Search for Articles:
Title / Keyword
Author / Affiliation / Email
Journal
Article Type
 
 
Advanced Search
 
Section
Special Issue
Volume
Issue
Number
Page
 
5.5
3.2
Journals
Energies
Special Issues
Second-Generation Low Temperature Combustion Concepts for Internal Combustion Engines
energies-logo
Submit to Energies Review for Energies Propose a Special Issue

Journal Menu

► Journal Menu

Journal Browser

► Journal Browser
share announcement

Second-Generation Low Temperature Combustion Concepts for Internal Combustion Engines

A special issue of Energies (ISSN 1996-1073). This special issue belongs to the section "J: Thermal Management".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (10 October 2022) | Viewed by 5693

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Benjamin Lawler

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Automotive Engineering, Clemson University, Greenville, SC 29607, USA
Interests: advanced combustion; engine combustion; alternative fuels

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

I hope this message finds you well and that you and your families are in good health during this difficult time. I am writing to notify you of a Special Issue of Energies that I am guest editing. This Special Issue is intended to provide a concentrated repository of second-generation low-temperature combustion (LTC) concepts to highlight the progress that has been made in recent decades in better understandings first-generation LTC concepts and addressing their short-comings.

The conventional combustion modes are limited by their efficiency–emissions trade-off (i.e., spark ignition is relatively clean but inefficient and conventional diesel combustion is relatively efficient but produces harmful emissions). LTC that is mostly premixed is the only method that can break this trade-off and provide simultaneous clean combustion with high efficiencies. First-generation LTC modes include homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI), premixed charge compression ignition (PCCI), and reactivity-controlled compression ignition (RCCI). Over time, the community has learned a lot about these first-generation LTC modes and have recognized their limitations. Through that progress, the community has proposed a variety of strategies that address these limitations and further improve the performance of advanced combustion to encourage future penetration of advanced combustion in internal combustion engines. These strategies could include, but are not limited to, partial fuel stratification (PFS), thermally stratified compression ignition (TSCI), gasoline compression ignition (GCI), single-fuel RCCI, spark-assisted compression ignition (SACI), and others. This Special Issue welcomes manuscripts related to these new LTC approaches for future internal combustion engines. Alternative hardware approaches that enable second-generation LTC are also welcome, including prechamber ignition systems, opposed-piston engines, free-piston engines, and others, as long as the combustion process deviates from the conventional combustion modes to break the efficiency–emissions trade-off.

Fuel effects on LTC are also welcome; however, if the work specifically highlights the use of renewable fuel in internal combustion engines, there is a separate Special Issue (“Renewable Fuels for Internal Combustion Engines”) related to that topic. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me. Otherwise, I look forward to your help propagating clean, high-efficiency, advanced combustion strategies for internal combustion engines through your manuscript submission.

Sincerely,

Prof. Dr. Benjamin Lawler
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Energies is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Low-temperature combustion
  • Advanced combustion
  • High-efficiency clean combustion
  • Internal combustion engines

Published Papers (3 papers)

Download All Papers
Order results
Result details
Show export options expand_more Show export options expand_less
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:

Research

23 pages, 5775 KiB  
Article
High Load Compression Ignition of Wet Ethanol Using a Triple Injection Strategy
by Brian Gainey, Ziming Yan, John Gandolfo and Benjamin Lawler
Energies 2022, 15(10), 3507; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/en15103507 - 11 May 2022
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1555
Abstract
Wet ethanol is a biofuel that can be rapidly integrated into the existing transportation sector infrastructure and have an immediate impact on decarbonization. Compared to conventional hydrocarbon fuels, wet ethanol has unique fuel properties (e.g., short carbon chain, oxygenated, high heat of vaporization, [...] Read more.
Wet ethanol is a biofuel that can be rapidly integrated into the existing transportation sector infrastructure and have an immediate impact on decarbonization. Compared to conventional hydrocarbon fuels, wet ethanol has unique fuel properties (e.g., short carbon chain, oxygenated, high heat of vaporization, no cool-flame reactivity), which can actually improve the efficiency and engine-out emissions of internal combustion engines while decarbonizing. In this work, wet ethanol 80 (80% ethanol, 20% water by mass) was experimentally studied at high loads under boosted conditions in compression ignition to study the tradeoffs in efficiency and emissions based on boosting and injection strategies. Specifically, this work explores the potential of adding a third, mixing-controlled injection at high loads. The results indicate that adding a third, mixing-controlled injection results in combustion stabilization at high loads, where the peak pressure limit of the engine is a constraint that requires combustion phasing to retard. However, since the heat of vaporization of wet ethanol 80 is ~6% of its lower heating value, evaporation of fuel injected near top dead center imposes a thermodynamic efficiency penalty by absorbing heat from the working fluid at a time in the cycle when adding heat produces net work out. Additionally, the mixing-controlled injection increases NOx emissions. Therefore, the amount of fuel injected in the mixing-controlled injection should be limited to only what is necessary to stabilize combustion. Ultimately, by using wet ethanol 80 in a triple injection strategy, a load of 22 bar IMEPn is achieved with a net fuel conversion efficiency of 42.2%, an engine-out indicated specific emissions of NOx of 1.3 g/kWh, and no measurable particulate matter, while maintaining a peak cylinder pressure below 150 bar. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Second-Generation Low Temperature Combustion Concepts for Internal Combustion Engines)
►▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

25 pages, 7529 KiB  
Article
Variable Valve Strategy Evaluation for Low-Load Operation in a Heavy-Duty Gasoline Compression Ignition Engine
by Praveen Kumar and Yu Zhang
Energies 2022, 15(6), 2017; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/en15062017 - 10 Mar 2022
Cited by 9 | Viewed by 1611
Abstract
By harnessing gasoline’s low reactivity for partially premixed combustion promotion, gasoline compression ignition (GCI) combustion shows the potential to produce markedly improved NOx-soot trade-off with high fuel efficiency compared to conventional diesel combustion. However, at low-load conditions, gasoline’s low reactivity poses challenges to [...] Read more.
By harnessing gasoline’s low reactivity for partially premixed combustion promotion, gasoline compression ignition (GCI) combustion shows the potential to produce markedly improved NOx-soot trade-off with high fuel efficiency compared to conventional diesel combustion. However, at low-load conditions, gasoline’s low reactivity poses challenges to attaining robust combustion with low unburned hydrocarbons (UHC) and carbon monoxide (CO) emissions. Increasing the in-cylinder charge temperature by using variable valve actuation (VVA) can be an effective means to address these challenges. In this numerical investigation, VVA strategies, including (1) early exhaust valve opening (EEVO), (2) positive valve overlap (PVO), and (3) exhaust rebreathe (ExReb), were investigated at 1375 RPM and 2 bar brake mean effective pressure in a heavy-duty GCI engine using a market-based gasoline with a research octane number (RON) of 93. The total residual gas level was kept over 50% to achieve an engine-out NOx target of below 1.5 g/kWh. For a complete engine system analysis, one-dimensional (1-D) system-level modeling and three-dimensional (3-D) computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis were close-coupled in this study. Performance of the VVA strategies was compared in terms of in-cylinder charge and exhaust gas temperatures increase versus brake-specific fuel consumption (BSFC). The EEVO strategy demonstrated in-cylinder charge and exhaust temperature increase up to 130 and 180 K, respectively. For similar in-cylinder charge temperature gains, the ExReb strategy demonstrated 11% to 18% lower BSFC compared to the EEVO strategy. This benefit primarily originated from a more efficient gas-exchange process. The PVO strategy, due to the valve–piston contact constraint, required excessive exhaust back-pressure valve (BPV) throttling for hot residuals trapping, thereby incurring higher BSFC compared to ExReb. In addition, the ExReb strategy demonstrated the highest potential for exhaust temperature increase (up to 673 K) among the three strategies. This was achieved by ExReb’s maximum air-fuel ratio reduction from high internal residuals mass and BPV throttling. Finally, the ExReb profile was optimized in terms of the peak lift, the duration, and the location for maximizing the fuel-efficiency potential of the strategy. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Second-Generation Low Temperature Combustion Concepts for Internal Combustion Engines)
►▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

23 pages, 16028 KiB  
Article
An Experimental and Computational Investigation of Tailor-Developed Combustion and Air-Handling System Concepts in a Heavy-Duty Gasoline Compression Ignition Engine
by Yu Zhang, Praveen Kumar, Yuanjiang Pei, Michael Traver and Sriram Popuri
Energies 2022, 15(3), 1087; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/en15031087 - 01 Feb 2022
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1823
Abstract
This study investigates using tailor-developed combustion and air-handling system concepts to achieve high-efficiency, clean gasoline compression ignition (GCI) combustion, aimed at addressing a future heavy-duty ultralow NOx standard of 0.027 g/kWh at the vehicle tailpipe and the tightening CO2 limits around the [...] Read more.
This study investigates using tailor-developed combustion and air-handling system concepts to achieve high-efficiency, clean gasoline compression ignition (GCI) combustion, aimed at addressing a future heavy-duty ultralow NOx standard of 0.027 g/kWh at the vehicle tailpipe and the tightening CO2 limits around the world by combining GCI with a cost-effective engine aftertreatment system. The development activities were conducted based on a 15 L heavy-duty diesel engine. By taking an analysis-led design approach, a first-generation (Gen1) GCI engine concept was developed and tested, encompassing tailor-designed piston bowl geometry, fuel spray pattern, and swirl motion paired with a customized, fixed-geometry, two-stage turbocharging system and a high-pressure EGR loop with two-stage cooling. Across four key steady-state operating points, the Gen1 GCI concept demonstrated 85–95% lower smoke and 2–3% better diesel-equivalent gross indicated fuel consumption compared to the diesel baseline at 1 g/kWh engine-out NOx. By upgrading to a Gen2 air-handling concept that was composed of a prototype, single-stage, variable-geometry turbocharger and a less restrictive EGR loop, 1D system-level analysis predicted that the pumping mean effective pressure was reduced by 43–54% and the diesel-equivalent brake-specific fuel consumption was improved by 2–4%, thereby demonstrating the performance enhancement potential of refining the air-handling system. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Second-Generation Low Temperature Combustion Concepts for Internal Combustion Engines)
►▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

Show export options expand_more Show export options expand_less
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:
 
Displaying articles 1-3
Back to TopTop