compared for both fuels at 1000 and 2000 Nm engine torque. The results show that at high load the combustion behavior with respect to rate of heat release and heat transfer is very similar between the fuels and no major di erence in indicated e ciency could be observed. Peak gross indicated e ciencies were reported to be around 49 % for both fuels at 1000 Nm and slightly above 50 % at 2000 Nm. The new Wave piston made it possible to obtain 1 g/kWh engine-out NOx emissions while still complying with Euro VI legislation for particulate emissions. Soot emissions were generally lower for PRF70 compared to MK1 diesel. We could also conclude that gas exchange performance is a major issue when running high load PPC where high λ and EGR is required. The single-stage VGT turbocharger could not provide su cient boost to keep λ above 1.3 at high EGR rates. This penalized combustion e ciency and soot emissions when reaching Euro VI NOx emission levels (0.3-0.5 g/kWh)

Double Compression Expansion Engine Concepts : Efficiency Analysis over a Load Range

Double Compression Expansion Engine (DCEE) concepts are split-cycle concepts where the main target is to improve brake efficiency. Previous simulations work [1] suggests these concepts has a potential to significantly improve brake efficiency relative to contemporary engines. However, a high peak efficiency alone might be of limited value. This is because a vehicle must be able to operate in different conditions where the engine load requirements changes significantly. An engine's ability to deliver high efficiency at the most frequently used load conditions is more important than peak efficiency in a rarely used load condition. The simulations done in this paper studies the efficiency at low, mid and full load for a DCEE concept proposal. Two load control strategies have been used, lambda and Miller (late intake valve closing) strategies. Also, effects from charge air cooling has also been studied. The Miller load control strategy reduces the overall peak cylinder pressure (PCP) due to a reduced compression ratio. A lower peak pressure has the advantage of reducing friction loss, since this loss is correlated with peak cylinder pressure. However, the less diluted air/fuel-mixture leads to higher combustion temperature which will increase overall heat loss and reduce thermodynamic efficiency. The studies also show that the charge air cooler (CAC) should not be used at low engine loads, because of the high heat loss it creates. However, at high loads the CAC is very useful because it both improves thermal efficiency and increases the maximum load by 12%, given the limitation on air/fuel-ratio (should be kept above 1.2)

Bayesian Method for Fuel Mass Estimation of Short Pilot Injections based on its Misfire Probability

A fuel mass estimation method for short pilot diesel injections is proposed and analyzed in this article. Previous studies showed that the pilot misfire ratio was more strongly correlated with the fuel mass than the on-time. This characteristic is exploited for the fuel mass estimation in a region where it is otherwise challenging to get good estimation accuracy due to the low signal-to-noise ratio, such as by rail pressure measurements or in-cylinder pressure for heat release estimation. The suggested method uses a Bayesian approach where the calibrated injectors, the pilot misfire ratio and the misfire detection are stochastically modelled. The effect of the different model parameters and dispersion on the estimator properties are analyzed. Experimental results in a Scania D13 Diesel engine confirm the improvement in the pilot mass estimation, for the regions within the transition from full misfire to full combustion. In this region, a 60% reduction in the estimation error was obtained, from 0.66mg to 0.27mg standard deviation

A Droplet Size Investigation and Comparison Using a Novel Biomimetic Flash-Boiling Injector for AdBlue Injections

Increased research is being driven by the automotive industry facing challenges, requiring to comply with both current and future emissions legislation, and to lower the fuel consumption. The reason for this legislation is to restrict the harmful pollution which every year causes 3.3 million premature deaths worldwide [1]. One factor that causes this pollution is NOx emissions. NOx emission legislation has been reduced from 8 g/kWh (Euro I) down to 0.4 g/kWh (Euro VI) and recently new legislation for ammonia slip which increase the challenge of exhaust aftertreatment with a SCR system. In order to achieve a good NOx conversion together with a low slip of ammonia, small droplets of Urea solution needs to be injected which can be rapidly evaporated and mixed into the flow of exhaust gases. In most of today's solutions this process is enhanced with flow restricting mixers or longer path lengths but if these can be removed and shortened the flow losses can be reduced, leading to higher efficiency and lower fuel consumption as well as a more compact exhaust system. The μMist® injector, inspired by nature, takes the concept from the Bombardier beetle which induces flash-boiling in its effective defence mechanism by spraying a plume of hot poisonous fine droplets with great accuracy towards an attacker [3]. By heating up the fluid in a constant volume chamber above the saturation temperature and induce flash evaporation by opening the nozzle, the liquid breaks up into fine droplets which flow out into the target environment. This paper presents a study comparing the different effects of spray behaviour at different ratios between the saturation pressure and the target pressure. In this study the target pressure is atmospheric. The aim for the study is to gain a better understanding of the droplet sizes and the injector flow rates for different pressures and also present a limited benchmarking study of current market leading AdBlue injectors. Current testing has shown that this novel injector has the ability to produce 33% smaller droplets in SMD and 87% reduction in DV50

Multi-Cylinder Adaptation of In-Cycle Predictive Combustion Models

Adaptation of predictive combustion models for their use in in-cycle closed-loop combustion control of a multi-cylinder engine is studied in this article. Closed-loop combustion control can adjust the operation of the engine closer to the optimal point despite production tolerances, component variations, normal disturbances, ageing or fuel type. In the fastest loop, in-cycle closed-loop combustion control was proved to reduce normal variations around the operational point to increase the efficiency. However, these algorithms require highly accurate predictive models, whilst having low complexity for their implementation. Three models were used to exemplify the proposed adaptation methods: The pilot injection's ignition delay, the pilot burned mass, and the main injection's ignition delay. Different approaches for the adaptation of the models are studied to obtain the demanded accuracy under the implementation constraints. Non-linear adaptation techniques are necessary for the proposed models. This was compared to a linear formulation that reduced the complexity. A reduced multi-cylinder approach is presented as a method to reduce the total number of parameters while preserving the accuracy. A method to select the parameter for the reduction is also proposed. The sensitivity of the models and the robustness of the algorithms was studied. To reduce the complexity of the model implementation, the performance of Taylor's expansions was studied. The methods were tested from experimental data obtained from a Scania D13 six-cylinder heavy-duty engine run with conventional diesel, rape methyl-ester (RME), and hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO). The adaptation of the models proved to significantly improve the prediction accuracy for each of the cylinders. The average bias error is eliminated whilst the total error dispersion was halved. The results validated the reduced multi-cylinder adaptation as a method to reduce the total number of parameters and have similar prediction accuracy. Furthermore, the multi-cylinder adaptation was the most robust against measurement errors. For the ignition delay models, the sensitivity to the nominal point of linearization was under the required prediction accuracy for the in-cycle closed-loop control algorithms i.e. under the detection accuracy of 0.2CAD

Investigation of Small Pilot Combustion in a Heavy-Duty Diesel Engine

Factors influencing pilot-injection combustion were investigated using heat release analysis in a heavy-duty diesel engine fuelled with standard diesel fuel. Combinations of pilot-injection parameters i.e. pilot start of injection, pilot mass, pilot-main injection separation, and rail pressure were studied for various operating conditions and combustion phases. An experiment was designed to investigate the factors influencing the combustion of the pilot. For improved injected fuel-mass accuracy, reference data for the injectors were measured in a spray rig prior to the engine experiments. Results show that cycle-to-cycle variations and cylinder-to-cylinder variations influence pilot autoignition and the amount of heat released. Rail pressure and injected pilot mass affect the obtained variance depending on the chamber conditions. The obtained combustion modes (premixed, diffusive) of pilot combustion were found to be a function of the injected mass and rail pressure