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HCCI-PMC
I.
INTRODUCTION
Reduction in diesel engine emissions, in particular NOx and PM emission is becoming as high priority issue as emission norms are getting more and more stringent now a days. The rigid emission standards urged the engine researchers to innovate techniques that produce high efficient and low emission engines. One such novel technique is HCCI combustion. Moreover, this technique can be scaled to virtually every size-class of transportation engines from small motorcycle to large ship engines [U.S congress report, (2001)]. The operational control of an HCCI engine over a wide range of speeds and loads is probably the most difficult hurdle. HCCI engine ignition is largely determined by the charge mixture composition, its timetemperature history and to a lesser extent pressure. Although it has been demonstrated that HCCI engines operate well at low to medium loads, severe complications have been observed at high loads. At higher loads, the combustion becomes more rapid which subsequently leading to intense mechanical noise, engine damage and unacceptable levels of NOx emissions . Preliminary research indicates that the operating range of HCCI engines can be extended significantly by partially stratifying the fuel-air charge/ residual charge at high loads. The potential mechanisms for achieving partial charge stratification include: in-cylinder fuel injection, water injection, varying the intake and in-cylinder mixing processes and altering incylinder flows to vary heat transfer. Due to the difficulties being faced at higher loads, HCCI engines are generally designed to switch over to conventional Spark Ignition (SI) or Compression Ignition (CI) mode of combustion at this operational region [Weclas (2004a)]. An experimental technique which inherits the positive aspects of HCCI combustion at low to medium loads and concurrently keeps away from the negative attributes of HCCI combustion at higher loads is the matter of immediate concern. Based on literature survey [Chidambaram (2009) and Weclas (2004b)], homogeneous combustion established through porous medium combustion technique (HCCI-PMC) has been attempted in this experimental investigation. In this study, PMC technique has been implemented on a single cylinder, direct injection diesel engine. It has been found that this technique is able to produce relatively high efficiency and low particulate emissions from a diesel engine. Low NOx emission than HCCI
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mode is the added advantage of this technique [Jan (2001), Wang (2000) and Afsharvahid (2007)].
In the initial stage, the conventional engine was operated without any modifications. In the second stage, the engine was made to run in HCCI mode, established through the combination of technologies such as high pressure fuel injection, injection timing advance, pre-heating the air of induction manifold and cooled exhaust gas recirculation. The performance, combustion and emission characteristics of the engine under this mode were recorded. In the third stage, a ceramic material with large porosity was introduced into the combustion chamber of the engine to accomplish HCCI-PMC. Then the experiments were conducted and the readings were taken. As an end note, the combustion, performance and emission characteristics of engine under different modes of combustion such as Conventional, HCCI and HCCI-PMC were compared and presented in this paper. A typical comparison between conventional engines and HCCI engine is shown below.
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II.
EXPERIMENTAL SETUP
Generally, the porous medium combustion can be achieved by the precise placement of porous ceramic material in either of the following locations: cylinder, engine head or piston. In this research work, the porous ceramic material was placed on the top of piston cavity and had been detained in its position through an appropriate locking mechanism. The inherent physical and thermal characteristics of porous ceramic material was utilized for the fast and complete evaporation of the liquid fuel while large porosity characteristic being utilized for proper mixing with air and volumetric combustion. The photographic view of such a piston with porous medium implementation was shown in Fig. 1.The chemical composition and mechanical properties of porous ceramic material were given in Table 1.
Density(g/cm3) 5.89
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A single cylinder four stroke direct injection air-cooled diesel engine, most commonly used for agricultural applications in India, was used for the experimental investigation. The specifications of this engine were given in Table 2. The schematic diagram of the experimental set-up was shown in Fig. 2. The engine was coupled to an electrical dynamometer to provide the brake load. The fuel consumption was measured with the aid of a glass burette and stopwatch on volume basis. A Piezo-electric pressure transducer (GH12D Miniature Pressure
Transducer) coupled with an angle encoder was used to measure the combustion chamber pressure with respect to crank angle. The setup was connected to a personal computer with AVL engine evaluation software. Five-gas exhaust analyzer was used to determine the emissions of CO (carbon monoxide), CO2 (carbon dioxide), HC (hydrocarbon) by infra-red measurement
and NOx (nitrogen oxides) by electrochemical sensors. Smoke intensity was measured with an AVL 415 smoke meter.
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Make Model Bore X Stroke (mm) Compression ratio Cubic capacity Rated power Rated speed Start of injection Connecting rod length Injector operating pressure
Kirloskar TAF 87.5 X 110 17.5:1 0.661 liters 4.4 kW 1500 rpm 23.4 bTDC 220 mm 200 205 bar Table 2. Engine specifications
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8. Pressure transducer 1. Diesel engine 2. Electrical dynamometer 3. Dynamometer controls 4. Air box 5. U-tube manometer 6. Fuel tank 7. Fuel measurement 9. TDC position sensor 10. Charge amplifier 11. TDC amplifier circuit 12. Analog to digital card 13. Computer
14. Exhaust gas analyzer 15. AVL smoke meter 16. Air preheater 17. EGR control valve
In this research work, an attempt has been performed to compare the combustion and performance characteristics of a DI diesel engine under conventional, HCCI and HCCI-PMC modes of combustion.
1. COMBUSTION CHARCTERISTICS
1.1 IGNITION DELAY
The variation of ignition delay with brake power for different modes of combustion was shown in Fig.5. It was inferred that ignition delay started to decrease with an increase in brake power for almost all modes of combustion. With an increase in brake power, the amount of fuel being burnt inside the cylinder gets increased and subsequently the temperature of in- cylinder
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gases gets increased. This may lead to reduced ignition delay in all modes of combustion. However, the ignition delay for diesel fuel was lower under HCCI and HCCI-PMC modes than the conventional combustion mode. It was evident that the ignition delay was lowest in HCCIPMC mode from medium to high load. This might be due to the positive influence of hot porous medium on the evaporation of liquid fuel and its mixing with air.
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16.5
Conventional
15.5
HCCI
15 HCCI-PMC 14.5
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73 71 69 67 Peak pressure in bars 65 63 61 59 HCCI-PMC 57 55 53 0 1.1 2.2 3.3 Brake power in kW 4.4 Conventional
HCCI
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The heat release rate at different crank angles at rated load for different modes of combustion was shown in Fig. 7.It was inferred that the heat release patterns of all combustion modes were similar but with slight variations. It was observed that the heat release pattern was rapid and intense in HCCI mode combustion. In HCCI-PMC mode, even though the heat release rate was more rapid than the conventional combustion mode; the heat was released in a controlled manner.
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0 -12 -10 -8 -6 -4 -2 0 2 4 6 8 10 12
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2. PERFORMANCE CHARCTERISTICS
2.1 SPECIFIC FUEL CONSUMPTION
The variation in specific fuel consumption against brake power for different modes of combustion was shown in Fig.8. It was inferred that the specific fuel consumption was lower in the case of HCCI and HCCI-PMC, as these modes were predominately operated with a dilute homogeneous charge. Even within these two modes, HCCI-PMC had superior characteristics over HCCI mode, which might be due to enhanced evaporation and mixing of fuel with air by the presence of hot porous medium.
0.6
0.5
0.4
Conventional
0.2
10
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30
Conventional 20
HCCI 15 HCCI-PMC 10
Figure 9.Comparison of brake thermal efficiency for various modes of combustion From Fig 9, it was inferred that the brake thermal efficiencies were increasing with an increase in brake power for all modes of combustion that were under consideration. Even though the brake thermal efficiencies did not vary too much between HCCI and HCCI-PMC modes, these modes were found to offer better thermal efficiencies than the conventional combustion mode. This might be due to the enhanced evaporation and mixing rate in the case of HCCI-PMC mode of combustion.
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3. EMISSION CHARACTERISTICS
Conventional HCCI
20 HCCI-PMC 15
10
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0.21
Carbon monoxide in %
0.06
Figure 11. Comparison of carbon monoxide emissions for different modes of combustion
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As far as the nitrogen oxide emissions were concerned, it was found to be the lowest in the case of HCCI- PMC mode. This might be due to the heat absorbing characteristics of porous medium which was placed inside the combustion chamber. Due to this heat absorption from the reaction zone, the in-cylinder temperature was comparatively lower in HCCI-PMC mode throughout the cycle. This consequently resulted in low thermal NOx emissions. In HCCI mode of combustion, at higher loads, the combustion became more rapid and intense and eventually producing unacceptable levels of NOx emissions. This was shown in Fig. 12.
1350
1200
900
750
Conventional
600
HCCI
Figure 12. Comparison of nitrogen oxide emissions for different modes of combustion
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250
200
Soot in mg/m3
150
Brake power in kW
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(1) The ignition delay was found to be lower in HCCI and HCCI-PMC modes due to homogeneous mixture conditions.
(2) Maximum peak gas pressure was observed in HCCI mode; whilst slightly lower peak pressure than HCCI mode was observed in HCCI-PMC mode due to pressure drop across the porous ceramic medium which was placed in the combustion chamber.
(3) The brake thermal efficiencies were higher in HCCI and HCCI-PMC modes than the conventional combustion mode.
(4) Soot emission under HCCI and HCCI-PMC modes were found to be superior to conventional mode of combustion.
(5) The NOx emissions were comparable with conventional mode under low to medium loads. But at high load under HCCI mode, the NOx emission was higher due to rapid
combustion established through homogeneous mixture. However, due to heat absorption characteristics of porous medium, the NOx emission was lower in HCCI-PMC mode when compared to HCCI mode.
(6)
HCCI and HCCI-PMC modes had inferior characteristics with respect to HC and CO emissions. But it could be easily resolved by the use of ultra low light-off temperature oxidation catalysts.
As an end note, this research work would like to conclude that with proper implementations, the HCCI-PMC mode had the potential of offering better combustion, performance and emission characteristics in direct injection diesel engines.
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V.
REFERENCES
[1] C Kannan et. al. / International Journal of Engineering Science and Technology Vol. 2(8), 2010, pp 3525-3534 [2] Afsharvahid.S., Ashman.P.J., Dally.B.B.,(2007): Investigation of NOx conversion
characteristics in a porous medium, Combustion and Flame, 06, pp.1-12 [3] Kannan Chidambaram, Tamilporai Packirisamy(2009): Smart ceramic materials for homogeneous combustion in internal combustion engines A review, Thermal Science,13 , pp. 153-163 [4] Miroslaw Weclas(2004): Potential of porous medium combustion technology as applied to internal combustion engines, Sonderdrunck Schriffenreihe Der Georg- Simon -Ohm
Fachhochschule Numberg NR.32, ISSN 1616-0762 [5] Miroslaw Weclas (2004): Strategy for intelligent internal combustion engine with homogeneous combustion in cylinder, Sonderdrunck Schriffenreihe Der Georg- Simon -Ohm Fachhochschule Numberg NR.32, ISSN 1616-0762 [6] U.S Department of Energy, A Report to US Congress (2001): Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) Technology [7] Wang.W.G., Lyons.D.W., Clark.N.N.,Gautam.M (2000): Emissions from nine heavy trucks fueled by diesel and biodiesel blend without engine modification, Environmental Science Technology, 34, pp.933-939
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