Journal of Ecological Engineering Received: 2017.10.
08
Accepted: 2017.10.28
Volume 19, Issue 1, January 2018, pages 94–103 Published: 2018.01.01
https://doi.org/10.12911/22998993/79415
Reducing Diesel Engine Emission using Reactivity Controlled
Approach
Osama H. Ghazal1
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Applied Science Private University, Amman, Jordan, e-mail:
1
[email protected]
ABSTRACT
Several automobile manufacturers are interested in investigating of dual fuel internal combustion engines, due to
high efficiency and low emissions. Many alternative fuels have been used in dual fuel mode for IC engine, such
as methane, hydrogen, and natural gas. In the present study, a reactivity controlled compression ignition (RCCI)
engine using gasoline/diesel (G/D) dual fuel has been investigated. The effect of mixing gasoline with diesel fuel
on combustion characteristic, engine performance and emissions has been studied. The gasoline was injected in the
engine intake port, to produce a homogeneous mixture with air. The diesel fuel was injected directly to the combus-
tion chamber during compression stroke to initiate the combustion process. A direct injection compression ignition
engine has been built and simulated using ANSYS Forte professional code. The gasoline amount in the simulation
varied from (50%-80%) by volume. The diesel fuel was injected to the cylinder in two stages. The model has been
validated and calibrated for neat diesel fuel using available data from the literature. The results show that the heat
release rate and the cylinder pressure increased when the amount of added gasoline is between 50%-60% volume
of the total injected fuels, compared to the neat diesel fuel. Further addition of gasoline will have a contrary ef-
fect. In addition, the combustion duration is extended drastically when the gasoline ratio is higher than 60% which
results in an incomplete combustion. The NO emission decreased drastically as the gasoline ratio increased. More-
over, addition of gasoline to the mixture increased the engine power, thermal efficiency and combustion efficiency
compared to neat diesel fuel.
Keywords: CFD, dual fuel; RRCI engine; green cars; emissions; diesel engine.
INTRODUCTION Kim et al. [2] studied the effect of a two stage in-
jection (earlier injection and late injection near top
The internal combustion engine operating on dead center) on combustion behavior and engine
dual fuel has many advantages compared to a con- emissions. The results showed that the two-stage
ventional engine, including emissions and perfor- injection can reduce NOx emissions compared to
mance. Many research papers proposed different single injection DI diesel engine when the injec-
techniques to improve the diesel engine efficien- tion timing of the first and main injections is op-
cy. Yokota et al. [1] investigated the combustion timized. Puduppakkam et al. [3] investigated the
characteristics of multiple injections compared to effect of pilot diesel fuel quantity and its injec-
the single injection system both experimentally tion timing on the performance and emissions of
and theoretically. The simulation results show CI engine operating on natural gas (primary fuel)
an improvement in the trade-off relation between and diesel fuel (pilot fuel). The pilot diesel fuel
NOx emissions and fuel consumption of multiple quantity and injection timing have a significant
injection technique. On the other hand, the ex- influence on the performance and emissions of
perimental results show that trade-off relation of the engine. The results showed that the increased
multiple injections between NOx emissions and of the pilot fuel amount accompanied with an
fuel consumption becomes worse than those of increase of its injection timing results in an im-
the single injection for ordinary injection timing. provement of the engine efficiency and decreased
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Journal of Ecological Engineering Vol. 19(1), 2018
the CO emissions while increasing the NO emis- creased. Sezer [10] investigated the diesel engine
sions. The homogeneous charge Compression performance and emissions operating on dimeth-
Ignition (HCCI) technique has proposed by sev- yl ether and diethyl ether as an alternative fuels.
eral researchers as a good solution to increase the He confirmed that dimethyl ether and diethyl
engine efficiency and decrease NO emissions. ether presented a lower engine performance than
However, the ignition timing and combustion rate diesel fuel due to their lower cylinder temperature
should be controlled to gain the complete benefit and pressure. The emission analysis shows that
from the (HCCI) combustion. dimethyl and diethyl ethers produce lower carbon
Recently, the compression ignition engine dioxides and higher carbon monoxide and nitro-
with dual fuel mode has been investigated by gen oxide compared to diesel fuel. Ghazal [11]
many automobile manufacturers using different investigated the effect of H2/diesel blend fuel ra-
alternative fuels such as methane, natural gas and tio, engine speed, and air/fuel ratio on CI engine
gasoline. Ma et al. [4] performed an experimental performance and emissions. The results showed
study on the effect of the direct injection timing that the hydrogen concentration between (30%-
and premixed ratio of port injected n-heptane 40%) with (A/F) ratio range (15–20) improves
with direct injection diesel fuel for CI engine op- the engine production power and brake thermal
erating on dual fuel. He concluded that the NOx efficiency with a reduction of emissions. The re-
emissions decreased when the premixed ratio in- activity controlled compression ignition engine
creases up to 0.3, but it increased for higher pre- (RCCI) which combines two or more fuels with
mixed ratio. Moreover, the diesel injection timing different reactivity (such as diesel and gasoline) is
is a major factor that affects the combustion and another promising technology to provide low
emission characteristics. Micklow et al. [5] inves- emissions and high engine performance com-
tigated analytically the performance and emission pared to a conventional diesel engine. The gaso-
characteristics of a dual fuel engine at part load. line is injected to the engine port and mixed with
The results showed that a large amount of natural the intake air to form a homogenous mixture
gas is unburned near the cylinder wall at part which is introduced to a cylinder. Diesel fuel is
load. Mattarelli et al. [6] analyzed the combustion injected directly to the cylinder in the compres-
process of a 4-cylinder diesel engine, operating in sion stroke to initiate the combustion. Then, the
both diesel and dual fuel (Diesel and Natural gas) cylinder mixture undergoes a multipoint ignition
using Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) code. due to the existence of the diesel spray all over
The results showed that dual fuel combustion de- the mixture. This will increase the flame speed in
creased Soot, CO and CO2 emissions, but in- the mixture and improve the combustion process
creased NO. Miller Jothi et al. [7] studied the ef- [12]. The amount of injected diesel fuel, injection
fect of Exhaust Gas Recirculation (EGR) on the timing and duration, and the initial condition of
diesel engine performance and emissions while the air/gasoline mixture are the major factors that
operating on LPG. They indicated that using EGR affect the combustion efficiency and thus enhance
method, the brake thermal efficiency increases by the overall engine performance and emissions.
about 2.5% at part load and, NO concentration The optimum values of all these parameters for
could be reduced considerably to about 68% at the specific engine operation conditions (speed
full load, as compared to LPG operation without and load), should be determined using one of the
EGR. Rajendra Prasath et al. [8] developed a the- professional computational fluid dynamics (CFD)
oretical model to predict the combustion, perfor- code to avoid the expensive experimental work
mance and emission characteristics of low heat and engine prototype building. Moreover, the
rejection CI engine operated with diesel and bio- simulation of the combustion process inside the
diesel fuels. The results showed a good agree- engine is a very complex process because it is a
ment with experimental data. Chen et al. [9] in- result of the interaction between many phenome-
vestigated the Dimethyl Ether (HCCI) combus- na that occur inside the combustion chamber,
tion and emissions processes using Computation- such as fuel injection, vaporization, mixing, tur-
al Fluid Dynamics (CFD) model. They performed bulent motion, ignition, and flame prorogation
the DME HCCI combustion process divided into [6]. The combustion process with details kinetics
low temperature reaction high temperature reac- technique obtained by CFD is essential to better
tion regions. Moreover, the unburned fuel and CO understand the phenomena which occur inside the
increased when DME equivalence ratio de- engine, resulting in the possiblity to optimize the
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Journal of Ecological Engineering Vol. 19(1), 2018
engine parameters for drawing the maximum diesel/gasoline ratio), the ignition delay is length-
benefit from the dual fuel engine [13]. Kim et al. ened and the flame propagation improved, short-
[14] have investigated the effect of the gasoline ening the combustion duration. In addition, RCCI
ratio, the injection pressure and the intake tem- combustion reduces soot and NOx with increas-
perature on the engine performance and emis- ing HC and CO emissions, compared to a conven-
sions. They confirmed that the increased of gaso- tional diesel engine. Han et al. [19] studied the
line percentage in the fuel mixture results in ad- effects of engine compression ratio and fuel mix-
vanced ignition timing and the reduction of NOx ture proportion on the ignition processes of blends
emission. In addition, the increased intake air n-heptane and gasoline. The increased gasoline
temperature causes the reduction of HC and CO proportion reduces the peak cylinder pressure, re-
emissions. Puduppakkam et al. [15] studied the tardation in the phasing and extends the ignition
use of a five-component gasoline surrogate and a delays. Moreover, at a sufficient level of gasoline
one-component diesel surrogate by using CFD quantity in the fuel, knock combustion can be
model based on detailed chemical kinetics ap- avoided. Won et al. [20] investigated the effects
proach to simulate the reactivity controlled com- of running single cylinder compression ignition
pression ignition engine (RCCI). They concluded engine on three fuels (gasoline, diesel, and gaso-
that as the combustion phasing is retarded, the line/diesel blend). They found that the fuels with
unburned hydrocarbon and CO emissions in- low reactivity produce high HC and CO emis-
crease for the base case and the net indicated ther- sions in low load conditions and more difficult
mal efficiency increased up to 50%. Moreover, ignitions at very high EGR, particularly at high
the uncertainties in the intake valve closing tem- engine speed. However, low smoke and NOx
perature have a more dominant effect on emis- emissions can be achieved by using a large nozzle
sions. Zhang et al. [16] studied the effect of intake diameter. Park et al. [21] investigated experimen-
air temperature on (HCCI) and emissions for dual tally the fuel properties, droplet atomization,
fuel engine operating on gasoline and n-heptane. combustion efficiency, and emission characteris-
The results of the performed experiments show tics of gasoline-diesel direct blended fuels in a
that as intake air temperature decreases up to 55 diesel engine. They found that as gasoline amount
°C, heat release, peak pressure, un-burnt hydro- increased the fuel density, droplet size, kinematic
carbon and CO decrease as well. Further decreas- viscosity, and surface tension decreased. More-
ing of intake temperature causes instability of the over, the gasoline addition reduces ISNOx and
combustion process and misfire happens. More- ISsoot and increases ISHC and ISCO emissions.
over, under fixed intake air temperature condi- However, the effects of gasoline blending on
tions, increased gasoline ration in the fuel raised combustion performance and exhaust emissions
HC and CO emission. Lopez et al. [13] investi- diminished as the engine load increased. Yang et
gated the effect of different gasoline and diesel al. [22] investigated different dual-fuel combus-
blends ratio on ignition delay and flame structure tion modes (gasoline /diesel blend) on diesel en-
for diesel engine. The results confirmed that the gine performance and emissions. Highly Pre-
soot formation is affected by the flame lift-off mixed Charge Combustion (HPCC) and (LTC)
length which is related to the fuel reactivity. In modes have been performed. Moreover, in the
addition, the ignition delay is increased as the HPCC mode, both early-injection (E-HPCC) and
gasoline ration increased in the mixture. Cha et al. late-injection (L-HPCC) of diesel have been used.
[17] studied the effect of gasoline quantity in the The results showed that the heat release rate and
fuel mixture and the diesel injection timing on the maximum pressure rise rate values for the (E-
combustion and emission characteristic for com- HPCC) are comparable to the (L-HPCC) values.
pression ignition engine. The results showed that On the other and, the lowest NOX emission was
gasoline addition reduces soot and NO emissions predicted for (EHPCC) mode. Chen et al. [23]
by eliminating the high temperature region in the studied the combustion and emission characteris-
combustion chamber. Conversely, the HC and CO tics of (DMF-diesel, n-butanol-diesel and gaso-
have increased. Banajes et al. [18] investigated line-diesel blends) for compression ignition en-
experimentally and numerically the (RCCI) mix- gines. They indicated that under the same CA50
ing-combustion process using gasoline and diesel conditions, D30 produce the highest NOx and
blend fuels. The results showed that as the gaso- then followed by G30, B30 and neat diesel. More-
line ratio increased in the mixture (up to 25/75% over, D30 has longer ignition delay, faster burn-
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Journal of Ecological Engineering Vol. 19(1), 2018
ing rate, peak heat release rate and maximum of adding gasoline to direct injection compression
pressure rise rate compared to other fuels. ignition engine” on performance and emissions.
In the present work, the effect of gasoline/ The gasoline fuel was injected in the engine intake
diesel (G/D) fuel ratio on CI engine performance port and the diesel fuel was injected directly in
and emissions has been analyzed. A diesel engine the cylinder during the compression stroke in two
model with dual fuel (gasoline/diesel) has been stages. The gasoline/diesel ratio was varied be-
built and simulated using the ANSYS Forte code tween (50% and 80%) by volume. The iso-octane
with details chemical kinetics technique to solve and n-heptane were used as surrogate fuels in the
the injection, evaporation, mixing, and combus- simulation for gasoline and diesel, respectively;
tion process during engine cycle. The gasoline for simplicity, iso-octane and n-heptane will be
has been injected to the engine port to create a called as gasoline and diesel during the analysis.
homogeneous air/fuel mixture which undergoes The properties of gasoline, diesel, n-heptane, iso-
a compression process inside the cylinder. Then, octane fuels are presented in Table 2. This study
the diesel fuel has been injected in two stages uses a 60o sector mesh of the combustion chamber
during compression stroke to initiate the combus- to reduce the calculation time as shown in Fig. 1.
tion. The total amount of injected fuel (gasoline The engine speed for all simulation tests is kept at
and diesel) was kept constant and equal 130 [mg] 1300 [rpm]. The tests were conducted taking into
during all the simulation tests. The gasoline/die- account the system behavior from intake valve
sel fuel ratio has been changed from (50–80%) closure (IVC) to exhaust valve opening (EVO).
by volume. The engine speed was kept constant The total amount of injected fuel (gasoline + die-
(1300 rpm). The model has been validated us- sel) was kept constant 130 [mg/per cycle] for all
ing available experiment data in the literature tests. The injection angles for diesel fuel were
for neat diesel engine operation. A good cor- kept constant for all tests. Two-stage diesel injec-
relation between the experimental and simula- tion technique is used. The in-cylinder pressure
tion data has been shown. The final conclusions and temperature, heat release rate, CO, NOx, and
about the effect of adding gasoline to diesel fuel un-burnt hydrocarbon have calculated for differ-
are fully discussed. ent fuel ratios and compared with neat diesel fuel.
Moreover, the engine power, thermal efficiency,
CFD MODEL Table 1. Simulation sub-models
Turbulence model RNG k-epsilon
In this investigation, the professional ANSYS
Flame speed
Forte CFD Package is used. This program is de- model
Power Law Formulation
signed for an internal combustion engine to solve Droplet collision
Radius of Influence Model
the basic governing equations and combustion model
Spray initialization Constant Discharge Coefficient and
process using the chemical kinetics technique to model Angle
provide the most accurate solutions possible for Kelvin-Helmholtz / Rayleigh-Taylor
Breakup model
these applications [24]. The brief descriptions (KH/RT)
of the sub-models used in the simulation are il- Collision model O’Rourke and Amsden
lustrated in Table 1. A single cylinder 4-stroke Droplet discrete multi-component (DMC) fuel-
vaporization model vaporization model
compression ignition engine with port and direct Basic fluid
Navier-Stokes equations
fuel injection has been built using ANSYS Forte dynamics model
code. This enables the investigation of “the effect Wall Model Law of the Wall.
Table 2. Properties of diesel and gasoline fuel [4, 21]
Fuel property Unit Diesel Gasoline n-heptane iso-octane
Chemical formula C10.8H18.7 C8h18 n-C7H16 i-c8h18
Molar mass g/mol 148.3 114.15 100.16 114.233
density g/cm3 0.839 0.765 0.688 0.692
Boiling point o
C 180–370 27–225 98 99.4
Lower heat value MJ/kg 42.9 44 44.5 44.651
Cetane number - 40–55 5–20 56 14
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Journal of Ecological Engineering Vol. 19(1), 2018
VALIDATION PROCEDURE
A three dimensional CI engine model has
been built using ANSYS Forte code. The model
has been validated by comparing the simulation
results with experimental data from Cha et al.
[17]. The primary fuel n-heptane is used in the
calculations as surrogate fuels for diesel. The
comparison was done for neat diesel fuel. The
diesel fuel was injected directly to the combus-
tion chamber during the compression stroke. The
injection timing is 20o CA before top dead center
(BTDC). The total amount of the injected fuel was
Fig. 1. 3D computational 60o sector meshes. The 10 [mg] and the engine speed was 1200 [rpm]. All
number of computational cells was approx.19000 other engine operating conditions in the present
paper and Cha et al. [17] are the same. The cal-
and combustion efficiency were also estimated. culations started from (IVC) to (EVO). The simu-
The engine specifications are presented in Table 3. lation was carried out for a 60o sector mesh of
The initial conditions of the simulation are illus- the combustion chamber to reduce the calculation
trated in Table 4 and were kept constant during all time. Although the experiments and simulation
tests. The engine model was validated using the were conducted without EGR, the initial condi-
experimental data from Cha et al. [17]. The data tions for the ANSYS Forte calculations were esti-
showed a good agreement which means that the mated using the built-in code within the software.
simulation model works properly. The main sub- In the present investigation, the initial conditions
models incorporated in the simulation are briefly were calculated on the basis of the fuel/air ratios
discussed below. In ANSYS Forte detailed auto- and equivalence ratio. The in-cylinder pressure
ignition kinetics is used for ignition. The critical
temperature and size of the ignition kernel criteria
are used in the model. First, the ignition kernel Table 3. Engine specifications
is initiated, then the flame propagation model is
Intake valve close [deg] -90
activated; this forms computational cells with
Exhaust valve open [deg] 140
temperatures greater than the critical temperature
Bore [mm] 130
which are considered, actually, as ignition sites.
Stroke [mm] 160
The G-equation combustion is modeled accord-
Engine speed [rpm] 1300
ing to the turbulent premixed combustion flame-
No. of strokes 4
let theory. This theory presents two regimes of in-
Connecting rod length [mm] 250
terest: the corrugated flamelet regime and the thin
Start of injection 1 [deg] -63
reaction zone regime [24]. ANSYS Forte presents
Duration of injection 1 [deg] 5.4
advanced models that include the simulation of
Start of injection 2 [deg] -30
multi-component fuel spray dynamics; in addi-
Duration of injection 2 [deg] 2.8
tion, it simulates the spray interactions with flow-
Total fuel mass (gasoline-diesel) [mg] 130
ing multi-component gases. The model includes
the following sub-processes: spray atomization,
wall impingement, droplet vaporization, drop-
Table 4. Initial conditions
let collision and coalescence, droplet breakup,
as well as nozzle flow. For droplet breakup, the Pressure [bar] 3.1
Kelvin-Helmholtz / Rayleigh-Taylor (KH/RT) Temperature [K] 400
model is used. It is known that in-cylinder react- Turbulence intensity 0.1
ing flows are compressible and extremely turbu- Turbulence length scale [cm] 1
lent in internal combustion (IC) engines. ANSYS Initial engine swirl ratio 0.6
Forte code currently includes the Reynolds Av- Initial swirl profile factor 3.11
eraged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations. Both Cylinder wall temperature [K] 420
advanced and standard k-ε model formulations Cylinder head temperature [K] 490
are available [24]. Piston surface temperature [K] 490
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Journal of Ecological Engineering Vol. 19(1), 2018
and heat release rate are compared for the ex-
perimental and simulation data. Figure 2 shows
a good agreement between the proposed model
and the experimental data presented in Cha et al.
[17]. Hence, the proposed model is able to predict
the engine performance and emissions for various
gasoline/diesel ratios with sufficient accuracy.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
In this paper, the effect of adding gasoline to
diesel fuel on performance and emissions of IC
Fig. 2. The cylinder pressure and heat release rate for
engine has been investigated using professional
the simulation and experimental data [17]
ANSYS Forte software. A gasoline port injec-
tion and diesel direction injection CI engine has
been modeled. In the simulation, the gasoline/
diesel (G/D) ratio was varied from (50–80%) by
volume. The cylinder pressure, temperature, heat
release rate, power, thermal efficiency, combus-
tion efficiency, NOx, CO, and unburned hydro-
carbons were calculated and compared with neat
diesel fuel for all gasoline/diesel ratios. The effect
of (G/D) ratios on the heat release rate is shown
in Figure 3. The heat release rate increased when
gasoline is added to diesel fuel. The maximum
heat release rate occurs with gasoline ratio (50–
60%) in the total fuel. Further increase of gaso-
line amount will decrease the heat release rate.
When the G/D ratio increases, the first combus- Fig. 3. Heat release rate versus G/D ratio
tion stage drop while the second stage improves;
this is due to the increase in ignition delay which
cause an increase of mixing time [18]. More-
over, the addition of gasoline to the mixture with
amount more than 60% (by volume) will increase
the combustion duration as shown in Figure 4 and
consequently expanding the combustion process
to expansion stroke, resulting in increased engine
losses and incomplete combustion. In addition,
when the gasoline percentage is increased over
60% by volume, this could lead to a dramatic in-
crease in the combustion durations resulting in a
reduction in the combustion rate and a reduction
in the peak pressure rising rate [19].
Figure 5 shows that the peak cylinder pres- Fig. 4. Heat release duration versus G/D ratio
sure increases when the gasoline amount added to
diesel is between 50–60% by volume. A further (Fig. 3) and the peak cylinder pressure diagram
increase of gasoline quantity will decrease the (Fig. 5). The use of high n-heptane proportion fu-
cylinder peak pressure. When the two-stage diesel els results in shortening the distance between the
injection technique is used, low temperature com- two combustion stages, causing them to be close
bustion and high temperature combustion (main to each other. On the other hand, the use of high
combustion phase) will occur in the cylinder re- gasoline proportion fuels causes the two com-
spectively, as shown in the heat release diagram bustion stages to be more separate. In addition,
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Journal of Ecological Engineering Vol. 19(1), 2018
increasing the gasoline proportion in the mixture
to more than 60% causes a retard in the phasing
and leads to a reduction in the peak cylinder pres-
sure; besides, it causes a reduction in the maxi-
mum pressure rise rate for the two combustion
stages, as well as an increase of the ignition de-
lays. Moreover, there is a dramatic increase in the
combustion duration when gasoline proportion
increases; as shown in Figure 4. The same results
have been obtained by Han et al. [19]. The start
of combustion is delayed when gasoline is added
to the diesel for all (G/D) ratios; this is caused by
the higher auto-ignition temperature for gasoline
fuel compared to diesel fuel. In addition, the ma-
jor heat release period will extend to the power
stroke and the combustion will not occur near top
center with constant volume which will decrease
Fig. 5. Cylinder pressure versus G/D ratio
the engine efficiency [19]. Adding more than 60%
gasoline will increase the combustion duration
and decrease the engine performance. The accu-
mulated heat release rate is depicted in Figure 6
which shows that the heat release value is higher
when gasoline is added to diesel for all (G/D)
ratios. The greater heat release during premixed
combustion increased the cylinder temperature.
Furthermore, shifting the combustion closer to
top dead center results in an increase in combus-
tion temperature, as shown in Figure 7 [17].
The engine output power is maximal for (G/D)
ratio between 50–60%, as evident from Fig. 8(a).
This is due to the higher total heat release rate and
higher cylinder pressure as presented in Fig. 8(b).
The effect of adding gasoline on combustion ef-
ficiency and engine thermal efficiency is shown in
Figs. 8(c) and 8(d). The gasoline injection to the
intake port increases the homogeneity of the fuel/ Fig. 6. Accumulated heat rate versus G/D ratio.
air mixture resulting in an improved combustion
efficiency. Furthermore, the combustion process
is closer to a constant volume combustion, result-
ing in a reduction of engine losses and an increase
in the engine thermal efficiency. As mentioned
earlier, the heat release rate duration is lower for
50–60% (G/D) ratio, resulting in a higher flame
speed and, subsequently, better combustion effi-
ciency. The effect of gasoline addition to diesel
fuel on engine emissions is illustrated in Fig. 9(a).
The NO emission decreased when the gasoline
amount increased in the fuel mixture. However,
the amount of gasoline added to the mixture,
the diesel injection timing, the engine load and
speed should be optimized to gain the maximum
benefit from RCCI technique, compared to neat
diesel fuel operation. As seen in the Figure 6, Fig. 7. In-cylinder temperature versus G/D ratio.
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Journal of Ecological Engineering Vol. 19(1), 2018
Fig. 8. Engine power, total chemical HR, thermal efficiency, and combustion efficiency
versus G/D ratio
Fig. 9. Engine emissions versus G/D ratio
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Journal of Ecological Engineering Vol. 19(1), 2018
the in-cylinder temperature is higher when using adopted in the simulation. The results show that
gasoline-diesel mixture. Moreover, high oxygen improvement of the IC engine performance using
and nitrogen concentration in the hot zone are dual fuel with different reactivity, such as gaso-
major factors affecting the NO formation. Fig. 8 line and diesel, represents a promising technique
shows that when gasoline is added to diesel, hot for controlling the combustion characteristic and
zones inside the combustion chamber are seen, engine performance. The main conclusions can
resulting in higher NO emission. Fig. 9(b) depicts be summarized as follows:
the amount of CO fraction in the exhaust gases. 1. Heat release rate increased (40%) and cylinder
Adding gasoline to the fuel mixture will decrease pressure raised (around 13%) compared to the
the CO emission. The enhanced combustion ef- neat diesel fuel, when the amount of the added
ficiency and the complete combustion due to the gasoline varies from (50–60%) of the total in-
50%-60% gasoline addition to the fuel mixture, jected fuels. Further addition of gasoline nega-
as mentioned earlier, confirm the reduction in tively affects the engine performance.
CO emissions compared to neat diesel fuel. In 2. The combustion duration is extended drastical-
addition, lower CO and HC emissions also re- ly when the gasoline ratio is higher than (60%)
sults from the high cylinder temperature which 3. The CO and HC emissions increased and the
improves the CO and HC oxidation processes NO amount decreased when the gasoline pro-
[18]. Moreover, multiple injections help reduc- portion increased in the mixture.
ing HC and CO emissions because the ignition 4. Adding (60%) gasoline to the fuel mixture
delay between the start of the main injection and increases engine power (37%), thermal effi-
combustion is decreased [20]. Fig. 9(c) shows the ciency (39%) and combustion efficiency (35%)
un-burnt hydrocarbon amount versus (G/D) ra- compared to neat diesel fuel.
tio; it shows that when increasing gasoline ratio 5. The two-stage injection can reduce the NOx
in the mixture, the un-burnt hydrocarbon fraction emissions compared to a single injection DI
formed near the cylinder wall increases which re- diesel engine when the injection timing of the
sults in an incomplete combustion. The same re- first and main injections is optimized.
sults have been confirmed by Micklow et al. [5]
and Yang et al. [22]. Additionally, the proposed The amount of the injected fuel and the injec-
model confirms that n-heptane, the most-reactive tion timing should be optimized according to en-
fuel component, burns at a faster rate compared gine load, speed and initial conditions to gain the
to iso-octane which is less-reactive [15]. Add- maximum benefits from this technique. In addi-
ing gasoline fraction above 60% slows down the tion, by using CFD simulation detail information
progress of combustion process which increases can be obtained about the complex phenomena
the heat release duration. This causes the combus- which occur inside the combustion chamber and
tion process to expand toward the power stroke the interaction effects between these phenomena.
which causes incomplete combustion, and con- This would allow the control of the combustion
sequently emitting high amounts of HC and CO process by adjusting and optimizing the engine
[15]. Moreover, the existence of high amounts of operating parameters.
low reactivity fuel across the cylinder and espe-
cially at cold regions (gasoline near the wall and
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