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Liquid wall impingement in direct-injection engines can cause soot and hydrocarbon emissions as well as reduced combustion efficiency. This study focuses on detailed evaluations of numerical droplet impingement criteria that govern the onset of splash. The five selected splash criteria, which all extrapolate from single-droplet impacts to full sprays, are representative of those currently in use for spark-ignition direct-injection engines. The computations examined the sensitivity of impinging spray simulations to the splash criteria for a high-pressure, direct-injection swirl spray under atmospheric conditions impinging at a 45° angle onto a flat plate. The numerical results were compared to an unusually extensive set of experimental data: Mie scattering and light transmission imaging, plus quantitative refractive index matching measurements of the fuel film area and thickness, and phase Doppler interferometry measurements of droplet size and velocity near the plate. Good qualitative and at least fair quantitative agreement was obtained for the global spray impingement and wall film formation, especially for single-drop criteria that include the effect of viscosity. The film area and shape were insensitive to the splash criteria, illustrating the importance of film thickness measurements for validating simulations. The results also revealed the sensitivity of impingement calculations to droplet arrival frequency when that is taken into account. In general, the comparisons indicated the need to capture the effect of multiple droplets impinging on the wall at irregular frequencies in the criterion, as well as other important physics of the droplet–wall interaction that may mask the true effect of the impingement criterion.

It has been reported that early combustion in a spark-ignition engine determines the subsequent combustion. Also, the early combustion has a very strong correlation with cycle-to-cycle variability, which limits engine operating range. As such, accurate modeling of the early flame development is very important in accurate simulation of spark-ignition engine combustion. During the early flame development, the flame kernel, initiated by spark, grows initially at laminar flame speed. As the kernel grows, the flame surface wrinkles due to surface instability and interacts with the flow turbulence as the flame transitions from laminar to turbulent flame. In this study, a semi-empirical model is proposed to simulate the laminar-to-turbulent flame transition process during early spark-ignition combustion. A hyperbolic tangent function was used to emulate the laminar-to-turbulent flame speed transition process. The proposed transition function was evaluated during early flame kernel development for both Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes and large eddy simulation models against combustion analysis data from high-speed optical particle image velocimetry. Difference in Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes and large eddy simulation transition function was analyzed and discussed.

[EN] Gasoline direct injection (GDI) sprays are complex multiphase flows. When compared to multi-hole diesel sprays, the plumes are closely spaced, and the sprays are more likely to interact. The effects of multi-jet interaction on entrainment and spray targeting can be influenced by small variations in the mass fluxes from the holes, which in turn depend on transients in the needle movement and small-scale details of the internal geometry. In this paper, we present a comprehensive overview of a multi-institutional effort to experimentally characterize the internal geometry and near-nozzle flow of the Engine Combustion Network (ECN) Spray G gasoline injector. In order to develop a complete pictitre of the near-nozzle flow, a standardized setup was shared between facilities. A wide range of techniques were employed, including both X-ray and visible-light diagnostics. The novel aspects of this work include both new experimental measurements, and a comparison of the results across different techniques and facilities. The breadth and depth of the data reveal phenomena which were not apparent from analysis of the individual data sets. We show that plume-to-plume variations in the mass fluxes from the holes can cause large-scale asymmetries in the entrainment field and spray structure. Both internal flow transients and small-scale geometric features can have an effect on the external flow. The sharp turning angle of the flow into the holes also causes an inward vectoring of the plumes relative to the hole drill angle, which increases with time due to entrainment of gas into a low-pressure region between the plumes. These factors increase the likelihood of spray collapse with longer injection durations., The X-ray experiments were performed at the 7-BM and 32-ID beam lines of the APS at Argonne National Laboratory. Use of the APS is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) under Contract No. DE-AC02-06CH11357. Research was also performed at the Combustion Research Facility, Sandia National Laboratories, Livermore, California. Sandia National Laboratories is managed and operated by National Technology and Engineering Solutions of Sandia LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell International, Inc., for the U.S. Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-NA-0003525.

A computational study was performed to investigate the influence of transient needle motion on gasoline direct injection (GDI) internal nozzle flow and near-field sprays. Simulations were conducted with a compressible Eulerian flow solver modeling liquid, vapor, and non-condensable gas phases with a diffuse interface. Variable rate generation and condensation of fuel vapor were captured using the homogeneous relaxation model (HRM). The non-flashing (spray G) and flashing (spray G2) conditions specified by the Engine Combustion Network were modeled using the nominal spray G nozzle geometry. Transient needle lift and wobble were based upon ensemble averaged X-ray imaging preformed at Argonne National Lab. The minimum needle lift simulated was 5 µm and dynamic mesh motion was achieved with Laplacian smoothing. The results were qualitatively validated against experimental imaging and the experimental rate of injection profile was captured accurately using pressure boundary conditions and needle motion to actuate the injection. Low needle lift is shown to result in vapor generation near the injector seat. Finally, the internal injector flow is shown to be highly complex, containing many transient and interacting vortices which result in perturbations in the spray angle and fluctuations in the mass flux. This complex internal flow also results in intermittent string flash-boiling when a strong vortex is injected and the resulting swirling spray contains a thermal non-equilibrium vapor core.

With ever more stringent emissions and performance regulations, more emphasis and efforts have been made in accurate modeling of the combustion process and engine-out emissions in engine development. However, accurate modeling of the combustion process requires detailed chemistry. Highly detailed mechanisms typically include hundreds of species and thousands of reactions, and solution of such reaction set has been one of the largest bottlenecks in numerical modeling of the IC engine with CFD. Typically, the accuracy in chemistry modeling is sacrificed by reducing the mechanism size for the sake of computational efficiency. In this study, a lookup-table based approach is applied for modeling the combustion process in an HCCI engine. Instead of solving chemistry on-the-fly during the CFD simulations, the chemistry is solved for possible combination of thermodynamic and mixing conditions. The turbulence-chemistry interaction is considered using a flamelet approach. Then, the solution is stored in a table, such that chemistry information can be retrieved during the CFD simulation. The lookup-table method, referred to as Flamelet Generated Manifold (FGM), provides significant runtime reduction in CFD simulations with high fidelity chemistry modeling. The FGM model was applied to a canonical HCCI experiment from Sandia National Laboratory. The experiment examined the effect of different levels of fuel stratification on ignition and combustion of a gasoline HCCI engine. The different levels of stratification were generated by controlling the amount of directly injected fuel. This case has been highly challenging for modeling using traditional modeling approaches. With FGM, it was possible to use the most detailed reaction mechanism to describe the chemistry as completely as one can. The effect of different surrogates on modeling results was investigated as well. It was found that the one proposed by Gauthier showed the most promising results in reproducing the highly complicated combustion with partial fuel stratification.

Homogenous charge compression ignition combustion offers significant efficiency improvements compared to conventional gasoline engines. However, due to the nature of homogenous charge compression ignition, traditional homogenous charge compression ignition combustion can be realized only in a limited operating range. Homogenous charge compression ignition operation in the high-load range is limited by the trade-off between excessive combustion noise and deteriorated combustion stability. The low-load operation of homogenous charge compression ignition combustion is limited by combustion instability. In order to understand the auto-ignition characteristics at low-load operation, the effect of negative valve overlap, injection timing and external exhaust gas recirculation was investigated. These parameters have a significant impact on temperature and oxygen concentration of the mixture and thus the auto-ignition characteristics. To help interpret the results, an auto-ignition integral calculation was developed and verified with experimental data. It is confirmed that the newly developed auto-ignition integral predicts well the ignition timing and can be used to interpret experimental observations. It is found that at a given speed and load, there is an optimum combination of negative valve overlap and injection timing for stable auto-ignition. When the amount of reforming is low, the in-cylinder temperature is not high enough for auto-ignition. This causes delayed auto-ignition phasing (unstable combustion). When the amount of reforming is high, the cyclic variability of reforming increases, which leads to instability of the main combustion event. When exhaust gas recirculation is employed, the amount of reforming does not change, thus the combustion instability is caused by lack of oxygen concentration rather than lower in-cylinder mixture temperature.

A systems approach is implemented to fully optimize the overall performance of a gasoline SIDI two-valve “small block” engine. The objective is to maximize fuel economy while achieving significant improvements in idle stability, cold-start emissions, and torque and power performance relative a baseline port-fuel-injected (PFI) engine. The scope includes the optimization of the fuel injector, piston, cylinder head, cams, in-cylinder charge motion, and the intake-manifold. The results show that the SIDI engine provides the potential to achieve 6.5% better fuel economy; a result of higher efficiency when implementing a higher geometric compression ratio and significantly better combustion performance. A multiple fuel-injection strategy is examined to provide lower HC emissions at a representative cold-start operating condition. The engine’s idle stability is improved by a factor of three; the individual contributions from a better combustion system design and from multiple fuel injections are identified. The new SIDI engine concept demonstrated significantly better wide-open-throttle (WOT) performance, including up to 10% higher torque and 6% more power when using premium fuel. This document further demonstrates the performance sensitivity to engine design variables while emphasizing the importance of using a systems approach to achieve optimized performance for the direct-injection engine technology.Copyright © 2013 by General Motors

A two-pronged experimental and computational study was conducted to explore the formation, transport, and vaporization of a wall film located at the piston surface within a four-valve, pent-roof, direct-injection spark-ignition engine, with the fuel injector located between the two intake valves. Negative temperature swings were observed at three piston locations during early injection, thus confirming the ability of fast-response thermocouples to capture the effects of impingement and heat loss associated with fuel film evaporation. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation results indicated that the fuel film evaporation process is extremely fast under conditions present during intake. Hence, the heat loss measured on the surface can be directly tied to the heating of the fuel film and its complete evaporation, with the wetted area estimated based on CFD predictions. This finding is critical for estimating the local fuel film thickness from measured heat loss. The simulated fuel film thickness and transport corroborated well temporally and spatially with measurements at thermocouple locations directly in the path of the spray, thus validating the spray and impingement models. Under the strategies tested, up to 23% of fuel injected impinges upon the piston and creates a fuel film with thickness of up to 1.2 μm. In summary, the study demonstrates the usefulness of heat flux measurements to quantitatively characterize the fuel film on the piston top and allows for validation of the CFD code.

The transient cone angle of pressure swirl sprays from injectors intended for use in gasoline direct injection engines was measured from 2D Mie scattering images. A variety of injectors with varying nominal cone angle and flow rate were investigated. The general cone angle behavior was found to correlate well qualitatively with the measured fuel line pressure and was affected by the different injector specifications. Experimentally measured modulations in cone angle and injection pressure were forced on a comprehensive spray simulation to understand the sensitivity of pulsating injector boundary conditions on general spray structure. Ignoring the nozzle fluctuations led to a computed spray shape that inadequately replicated the experimental images; hence, demonstrating the importance of quantifying the injector boundary conditions when characterizing a spray using high-fidelity simulation tools.