Chol-Bum Kweon

Large Eddy Simulation of High Reynolds Number Nonreacting and Reacting JP-8 Sprays in a Constant Pressure Flow Vessel With a Detailed Chemistry Approach

In military propulsion applications, the characterization of internal combustion engines operating with jet fuel is vital to understand engine performance, combustion phasing, and emissions when JP-8 is fully substituted for diesel fuel. In this work, high-resolution large eddy simulation (LES) simulations have been performed in-order to provide a comprehensive analysis of the detailed mixture formation process in engine sprays for nozzle configurations of interest to the Army. The first phase examines the behavior of a nonreacting evaporating spray, and demonstrates the accuracy in predicting liquid and vapor transient penetration profiles using a multirealization statistical grid-converged approach. The study was conducted using a suite of single-orifice injectors ranging from 40 to 147 μm at a rail pressure of 1000 bar and chamber conditions at 900 K and 60 bar. The next phase models the nonpremixed combustion behavior of reacting sprays and investigates the submodel ability to predict auto-ignition and lift-off length (LOL) dynamics. The model is constructed using a Kelvin Helmholtz–Rayleigh Taylor (KH–RT) spray atomization framework coupled to an LES approach. The liquid physical properties are defined using a JP-8 mixture containing 80% n-decane and 20% trimethylbenzene (TMB), while the gas phase utilizes the Aachen kinetic mechanism (Hummer, et al., 2007, “Experimental and Kinetic Modeling Study of Combustion of JP-8, Its Surrogates, and Reference Components in Laminar Non Premixed Flows,” Proc. Combust. Inst., 31, pp. 393–400 and Honnet, et al., 2009, “A Surrogate Fuel for Kerosene,” Proc. Combust. Inst., 32, pp. 485–492) and a detailed chemistry combustion approach. The results are in good agreement with the spray combustion measurements from the Army Research Laboratory (ARL), constant pressure flow (CPF) facility, and provide a robust computational framework for further JP-8 studies of spray combustion.

Knock criteria for aviation diesel engines

The objective of this study was to develop knock criteria for aviation diesel engines that have experienced a number of malfunctions during flight and ground operation. Aviation diesel engines have been vulnerable to knock because they use cylinder wall coating on the aluminum engine block, instead of using steel liners. This has been a trade-off between reliability and lightweighting. An in-line four-cylinder four-stroke direct-injection high-speed turbocharged aviation diesel engine was tested to characterize its combustion at various ground and flight conditions for several specially formulated Jet A fuels. The main fuel property chosen for this study was cetane number, as it significantly impacts the combustion of the aviation diesel engines. The other fuel properties were maintained within the MIL-DTL-83133 specification. The results showed that lower cetane number fuels showed more knock tendency than higher cetane number fuels for the tested aviation diesel engine. In this study, maximum pressure rise rate, or Rmax, was used as a parameter to define knock criteria for aviation diesel engines. Rmax values larger than 1500 kPa/cad require correction to avoid potential mechanical and thermal stresses on the cylinder wall coating. The finite element analysis model using the experimental data showed similarly high mechanical and thermal stresses on the cylinder wall coating. The developed diesel knock criteria are recommended as one of the ways to prevent hard knock for engine developers to consider when they design or calibrate aviation diesel engines.

Direct Fuel Injector Power Drive System Optimization

Abstract : The objective of this study is to optimize the injector power drive system for improved fuel injection quantity and timing control. The power drive system was optimized for improved injection repeatability under different operating conditions such as fuel supply pressures. A coupled simulation of injector electromagnetic, pintle (needle) rigid body motion and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model was employed to generate the optimal values of the 1st stage current, the 1st stage on-time and the 2nd stage current. The simulation results were validated against the experimental data measured with a photo detector measurement system.

Flash vapor fuel injector development

Following the single-fuel initiative, the US Army is transitioning its power plants from running on various fuels to a single fuel—JP-8. Due to its low vapor pressure, JP-8 could not be used to cold start or run gasoline engines without extensive retrofit. The feasibility of running a low compression ratio, spark ignition engine with direct injection of heated JP-8 was investigated. A preliminary study found that a small piston-type spark ignition engine would not start or run on JP-8 unless JP-8 was heated to certain temperature. JP-8’s thermal decomposition, or coking, was found to be a serious issue that must be addressed if fuel heating method would be used. A flash heater concept was proposed to solve problems of JP-8’s low vapor pressure on running low compression ratio spark ignition engines, as well as JP-8’s coking issue at high temperature. A flash vapor fuel injector was designed and tested to be capable of heating up JP-8 from 26.7 °C to its vaporization temperature of >154.4 °C under one-tenth of a second at the required flow rate. The longest duration heating test (>1 million injections) did not show any coking sign with flash heating. Ignition test results show equivalent or superior ignition characteristics of pre-heated JP-8 (with heater temperature at 260.0 °C or above) provided by the developed flash vapor fuel injector, compared with non-heated aviation gasoline.

Fuel Effects on Nozzle Flow and Spray Using Fully Coupled Eulerian Simulations

Abstract : The objective of this study is to examine the impact of single and multi-component surrogate fuel mixtures on the atomization and mixing characteristics of non-reacting isothermal diesel engine sprays. An Eulerian modeling approach was adopted to simulate both the internal nozzle flow dynamics and the emerging turbulent spray in the near nozzle region in a fully-coupled manner. The Volume of Fluids (VoF) methodology was utilized to treat the two-phase flow dynamics including a Homogenous Relaxation approach to account for nozzle cavitation effects. To enable accurate simulations, the nozzle geometry and in-situ multi-dimensional needle lift and off-axis motion profiles have been characterized via the X-ray phase-contrast technique at Argonne National Laboratory. The flow turbulence is treated via the classical k-e Reynolds Average Navier Stoke (RANS) model with in-nozzle and near field resolution of 30 mum. Several multi-component surrogate mixtures were implemented using linear blending rules to examine the behavior of petroleum, and alternative fuels including: JP-8, JP-5, Hydro-treated Renewable Jet (HRJ), Iso-Paraffinic Kerosene (IPK) with comparison to single- component n-dodecane fuel on ECN Spray A nozzle spray dynamics. The results were validated using transient rate-of- injection measurements from the Army Research Laboratory at Spray A conditions as well as projected density fields obtained from the line-of-sight measurements from X-ray radiography measurements at The Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory. The conditions correspond to injection pressure, nominal fuel temperature, and ambient density of 1500 bar, 363 K, and 22.8 kg/m3, respectively. The simulation results provide a unique high-fidelity contribution to the effects of fuels on the spray mixing dynamics. The results can lead to improvements in fuel mixture distributions enhancing performance of military vehicles.

Direct Fuel Injector Temporal Measurements

Abstract : The objective of this study is to measure high-frequency, short-duration, actual liquid fuel spray events using a simple photo detector and validate the results with high-speed camera measurements. This report presents an optical approach for detecting bulk fuel injections temporal characteristics, i.e. opening delay and duration times. A key component in the measurement system is a commercially available low-cost photo detector which is shown to be highly effective for detecting high frequency, short duration spray events. The paper provides an in-depth discussion of a photo detector based measurement system, a test fixture, and its validation. Test results with a two-stage pulse-width-modulation (PWM) current controlled approach are provided for various operation parameter settings. Its effectiveness is validated by comparing with the results obtained with a high-speed camera.

SPH simulation of fuel drop impact on heated surfaces

The interaction of liquid drops and heated surfaces is of great importance in many applications. This paper describes a numerical method, based on smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH), for simulating n-heptane drop impact on a heated surface. The SPH method uses numerical Lagrangian particles, which obey the laws of fluid dynamics, to describe the fluid flows. By incorporating the Peng-Robinson equation of state, the present SPH method can directly simulate both the liquid and vapor phases and the phase change process between them. The numerical method was validated by two experiments on drop impact on heated surfaces at low impact velocities. The numerical method was then used to predict drop-wall interactions at various temperatures and velocities. The model was able to predict the different outcomes, such as rebound, spread, splash, breakup, and the Leidenfrost phenomenon, consistent with the physical understanding.