Computational study of hydrogen injection strategy on the combustion performance of a direct injection rotary engine fueled with natural gas/hydrogen blends.

• The NHBF was used to improve the combustion and emission performance of rotary engine. • A calculation model of a peripheral ported rotary engine considering ASL was established. • The mixture formation and combustion process of NHBF under the action of ASL were analyzed. • The ideal blend fuel distribution which can improve the combustion efficiency was given. • The optimized hydrogen injection strategy was provided for improving the engine performance. Natural gas/hydrogen blended fuel (NHBF) is considered to be one of the ideal alternative fuels for rotary engine, which can effectively reduce the carbon emission of the rotary engine. The purpose of this paper is to numerically study the influence of hydrogen injection timing (HIT) and hydrogen injection angle (HIA) on mixture formation, flame propagation, and NO emission in the cylinder. In addition, considering that the apex seal leakage (ASL) of rotary engine is difficult to avoid, the NHBF in the cylinder will inevitably leak from the apex seal leakage gap to the adjacent cylinders. Therefore, the NHBF leakage under the action of ASL should be considered. In this paper, a 3D dynamic model of the NHBF rotary engine considering the action of ASL was established. Further, the diffusion and combustion processes of NHBF in the cylinder with different HITs and HIAs were calculated. The results showed that the HIT and HIA can significantly change the flame propagation process by changing the fuel stratification pattern in the cylinder. For improving the combustion efficiency of the engine, the HIA of +45° and HIT of 155°CA (BTDC) adopted by Case:155 + 45 should be set as the hydrogen injection strategy. This is mainly because that for Case: 155 + 45, both natural gas and hydrogen are mainly distributed in the FOC, and the concentration of hydrogen and natural gas near the spark plug is also high. However, the defect of Case:155 + 45 is the significant increase of NO emission. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]