Derek A. Splitter

Negative Valve Overlap Reforming Chemistry in Low-Oxygen Environments

Fuel injection into the negative valve overlap (NVO) period is a common method for controlling combustion phasing in homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) and other forms of advanced combustion. When fuel is injected into O2-deficient NVO conditions, a portion of the fuel can be converted to products containing significant levels of H2 and CO. Additionally, other short chain hydrocarbons are produced by means of thermal cracking, water-gas shift, and partial oxidation reactions. The present study experimentally investigates the fuel reforming chemistry that occurs during NVO. To this end, two very different experimental facilities are utilized and their results are compared. One facility is located at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which uses a custom research engine cycle developed to isolate the NVO event from main combustion, allowing a steady stream of NVO reformate to be exhausted from the engine and chemically analyzed. The other experimental facility, located at Sandia National Laboratories, uses a dump valve to capture the exhaust from a single NVO event for analysis. Results from the two experiments are in excellent trend-wise agreement and indicate that the reforming process under low-O2 conditions produces substantial concentrations of H2, CO, methane, and other short-chain hydrocarbon species. The concentration of thesemorexa0» species is found to be strongly dependent on fuel injection timing and injected fuel type, with weaker dependencies on NVO duration and initial temperature, indicating that NVO reforming is kinetically slow. Further, NVO reforming does not require a large energy input from the engine, meaning that it is not thermodynamically expensive. The implications of these results on HCCI and other forms of combustion are discussed in detail.«xa0less

Gasoline-like Fuel Effects on High-load, Boosted HCCI Combustion Employing Negative Valve Overlap Strategy

In recent years a number of studies have demonstrated that boosted operation combined with external EGR is a path forward for expanding the high load limit of homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) operation with the negative valve overlap (NVO) valve strategy. However, the effects of fuel composition with this strategy have not been fully explored. In this study boosted HCCI combustion is investigated in a single-cylinder research engine equipped with direct injection (DI) fueling, cooled external exhaust gas recirculation (EGR), laboratory pressurized intake air, and a fully-variable hydraulic valve actuation (HVA) valve train. Three fuels with significant compositional differences are investigated: regular grade gasoline (RON = 90.2), 30% ethanol-gasoline blend (E30, RON = 100.3), and 24% iso-butanol-gasoline blend (IB24, RON = 96.6). Results include engine loads from 350 to 800 kPa IMEPg for all fuels at three engine speeds 1600, 2000, and 2500 rpm. All operating conditions achieved thermal efficiency (gross indicated efficiency) between 38 and 47%, low NOX emissions ( 0.1 g/kWh), and high combustion efficiency ( 96.5%). Detailed sweeps of intake manifold pressure (atmospheric to 250 kPaa), EGR (0 25% EGR), and injection timing are conducted to identify fuel-specific effects. The major finding of this study is thatmorexa0» while significant fuel compositional differences exist, in boosted HCCI operation only minor changes in operational conditions are required to achieve comparable operation for all fuels. In boosted HCCI operation all fuels were able to achieve matched load-speed operation, whereas in conventional SI operation the fuel-specific knock differences resulted in significant differences in the operable load-speed space. Although all fuels were operable in boosted HCCI, the respective air handling requirements are also discussed, including an analysis of the demanded turbocharger efficiency.«xa0less

A historical analysis of the co-evolution of gasoline octane number and spark-ignition engines

In this work, the authors reviewed engine, vehicle, and fuel data since 1925 to examine the historical and recent coupling of compression ratio and fuel antiknock properties (i.e., octane number) in the U.S. light-duty vehicle market. The analysis identified historical time frames and trends and illustrated how three factors—consumer preferences, technical capabilities, and regulatory legislation—affect personal mobility. Data showed that over many decades these three factors have a complex and time-sensitive interplay. Long-term trends in the data were identified where interaction and evolution between all three factors were observed. Specifically, transportation efficiency per unit power (gal/ton-mi/hp) was found to be a good metric to integrate technical, societal, and regulatory effects into the evolutional pathway of personal mobility. From this framework, discussions of future evolutionary changes to personal mobility are also presented, with a focus centered on how increasing fuel octane number can help to enable sustained improvement in transportation efficiency per unit power.

An assessment of thermodynamic merits for current and potential future engine operating strategies

This work compares the fundamental thermodynamic underpinnings (i.e. working fluid properties and heat release profile) of various combustion strategies with engine measurements. The approach employs a model that separately tracks the impacts on efficiency due to differences in rate of heat addition, volume change, mass addition, and molecular weight change for a given combination of working fluid, heat release profile, and engine geometry. Comparative analysis between the measured and modeled efficiencies illustrates fundamental sources of efficiency reductions or opportunities inherent to various combustion regimes. Engine operating regimes chosen for analysis include stoichiometric spark-ignited combustion and lean compression-ignited combustion including homogeneous charge compression ignition, spark-assisted homogeneous charge compression ignition, and conventional diesel combustion. Within each combustion regime, the effects of engine load, combustion duration, combustion phasing, compression ratio, and charge dilution are explored. Model findings illustrate that even in the absence of losses such as heat transfer or incomplete combustion, the maximum possible thermal efficiency inherent to each operating strategy varies to a significant degree. Additionally, the experimentally measured losses are observed to be unique within a given operating strategy. The findings highlight the fact that to create a roadmap for future directions in internal combustion engine technologies, it is important to not only compare the absolute real-world efficiency of a given combustion strategy but also to examine the measured efficiency in context of what is thermodynamically possible with the working fluid and boundary conditions prescribed by a strategy.

In-Cylinder Reaction Chemistry and Kinetics During Negative Valve Overlap Fuel Injection Under Low-Oxygen Conditions

Fuel injection into the negative valve overlap (NVO) period is a common method for controlling combustion phasing in homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) as well as other forms of advanced combustion. During this event, at least a portion of the fuel hydrocarbons can be converted to products containing significant levels of H2 and CO, as well as other short chain hydrocarbons by means of thermal cracking, watergas shift, and partial oxidation reactions, depending on the availability of oxygen and the time-temperature-pressure history. The resulting products alter the autoignition properties of the combined fuel mixture for HCCI. Fuel-rich chemistry in a partial oxidation environment is also relevant to other high efficiency engine concepts (e.g., the dedicated EGR (D-EGR) concept from SWRI). In this study, we used a unique 6-stroke engine cycle to experimentally investigate the chemistry of a range of fuels injected during NVO under low oxygen conditions. Fuels investigated included iso-octane, iso-butanol, ethanol, and methanol. Products from NVO chemistry were highly dependent on fuel type and injection timing, with iso-octane producing less than 1.5% hydrogen and methanol producing more than 8%. We compare the experimental trends with CHEMKIN (single zone, 0-D model) predictions using multiple kinetic mechanisms available in the current literature. Our primary conclusion is that the kinetic mechanisms investigated are unable to accurately predict the magnitude and trends of major species we observed.Copyright

Direct Measurement and Chemical Speciation of Top Ring Zone Liquid During Engine Operation

The present manuscript consists of proof of concept experiments involving direct measurements and detailed chemical speciation from the top ring zone of a running engine. The work uses a naturally aspirated single cylinder utility engine that has been modified to allow direct liquid sample acquisition from behind the top ring. Samples were analyzed and spectated using gas chromatographic techniques. Results show that the liquid mixture in the top ring zone is neither neat lubricant nor fuel but a combination of the two with unique chemical properties. At the tested steady state no-load operating condition, the chemical species of the top ring zone liquid were found to be highly dependent on boiling point, where both low reactivity higher boiling point fuel species and lubricant are observed to be the dominant constituents. The results show that at least for the tested condition, approximately 25% of the top ring zone is comprised of gasoline fuel like molecules, which are dominated by high octane number aromatic species, while the remainder of the liquid is comprised of lubricant like species.

Total variation-based neutron computed tomography

We perform the neutron computed tomography reconstruction problem via an inverse problem formulation with a total variation penalty. In the case of highly under-resolved angular measurements, the total variation penalty suppresses high-frequency artifacts which appear in filtered back projections. In order to efficiently compute solutions for this problem, we implement a variation of the split Bregman algorithm; due to the error-forgetting nature of the algorithm, the computational cost of updating can be significantly reduced via very inexact approximate linear solvers. We present the effectiveness of the algorithm in the significantly low-angular sampling case using synthetic test problems as well as data obtained from a high flux neutron source. The algorithm removes artifacts and can even roughly capture small features when an extremely low number of angles are used.