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A free-piston linear-alternator combined with combustion chambers has been examined in many studies. However, only simplified thermodynamic and mechanical models were developed to mimic the actual behavior of the free-piston engine. The purpose of this study is to establish a fully dynamic model that can calculate the energy transformation under the operation of the free-piston engine. The Matlab/Simulink® model uses non-constant-volume combustion event, the piston transient dynamics, flow, heat losses, and thermodynamics as bridges to connect control volumes. The model successfully captured the behavior and measurements of a GS-34 free-piston engine, based on a thermodynamic calculation calibrated with experimental data. The resulting model is used for a series of parametric studies to understand the very complex system behavior, including low load operation. Operation parameters (injection timing and bounce chamber mass) are optimized to generate the engine map for different alternator sizes. At the end, the advantages of the opposed free-piston engine with a linear alternator are presented through the energy analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the effects of intake pressure (boost) on the pre-ignition stratification and burn duration of homogeneous charge compression ignition combustion. Full cycle computational fluid dynamics simulations are performed with gasoline kinetics. An intake pressure sweep is performed while maintaining the same combustion timing and mean composition. The burn duration reduces with increasing boost, even though intake temperature is reduced to hold combustion timing constant. It is shown that the compositional stratification increases with boost whereas thermal stratification decreases. A quasi-dimensional model is employed to assess the effect of compositional stratification, pressure, mean temperature and isolate the effect of thermal stratification on burn duration. The analysis reveals that reducing charge temperature neutralizes the effect of increased boost on reactivity and the shorter burn durations at higher boost are primarily due to the lower thermal stratification. It is shown that higher pressures do not significantly increase the mixing and the lower thermal stratification is due to lower wall heat losses per unit charge mass. A follow-up set of non-reacting simulations with adiabatic walls corroborate this claim by revealing a constant magnitude of thermal stratification across the boost sweep. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This two-part article presents a model for boosted and moderately stratified homogeneous charge compression ignition combustion for use in thermodynamic engine cycle simulations. The model consists of two components: one an ignition model for the prediction of auto-ignition onset and the other an empirical combustion rate model. This article focuses on the development and validation of the homogeneous charge compression ignition model for use under a broad range of operating conditions. Using computational fluid dynamics simulations of the negative valve overlap valve events typical of homogeneous charge compression ignition operation, it is shown that there is no noticeable reaction progress from low-temperature heat release, and that ignition is within the high-temperature regime (T > 1000 K), starting within the highest temperature cells of the computational fluid dynamics domain. Additional parametric sweeps from the computational fluid dynamics simulations, including sweeps of speed, load, intake manifold pressures and temperature, dilution level and valve and direct injection timings, showed that the assumption of a homogeneous charge (equivalence ratio and residuals) is appropriate for ignition modelling under the conditions studied, considering the strong sensitivity of ignition timing to temperature and its weak compositional dependence. Use of the adiabatic core temperature predicted from the adiabatic core model resulted in temperatures within ±1% of the peak temperatures of the computational fluid dynamics domain near the time of ignition. Thus, the adiabatic core temperature can be used within an auto-ignition integral as a simple and effective method for estimating the onset of homogeneous charge compression ignition auto-ignition. The ignition model is then validated with an experimental 92.6 anti-knock index gasoline-fuelled homogeneous charge compression ignition dataset consisting of 290 data points covering a wide range of operating conditions. The tuned ignition model predictions of θ 50 have a root mean square error of 1.7° crank angle and R2 = 0.63 compared to the experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This two-part article presents a combustion model for boosted and moderately stratified homogeneous charge compression ignition combustion for use in thermodynamic engine cycle simulations. The model consists of two parts: one an ignition model for the prediction of auto-ignition onset and the other an empirical combustion rate model. This article focuses on the development of the combustion model which is algebraic in form and is based on the key physical variables affecting the combustion process. The model is fit with experimental data collected from 290 discrete automotive homogeneous charge compression ignition operating conditions with moderate stratification resulting from both the direct injection and negative valve overlap valve events. Both the ignition model from part 1 and the combustion model from this article are implemented in GT-Power and validated against experimental homogeneous charge compression ignition data under steady-state and transient conditions. The ignition and combustion model are then exercised to identify the dominant variables affecting the homogeneous charge compression ignition and combustion processes. Sensitivity analysis reveals that ignition timing is primarily a function of the charge temperature, and that combustion duration is largely a function of ignition timing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Low-temperature combustion has shown the potential to provide solutions for future clean and efficient powertrain systems. Traditional approaches using the first law of thermodynamics have been established for describing energy flows within engine systems and comparing losses between low-temperature and traditional combustion modes. An augmented approach, using the second law of thermodynamics, can be utilized to gain insight into the exergy flows within the system and thus identify areas of irreversibilities and inefficiencies. The present article aims at introducing the required framework for the second law analysis of low-temperature combustion concepts and demonstrating its application to boosted homogeneous charge compression ignition engines. The framework consists of a combination of the first law and second law expressions combined with the University of Michigan homogeneous charge compression ignition combustion model and was applied on a modeled light-duty four-cylinder boosted homogeneous charge compression ignition engine. It was found that combustion irreversibilities in homogeneous charge compression ignition were ∼25% more than traditional spark ignition or diesel engines and increased with dilution. On the other hand, exergy transfer to the walls was reduced with low-temperature combustion. It was also found that the combination of negative valve overlap and turbocharging is not beneficial for high-load operation. Exergy analysis of the exhaust system revealed that turbine useful work was lower than 50% of exergy at the exhaust ports and indicated that boosting performance may be improved by manipulating exergy transfer in the exhaust manifold. Results from the present study are focused on boosted homogeneous charge compression ignition, but the conclusions reached are applicable to other low-temperature combustion concepts as well. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A spray and evaporation model has been developed and embedded in a quasi-dimensional multi-zone direct injection internal combustion engine simulation framework. The model accounts for the behavior of the spray zone and fuel evaporation including sub-models for spray breakup, improved zone velocity estimations with transient fuel injection, spray penetration and tracking of evaporated fuel components. Each sub-model deals with multi-component fuel surrogates to simulate the real fuel effects. To enhance sensitivity of the model to the fuel components, additional thermophysical properties to the traditional spray model are incorporated. The ideal gas and the ideal solution are assumed in the model to retain computational efficiency. Finally, the model was validated against experiments and compared with other numerical methods. The ability of the new model to treat a multi-component fuel provides an improvement in the simulations of modern direct injection internal combustion engine when used with alternative fuels. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]