Publications

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This project was funded through the Campus Executive Fellowship at University of California (UC) Berkeley, and had two principal aims. First, it sought to explore predictive tools for estimating fuel properties based on molecular structure, with the goal of identifying promising candidates for new fuels to be synthesized. Second, it sought to investigate the possibility of increasing engine efficiency by substituting air for a working fluid with higher efficiency potential employed in a closed loop, namely a mixture of argon and oxygen. In pursuing the predictive tool for novel fuels, a new model was built that proved to be highly predictive of autoignition characteristics for a wide variety of hydrocarbons, esters, ethers and alcohols, and reasonably predictive for furan and tetrahydrofuran compounds, the target class of novel fuels. Obtaining more “training data” for the model improved its predictive capabilities, and further reductions in the uncertainty of the predictions would be possible with more training data. In investigating the concept of a closed-loop engine cycle using an argon-oxygen working fluid, substantial progress was made. Initial engineering models were built showing the feasibility of the concept; numerous collaborations were formed with industry and academic partners; external funding was secured from the California Energy Commission (CEC) to build a dedicated engine platform for research; and this engine platform was designed and constructed. Experimental work and associated modeling studies will take place in late 2016 and early 2017.

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This work explores the mechanisms by which a post injection can reduce unburned hydrocarbon (UHC) emissions in heavy-duty diesel engines operating at low-temperature combustion conditions. Post injections, small, close-coupled injections of fuel after the main injection, have been shown to reduce UHC in the authors' previous work. In this work, we analyze optical data from laser-induced fluorescence of both CH2O and OH and use chemical reactor modeling to better understand the mechanism by which post injections reduce UHC emissions. The results indicate that post-injection efficacy, or the extent to which a post injection reduces UHC emissions, is a strong function of the cylinder pressure variation during the post injection. However, the data and analysis indicate that the pressure and temperature rise from the post injection combustion cannot solely explain the UHC reduction measured by both engine-out and optical diagnostics. The fluid-mechanic, thermal, and chemical interaction of the post injection with the main-injection mixture is a key part of UHC reduction; the starting action of the post jet and the subsequent entrainment of surrounding gases are likely both important processes in reducing UHC with a post injection.

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We investigated the combustion process in a dual-fuel, reactivity-controlled compression-ignition (RCCI) engine using a combination of optical diagnostics and chemical kinetics modeling to explain the role of equivalence ratio, temperature, and fuel reactivity stratification for heat-release rate control. An optically accessible engine is operated in the RCCI combustion mode using gasoline primary reference fuels (PRF). A well-mixed charge of iso-octane (PRF = 100) is created by injecting fuel into the engine cylinder during the intake stroke using a gasoline-type direct injector. Later in the cycle, n-heptane (PRF = 0) is delivered through a centrally mounted diesel-type common-rail injector. This injection strategy generates stratification in equivalence ratio, fuel blend, and temperature. The first part of this study uses a high-speed camera to image the injection events and record high-temperature combustion chemiluminescence. Moreover, the chemiluminescence imaging showed that, at the operating condition studied in the present work, mixtures in the squish region ignite first, and the reaction zone proceeds inward toward the center of the combustion chamber. The second part of this study investigates the charge preparation of the RCCI strategy using planar laser-induced fluorescence (PLIF) of a fuel tracer under non-reacting conditions to quantify fuel concentration distributions prior to ignition. The fuel-tracer PLIF data show that the combustion event proceeds down gradients in the n-heptane distribution. The third part of the study uses chemical kinetics modeling over a range of mixtures spanning the distributions observed from the fuel-tracer fluorescence imaging to isolate the roles of temperature, equivalence ratio, and PRF number stratification. The simulations predict that PRF number stratification is the dominant factor controlling the ignition location and growth rate of the reaction zone. Equivalence ratio has a smaller, but still significant, influence. Lastly, temperature stratification had a negligible influence due to the NTC behavior of the PRF mixtures.

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The growth of poly-cyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) soot precursors are observed using a two-laser technique combining laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) of PAH with laser-induced incandescence (LII) of soot in a diesel engine under low-temperature combustion (LTC) conditions. The broad mixture distributions and slowed chemical kinetics of LTC "stretch out" soot-formation processes in both space and time, thereby facilitating their study. Imaging PAH-LIF from pulsed-laser excitation at three discrete wavelengths (266, 532, and 633 nm) reveals the temporal growth of PAH molecules, while soot-LII from a 1064-nm pulsed laser indicates inception to soot. The distribution of PAH-LIF also grows spatially within the combustion chamber before soot-LII is first detected. The PAH-LIF signals have broad spectra, much like LII, but typically with spectral profile that is inconsistent with laser-heated soot. Quantitative natural-emission spectroscopy also shows a broad emission spectrum, presumably from PAH chemiluminescence, temporally coinciding with of the PAH-LIF.

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Post injections have been shown to reduce engine-out soot emissions in a variety of engine architectures and at a range of operating points. In this study, measurements of the engine-out soot from a heavy-duty optical diesel engine have conclusively shown that interaction between the post-injection jet and soot from the main injection must be, at least in part, responsible for the reduction in engine-out soot. Extensive measurements of the spatial and temporal evolution of soot using high-speed imaging of soot natural luminosity (soot-NL) and planar-laser induced incandescence of soot (soot-PLII) at four vertical elevations in the piston bowl at a range of crank angle timings provide definitive optical evidence of these interactions. The soot-PLII images provide some of the most conclusive evidence to date that the addition of a post injection dramatically changes the topology and quantity of in-cylinder soot. As the post jet penetrates toward the bowl wall, it carves out regions from the main-injection soot structures, either through displacement of the soot or through rapid and progressive oxidation of the soot. Later in the cycle, the regions of main-injection soot on either side of the jet centerline, clearly present in the main-injection-only case, have all but disappeared when the post-injection is added - only the soot in the post-injection pathway remains. Evidence of this apparent late-cycle oxidation of main-injection soot appears in both the soot-PLII and soot-NL images, providing substantial support for the mixing mechanism of soot reduction with post injections. Implications of these findings and future work are also discussed. © 2014 SAE International.