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Dear Colleagues,

The importance of decarbonizing the energy sector is continuously growing, and the transportation sector plays an important role in this context. Although electric and electrified vehicles are forecasted to be very popular solutions in a short-time perspective, the future fleet will be most likely formed by a mix of different powertrain solutions. Many authors in the literature point out that a fully decarbonized mobility scenario cannot withstand the thorough exploitation of IC engines’ potential.

The focus of this Special Issue is concentrated on the demonstration of how a dedicated ICE design, which can target the specific engine power range within a defined hybrid solution, is probably the most effective and fast root to decarbonisation. Possible developments are focused on innovative ignition and combustion concepts, bio-fuel and H2 engine optimization, as well as subsystem development. Both modelling and experimental works, as well as papers combining both of them, are appreciated.

Topic of interest include, but are not limited to:

Pre-chamber lean-burn NG and NG-H2 engines;
Direct injection H2 engines;
Development of new generation boosting systems;
Biofuel and hydrogen injection systems;
Biofuel combustion systems modelling and optimization.

Dr. Mirko Baratta
Guest Editor

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Keywords

decarbonization
hydrogen
biofuel
engine optimization
lean-burn prechamber engines

Published Papers (1 paper)

Research

17 pages, 1915 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Utilization of Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil (HVO) in a Euro 6 Dual-Loop EGR Diesel Engine: Behavior as a Drop-In Fuel and Potentialities along Calibration Parameter Sweeps

by Stefano d’Ambrosio, Alessandro Mancarella and Andrea Manelli

Energies 2022, 15(19), 7202; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/en15197202 - 30 Sep 2022

Cited by 10 | Viewed by 1615

Abstract

This study examines the effects on combustion, engine performance and exhaust pollutant emissions of a modern Euro 6, dual-loop EGR, compression ignition engine running on regular EN590-compliant diesel and hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO). First, the potential of HVO as a “drop-in” fuel, i.e., without changes to the original, baseline diesel-oriented calibration, was highlighted and compared to regular diesel results. This showed how the use of HVO can reduce engine-out emissions of soot (by up to 67%), HC and CO (by up to 40%), while NO_x levels remain relatively unchanged. Fuel consumption was also reduced, by about 3%, and slightly lower combustion noise levels were detected, too. HVO has a lower viscosity and a higher cetane number than diesel. Since these parameters have a significant impact on mixture formation and the subsequent combustion process, an engine pre-calibrated for regular diesel fuel could not fully exploit the potential of another sustainable fuel. Therefore, the effects of the most influential calibration parameters available on the tested engine platform, i.e., high-pressure and low-pressure EGR, fuel injection pressure, main injection timing, pilot quantity and dwell-time, were analyzed along single-parameter sweeps. The substantial reduction in engine-out soot, HC and CO levels brought about by HVO could give the possibility to implement additional measures to limit NO_x emissions, combustion noise and/or fuel consumption compared to diesel. For example, higher proportion of LP EGR and/or smaller pilot quantity could be exploited with HVO, at low load, to reduce NO_x emissions to a greater extent than diesel, without incurring penalties in terms of incomplete combustion species. Conversely, at higher load, delayed main injection timings and reduced rail pressure could reduce combustion noise without exceeding soot levels of the baseline diesel case. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Optimization and Design of Carbon-Free Internal Combustion Engine Systems)

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