A quarterly research and development magazine
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Craig Taatjes
(925) 294-2764
cataatj@sandia.gov
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Stephanie Holinka
(505) 284-9227
slholin@sandia.gov
Newer engine designs require that engine designers know more about the details of a car's combustion reactions. New cars will require more precise engineering, which means that engine designers need to understand how combustion works in the engine at a deeper level.
In a standard gasoline engine, the fuel-air mixture is compressed and the spark starts combustion at the correct time in the engine cycle. In a diesel engine, fuel injection initiates combustion.
Researcher Craig Taatjes says many new high-efficiency and low-emission engine designs rely on much higher compression to ignite the fuel-air mixture. In these new engines, high compression heats the mixture to a point where it ignites on its own.
The tool is conceptually similar to a multiplayer game Raybourn developed several years ago, now used at Ft. Bragg, N.C., to train members of the U.S. Army Special Forces.
New engines must control this compression more precisely because no spark or fuel injection event sets the timing. Fuel for new engines, Taatjes says, must have a specific chemistry in order to ignite the combustion process.
The project studies the effects of high pressure on ignition reactions.
Few previous elementary kinetics measurements of these reactions have been at actual engine pressures, and most ignition models neglect their pressure dependence.
The LDRD is rounding out its second year. The findings may have broad implications for modeling compression ignition, and researchers hope that it will improve the ability to control combustion timing in advanced engines.