Search NASA⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search NASA

Results for “Diesel injection”

Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 37 records · Page 2
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2025

Experimental Investigation of Air-Fuel Equivalence Ratio Effects on Advanced Dual-fuel Diesel/Ammonia Combustion on a Single-Cylinder Medium-Duty Diesel Engine at High Load

Ammonia (NH3) has gathered a lot of interest as a low-lifecycle-carbon fuel in sectors with high weight and distance requirements, such as shipping. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) mandates a 70-80% greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction by 2040, which is only possible with advanced engine technologies and fuels like NH3. Prior research studies at the US Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have shown strong performance with NH3 under dual-fuel mode using conventional diesel combustion (CDC) manifold air pressure (MAP) settings. Diesel airflow was initially used to simplify retrofitting (no turbocharger modification), which resulted in air-fuel equivalence ratios (λ) greater than 1.5. To characterize potential improvements in dual-fuel NH3 combustion performance at richer in-cylinder conditions, a global λ sweep using a diesel pilot ignition (DPI) strategy with diesel fuel injected near top-dead center (TDC) and a reactivity-controlled compression ignition (RCCI) injection strategy with diesel fuel injected earlier during the compression stroke were compared. The experiments were conducted at 1200 RPM and 12.6 bar (75% load), and λ was varied by decreasing the commanded air flow to the engine at greater than 90% ammonia energy substitution (AES) level. A diesel injection timing sweep was conducted for both the combustion modes at fixed λ, and the timing with the lowest engine-out N2O emissions was identified. The results indicated an optimal balance between CO2, eq and thermal efficiency benefits for both DPI and RCCI injection strategy cases compared to CDC at a λ of 1.4. The indicated N-based emissions exhibited a strong correlation to the ratio of CA5–50 and ignition delay for DPI, but no apparent trend emerged for the RCCI injection strategy at the tested boundary conditions.

Tyrewala, Daanish [ORNL] (ORCID:0000000208599324)↗
NASA NTRS1985

A computer simulation of the turbocharged turbo compounded diesel engine system: A description of the thermodynamic and heat transfer models

A computer simulation of the turbocharged turbocompounded direct-injection diesel engine system was developed in order to study the performance characteristics of the total system as major design parameters and materials are varied. Quasi-steady flow models of the compressor, turbines, manifolds, intercooler, and ducting are coupled with a multicylinder reciprocator diesel model, where each cylinder undergoes the same thermodynamic cycle. The master cylinder model describes the reciprocator intake, compression, combustion and exhaust processes in sufficient detail to define the mass and energy transfers in each subsystem of the total engine system. Appropriate thermal loading models relate the heat flow through critical system components to material properties and design details. From this information, the simulation predicts the performance gains, and assesses the system design trade-offs which would result from the introduction of selected heat transfer reduction materials in key system components, over a range of operating conditions.

Assanis, D. N.↗
NASA NTRS1981

Conventional engine technology. Volume 3: Comparisons and future potential

The status of five conventional automobile engine technologies was assessed and the future potential for increasing fuel economy and reducing exhaust emission was discussed, using the 1980 EPA California emisions standards as a comparative basis. By 1986, the fuel economy of a uniform charge Otto engine with a three-way catalyst is expected to increase 10%, while vehicles with lean burn (fast burn) engines should show a 20% fuel economy increase. Although vehicles with stratified-charge engines and rotary engines are expected to improve, their fuel economy will remain inferior to the other engine types. When adequate NO emissions control methods are implemented to meet the EPA requirements, vehicles with prechamber diesel engines are expected to yield a fuel economy advantage of about 15%. While successful introduction of direct injection diesel engine technology will provide a fuel savings of 30 to 35%, the planned regulation of exhaust particulates could seriously hinder this technology, because it is expected that only the smallest diesel engine vehicles could meet the proposed particulate requirements.

Dowdy, M. W.↗
NASA NTRS1989

Sliding seal materials for low heat rejection engines

Sliding friction coefficients and wear rates of promising piston seal materials were measured under temperature, environmental, velocity, and loading conditions that are representative of the low heat rejection (LHR) diesel engine environment. These materials included carbides, oxides, and nitrides. In addition, silicon nitride and partially stablized zirconia disks (cylinder liners) were ion-implanted with TiNi, Ni, Co, and Cr, and subsequently run against carbide pins (piston rings), with the objective of producing reduced friction via solid lubrication at elevated temperature. Friction and wear measurements were obtained using pin-on-disk laboratory experiments and a unique engine friction test rig. Unmodified ceramic sliding couples were characterized at all temperatures by friction coefficients of 0.24 and above during the pin-on-disk tests. The coefficient at 800 C in an oxidizing environment was reduced to below 0.1, for certain material combination, by the ion-implantation of TiNi or Co. This beneficial effect was found to derive from the lubricious Ti, Ni, and Co oxides. Similar results were demonstrated on the engine friction test rig at lower temperatures. The structural integrity and feasibility of engine application with the most promising material combination were demonstrated during a 30-hour single-cylinder, direct-injection diesel engine test.

Beaty, Kevin↗
DOE OSTI2020

Time-resolved 3D imaging of two-phase fluid flow inside a steel fuel injector using synchrotron X-ray tomography

The multiphase flow inside a diesel injection nozzle is imaged using synchrotron X-rays from the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory. Through acquisitions performed at several viewing angles and subsequent tomographic reconstruction, in-situ 3D visualization is achieved for the first time inside a steel injector at engine-like operating conditions. The morphology of the internal flow reveals strong flow separation and vapor-filled cavities (cavitation), the degree of which correlates with the nozzle's asymmetric inlet corner profile. Micron-scale surface features, which are artifacts of manufacturing, are shown to influence the morphology of the resulting liquid-gas interface. The data obtained at 0.1 ms time resolution exposes transient flow features and the flow development timescales are shown to be correlated with in-situ imaging of the fuel injector's hydraulically-actuated valve (needle). As more than 98.5% of the X-ray photon flux is attenuated within the steel injector body itself, we are posed with a unique challenge for imaging the flow within. Time-resolved imaging under these low-light conditions is achieved by exploiting both the refractive and absorptive properties of X-ray photons. The data-processing strategy converted these images with a signal-to-noise ratio of similar to 10 into a meaningful dataset for understanding internal flow and cavitation in a nozzle of diameter 200 mu m enclosed within 1-2 millimeters of steel.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
NASA NTRS1987

Numerical simulation of the flow field and fuel sprays in an IC engine

A two-dimensional model for axisymmetric piston-cylinder configurations is developed to study the flow field in two-stroke direct-injection Diesel engines under motored conditions. The model accounts for turbulence by a two-equation model for the turbulence kinetic energy and its rate of dissipation. A discrete droplet model is used to simulate the fuel spray, and the effects of the gas phase turbulence on the droplets is considered. It is shown that a fluctuating velocity can be added to the mean droplet velocity every time step if the step is small enough. Good agreement with experimental data is found for a range of ambient pressures in Diesel engine-type microenvironments. The effects of the intake swirl angle in the spray penetration, vaporization, and mixing in a uniflow-scavenged two-stroke Diesel engine are analyzed. It is found that the swirl increases the gas phase turbulence levels and the rates of vaporization.

Nguyen, H. L.↗
DOE OSTI2020

Ducted Fuel Injection versus Conventional Diesel Combustion: An Operating-Parameter Sensitivity Study Conducted in an Optical Engine with a Four-Orifice Fuel Injector

Ducted fuel injection (DFI) has been shown to attenuate engine-out soot emissions from diesel engines. The concept is to inject fuel through a small tube within the combustion chamber to enable lower equivalence ratios at the autoignition zone, relative to conventional diesel combustion. Previous experiments have demonstrated that DFI enables significant soot attenuation relative to conventional diesel combustion for a small set of operating conditions at relatively low engine loads. This is the first study to compare DFI to conventional diesel combustion over a wide range of operating conditions and at higher loads (up to 8.5 bar gross indicated mean effective pressure) with a four-orifice fuel injector. This study compares DFI to conventional diesel combustion through sweeps of intakeoxygen mole fraction (XO 2 ), injection duration, intake pressure, start of combustion (SOC) timing, fuel-injection pressure, and intake temperature. DFI is shown to curtail engine-out soot emissions at all tested conditions. Under certain conditions, DFI can attenuate engine-out soot by over a factor of 100. In addition to producing significantly lower engine-out soot emissions, DFI enables the engine to be operated at low-NO x conditions that are not feasible with conventional diesel combustion due to high soot emissions.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2020

Ducted Fuel Injection vs. Conventional Diesel Combustion: Extending the Load Range in an Optical Engine with a Four-Orifice Fuel Injector

Ducted fuel injection (DFI) is a technique to attenuate soot formation in compression ignition engines relative to conventional diesel combustion (CDC). The concept is to inject fuel through a small tube inside the combustion chamber to reduce equivalence ratios in the autoignition zone relative to CDC. DFI has been studied at loads as high as 8.5 bar gross indicated mean effective pressure (IMEP g ) and as low as 2.5 bar IMEP g using a four-orifice fuel injector. Across previous studies, DFI has been shown to attenuate soot emissions, increase NO x emissions (at constant charge dilution), and slightly decrease fuel conversion efficiencies for most tested points. This study expands on the previous work by testing 1.1 bar IMEPg (low-load/idle) conditions and 10 bar IMEPg (higher-load) conditions with the same four-orifice fuel injector, as well as examining potential causes of the degradations in NO x emissions and fuel conversion efficiencies. DFI and CDC are directly compared at each operating point in the study. At the low-load condition, the intake charge dilution was swept to elucidate the soot and NO x performance of DFI. The low-load range is important because it is the target of impending, more-stringent emissions regulations, and DFI is shown to be a potentially effective approach for helping to meet these regulations. The results also indicate that DFI likely has slightly decreased fuel conversion efficiencies relative to CDC. We find that the increase in NO x emissions with DFI is likely due to longer charge gas residence times at higher temperatures, which arise from shorter combustion durations and advanced combustion phasing relative to CDC.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2022

Development of simplified model for injection rate prediction of diesel injectors during transient and steady operation

Determining the injection rate of the diesel injector during the transient short injection operations is a critical matter to enhance the combustion process by improving air/fuel mixture formation. In this regard, numerous injection models have been suggested in the literature to predict the injection rate accurately. However, such algorithms have not precisely predicted the rate of injection (ROI) in transient short injection events. In addition, most of those models require many input parameters to characterize hydraulic and mechanical subsystems in the injector, which can make them inconvenient to tune for different injector specifications, in other words not suitable for universal usage. Therefore, our study aims to develop a simple injection model that can predict injection rate precisely in the short and long injection durations considering relatively fewer input parameters. The model traces the pressure variation inside the sac based on the bulk modulus theory to predict nozzle exit velocity, thus the injection rate of the injector. In the algorithm, the bulk modulus of fuel (E) and discharge coefficients of the nozzle hole and needle seat (C d,H and C d,N ) have been considered to vary rather than set constant during the injection process since such flow parameters would have a critical impact on the flow development at the transient stage, thus affecting the injection rate of diesel injectors. Here with this modelling strategy, the accuracy of the new model on ROI prediction was confirmed with acceptable model error for both short and long injection durations by validating against experimental results. To understand the effect of the new model scheme on ROI prediction, ROI results with the new model have been discussed by comparing it with the ROI results predicted with constant flow parameters.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2020

A phenomenological rate of injection model for predicting fuel injection with application to mixture formation in light-duty diesel engines

Fuel injection rate laws are one of the most important pieces of information needed when modeling engine combustion with computational fluid dynamics. In this study, a simple phenomenological model of a common-rail injector was developed and calibrated for the Bosch CRI2.2 platform. The model requires three tunable parameter fits, making it relatively easy to calibrate and suitable for injector modeling when high-fidelity information about the internal injector’s geometry and electrical circuit details are not available. Each injection pulse is modeled as a sequence of up to four stages: an injection needle mechanical opening transient, a full-lift viscous flow inertial transient, a Bernoulli steady-state stage, and a needle descent transient. Parameters for each stage are obtained as polynomial fits from measured injection rate properties. The model enforces total injected mass, and the intermediate stages are only introduced if the injection pulse duration is long enough. Experimental rates of injection from two separate campaigns on the same injector were used to calibrate the model. The model was first validated against measured injection rate laws featuring pilot injections, short partially premixed combustion pulses, and conventional diesel combustion injection strategies. Then, it was employed as an input to engine computational fluid dynamics simulations, which were run to simulate experiments of mixture formation in an optically accessible light-duty diesel engine. It was found that, though simple, this model is capable of predicting both pilot and main injection pulse mass flow rates well: the simulations yielded accurate predictions of in-cylinder equivalence ratio distributions from injection strategies for both partially premixed combustion and pilot injections. Also, once calibrated, the model produced appropriate results for a wide range of injected mass and rail pressure values. Finally, it was observed that usage of such a relatively simple model can be a good choice when high-fidelity injection rate input and highly detailed information of the injector’s geometry and operation are not available, particularly as noticeable discrepancies can be present also among different experimental campaigns on similar hardware.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2023

A computational parametric study of ducted fuel injection implementation in a heavy-duty diesel engine

Experiments have shown that ducted fuel injection (DFI) effectively reduces soot emissions from direct-injection diesel engines. Although many computational studies have evaluated DFI’s spray development and soot reduction mechanisms in constant volume chambers, only limited computational work on internal combustion engines exists. The DFI duct assembly changes the engine’s in-cylinder flow, spray, and combustion development. Therefore, current production engine designs might not be optimal for achieving the best engine performance with DFI. Here, this work conducted an extensive numerical study to evaluate how parameter changes affect DFI performance. The parameters include swirl ratio, piston geometry, compression ratio (CR), number of injector orifices, split injection strategy, and exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) in a heavy-duty diesel engine utilizing DFI. The combustion and soot emission data from the Sandia compression ignition optical research engine were used for model validation. Simulations showed that an increased swirl ratio resulted in more intense jet flame-piston interaction, slowing down the combustion heat release during the late combustion stage and leading to lower indicated thermal efficiency (ITE) due to higher exhaust losses. A piston-bowl design with a reentrant inner piston edge yielded the highest thermal efficiency, due to the reduced cylinder head heat transfer loss. Additional injector orifices led to higher efficiency owing to a more advanced combustion phasing. Nevertheless, the maximum pressure rise rate (MPRR) and oxides of nitrogen (NO x ) emissions also increased with the number of injector orifices due to more rapid heat release and higher combustion temperature. Implementation of a split injection strategy combined with a higher EGR rate effectively inhibited the excessive MPRR and NO x formation. In general, the study concluded that DFI is not sensitive to most parameter changes but will benefit from future parameter optimization.

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗
DOE OSTI2021

Large-eddy simulation of a multi-injection flame in a diesel engine environment using an unsteady flamelet/progress variable approach

In this work, large-eddy simulations (LESs) are conducted for a multiple-injection flame in a diesel engine environment using an unsteady flamelet/progress variable (UFPV) approach in which differential diffusion is considered. The suitability of the UFPV tabulation approach is first evaluated through a priori analyses using the state-of-the-art direct numerical simulation (DNS) dataset. Both the instantaneous data and the conditional values for the major and minor species' mass fractions are compared between the UFPV and the DNS. The comparisons show that the proposed UFPV tabulation approach can give good predictions for the multiple-injection flame at different injection phases. While the gas temperature and major species mass fractions can be accurately predicted with or without differential diffusion being considered in the UFPV flamelet library, the prediction accuracy for the highly diffusive species (e.g., hydrogen) in the main injection phase can be noticeably improved when differential diffusion is taken into account. The fully coupled LES/UFPV simulations show that the overall structure of the multiple-injection flame can be predicted, and the conditional thermo-chemical values are close to the filtered DNS dataset. The reasons for the remaining discrepancies found in the a priori analyses and the a posteriori simulations using the UFPV approach are analyzed.

Wen, Xu (ORCID:0000000331334292)↗
DOE OSTI2025

Approach for High Methanol Substitution by Energy with Conventional and Bio Pilot Fuels

Green methanol is emerging as a promising route to decarbonize the commercial marine industry. However, methanol is not a drop-in fuel in the compression ignition engines that dominate the marine industry because it is difficult to ignite due to its low cetane number and high latent heat of vaporization. The most straight-forward way to use methanol in the compression ignition engines is to premix the methanol, such as with port fuel injection during the intake stroke, and igniting the methanol with a diesel pilot injection. Because diesel fuel is still used in this strategy, it does not fully displace the petroleum diesel fuel. To completely displace the petroleum-derived diesel fuel, this investigation presents experimental results comparing diesel and biodiesel pilot ignition in a dual-fuel strategy with methanol in a marine-variant of a Cat® C18 18 L engine with a 145 mm bore. Engine performance and emissions characteristics are presented that include effects of diesel vs. biodiesel across a series of fuel injection timing and other operating parameters, including intake manifold pressure and engine load. Results presented include in-cylinder pressure and combustion-related findings about heat release, methanol fuel energy substitution rates greater than 75% from 1 to 18 bar BMEP on a single cylinder engine at 1800 RPM. Criteria pollutants including particulate matter, NOx (NO and NO2), unburned fuel, and formaldehyde, as well as the overall BSFC and FSN of the combustion process relative to the baseline diesel operation.

Splitter, Derek [ORNL] (ORCID:0000000174044047)↗
DOE OSTI2020

Investigation of the ignition processes of a multi-injection flame in a Diesel engine environment using the flamelet model

In this paper, the first flamelet analysis is conducted of a highly resolved DNS of a multi-injection flame with both auto-ignition and ignition induced by flame-flame interaction. A novel method is proposed to identify the different combustion modes of ignition processes using generalized flamelet equations. The state-of-the-art DNS database generated by Rieth et al. (US National Combustion Meeting, 2019) for a multi-injection flame in a Diesel engine environment is investigated. Three-dimensional flamelets are extracted from the DNS at different time instants with a focus on auto-ignition and interaction-ignition processes. The influences of mixture field interactions and the scalar dissipation rate on the ignition process are investigated by varying the species composition boundary conditions of the transient flamelet equations. Budget analyses of the generalized flamelet equations show that the transport along the mixture fraction iso-surface is insignificant during the auto-ignition process, but becomes important when interaction-ignition occurs, which is further confirmed through a flamelet regime classification method.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2021

Solid particulate mass and number from ducted fuel injection in an optically accessible diesel engine in skip-fired operation

Ducted fuel injection (DFI) is a new combustion strategy that has been shown to significantly attenuate soot formation in diesel engines. While previous studies have used optical diagnostics and optical filter smoke number methods to show that DFI reduces in-cylinder soot formation and engine-out soot emissions, respectively, this is the first study to measure solid particle number (PN) emissions in addition to particle mass (PM). Furthermore, this study quantitatively evaluates the use of transient particle instruments for measuring particles from skip-fired operation in an optical single cylinder research engine (SCRE). Engine-out PN was measured using an engine exhaust particle sizer following a catalytic stripper, and PM was measured using a photoacoustic analyzer. The study improves on earlier preliminary emissions studies by clearly showing that DFI reduces overall PM by 76%–79% and PN for particles larger than 23 nm by 77% relative to conventional diesel combustion at a 1200-rpm, 13.3-bar gross indicated mean effective pressure operating condition. The degree of engine-out PM reduction with DFI was similar across both particulate measurement instruments used in the work. Through the use of bimodal distribution fitting, DFI was also shown to reduce the geometric mean diameter of accumulation mode particles by 26%, similar to the effects of increased injection pressure in conventional diesel combustion systems. This work clearly shows the significant solid particulate matter reductions enabled by DFI while also demonstrating that engine-out PN can be accurately measured from an optical SCRE operating in a skip-fired mode. Based on these results, it is believed that DFI has the potential to enable fuel savings when implemented in multi-cylinder engines, both by lowering the required frequency of active diesel particulate filter regeneration, and by reducing the backpressure imposed by exhaust filtration systems.

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗