Fuels and Combustion
Type
Book Chapter
KAUST Department
Clean Combustion Research CenterDate
2016-08-17Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
This chapter discusses the combustion processes and the link to the fuel properties that are suitable for them. It describes the basic three concepts, including spark ignition (SI) and compression ignition (CI), and homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI). The fuel used in a CI engine is vastly different from that in an SI engine. In an SI engine, the fuel should sustain high pressure and temperature without autoignition. Apart from the dominating SI and CI engines, it is also possible to operate with a type of combustion: autoignition. With HCCI, the fuel and air are fully premixed before combustion as in the SI engine, but combustion is started by the increased pressure and temperature during the compression stroke. Apart from the three combustion processes, there are also a few combined or intermediate concepts, such as Spark-Assisted Compression Ignition (SACI). Those concepts are discussed in terms of the requirements of fuel properties.Citation
Johansson B (2016) Fuels and Combustion. Biofuels from Lignocellulosic Biomass: 1–27. Available: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9783527685318.ch1.Publisher
Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaAHandle URI
http://hdl.handle.net/10754/625548Additional Links
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9783527685318.ch1/summaryScopus Count
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Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.
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Ignition of a lean PRF/air mixture under RCCI/SCCI conditions: A comparative DNS study(Elsevier BV, 2016-10-11)The ignition characteristics of a lean primary reference fuel (PRF)/air mixture under reactivity controlled compression ignition (RCCI) and stratified charge compression ignition (SCCI) conditions are investigated using 2-D direct numerical simulations (DNSs) with a 116-species reduced mechanism of PRF oxidation. For RCCI combustion, n-heptane and iso-octane are used as two different reactivity fuels and the corresponding global PRF number is PRF50 which is also used as a single fuel for SCCI combustion. The 2-D DNSs of RCCI/SCCI combustion are performed by varying degree of fuel stratification, r, and turbulence intensity, u', at different initial mean temperature, T , with negatively-correlated T-r fields. It is found that in the low- and intermediate-temperature regimes, the overall combustion of RCCI cases occurs earlier and its mean heat release rate (HRR) is more distributed over time than those of the corresponding SCCI cases. This is because PRF number stratification, PRF', plays a dominant role and T' has a negligible effect on the overall combustion within the negative temperature coefficient (NTC) regime. In the high-temperature regime, however, the difference between RCCI and SCCI combustion becomes marginal because the ignition of the PRF/air mixture is highly-sensitive to T' rather than PRF' and ϕ(symbol)'. The Damköhler number analysis verifies that the mean HRR is more distributed over time with increasing r because the portion of deflagration mode of combustion becomes larger with increasing fuel stratification. Finally, it is found that the overall combustion of both RCCI and SCCI cases becomes more like the 0-D ignition with increasing u' due to the homogenization of initial mixture by turbulent mixing.
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Direct numerical simulations of ignition of a lean n-heptane/air mixture with temperature and composition inhomogeneities relevant to HCCI and SCCI combustion(Elsevier BV, 2015-12)The effects of temperature and composition stratifications on the ignition of a lean n-heptane/air mixture at three initial mean temperatures under elevated pressure are investigated using direct numerical simulations (DNSs) with a 58-species reduced mechanism. Two-dimensional DNSs are performed by varying several key parameters: initial mean temperature, T0, and the variance of temperature and equivalence ratio (T' and φ') with different T-φcorrelations. It is found that for cases with φ' only, the overall combustion occurs more quickly and the mean heat release rate (HRR) increases more slowly with increasing φ' regardless of T0. For cases with T' only, however, the overall combustion is retarded/advanced in time with increasing T' for low/high T0 relative to the negative-temperature coefficient (NTC) regime resulting from a longer/shorter overall ignition delay of the mixture. For cases with uncorrelated T-φfields, the mean HRR is more distributed over time compared to the corresponding cases with T' or φ' only. For negatively-correlated cases, however, the temporal evolution of the overall combustion exhibits quite non-monotonic behavior with increasing T' and φ' depending on T0. All of these characteristics are found to be primarily related to the 0-D ignition delays of initial mixtures, the relative timescales between 0-D ignition delay and turbulence, and the dominance of the deflagration mode during the ignition. These results suggest that an appropriate combination of T' and φ' together with a well-prepared T-φdistribution can alleviate an excessive pressure-rise rate (PRR) and control ignition-timing in homogeneous charge compression-ignition (HCCI) combustion. In addition, critical species and reactions for the ignition of n-heptane/air mixture through the whole ignition process are estimated by comparing the temporal evolution of the mean mass fractions of important species with the overall reaction pathways of n-heptane oxidation mechanism. The chemical explosive mode analysis (CEMA) verifies the important species and reactions for the ignition at different locations and times by evaluating the explosive index (EI) of species and the participation index (PI) of reactions. © 2015 The Combustion Institute.
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Ignition of a lean PRF/air mixture under RCCI/SCCI conditions: Chemical aspects(Elsevier BV, 2016-10-10)Chemical aspects of the ignition of a primary reference fuel (PRF)/air mixture under reactivity controlled compression ignition (RCCI) and stratified charge compression ignition (SCCI) conditions are investigated by analyzing two-dimensional direct numerical simulation (DNS) data with chemical explosive mode (CEM) analysis. CEMA is adopted to provide fundamental insights into the ignition process by identifying controlling species and elementary reactions at different locations and times. It is found that at the first ignition delay, low-temperature chemistry (LTC) represented by the isomerization of alkylperoxy radical, chain branching reactions of keto-hydroperoxide, and H-atom abstraction of n-heptane is predominant for both RCCI and SCCI combustion. In addition, explosion index and participation index analyses together with conditional means on temperature verify that low-temperature heat release (LTHR) from local mixtures with relatively-high n-heptane concentration occurs more intensively in RCCI combustion than in SCCI combustion, which ultimately advances the overall RCCI combustion and distributes its heat release rate over time. It is also found that at the onset of the main combustion, high-temperature heat release (HTHR) occurs primarily in thin deflagrations where temperature, CO, and OH are found to be the most important species for the combustion. The conversion reaction of CO to CO and hydrogen chemistry are identified as important reactions for HTHR. The overall RCCI/SCCI combustion can be understood by mapping the variation of 2-D RCCI/SCCI combustion in temperature space onto the temporal evolution of 0-D ignition.