You are on page 1of 17

Government Engineering College, Thrissur

HCCI-PMC

I.

INTRODUCTION

Reduction in diesel engine emissions, in particular NOx and PM emission is becoming as high priority issue as emission norms are getting more and more stringent now a days. The rigid emission standards urged the engine researchers to innovate techniques that produce high efficient and low emission engines. One such novel technique is HCCI combustion. Moreover, this technique can be scaled to virtually every size-class of transportation engines from small motorcycle to large ship engines [U.S congress report, (2001)]. The operational control of an HCCI engine over a wide range of speeds and loads is probably the most difficult hurdle. HCCI engine ignition is largely determined by the charge mixture composition, its timetemperature history and to a lesser extent pressure. Although it has been demonstrated that HCCI engines operate well at low to medium loads, severe complications have been observed at high loads. At higher loads, the combustion becomes more rapid which subsequently leading to intense mechanical noise, engine damage and unacceptable levels of NOx emissions . Preliminary research indicates that the operating range of HCCI engines can be extended significantly by partially stratifying the fuel-air charge/ residual charge at high loads. The potential mechanisms for achieving partial charge stratification include: in-cylinder fuel injection, water injection, varying the intake and in-cylinder mixing processes and altering incylinder flows to vary heat transfer. Due to the difficulties being faced at higher loads, HCCI engines are generally designed to switch over to conventional Spark Ignition (SI) or Compression Ignition (CI) mode of combustion at this operational region [Weclas (2004a)]. An experimental technique which inherits the positive aspects of HCCI combustion at low to medium loads and concurrently keeps away from the negative attributes of HCCI combustion at higher loads is the matter of immediate concern. Based on literature survey [Chidambaram (2009) and Weclas (2004b)], homogeneous combustion established through porous medium combustion technique (HCCI-PMC) has been attempted in this experimental investigation. In this study, PMC technique has been implemented on a single cylinder, direct injection diesel engine. It has been found that this technique is able to produce relatively high efficiency and low particulate emissions from a diesel engine. Low NOx emission than HCCI

Department of Mechanical Engineering

MTECH (ICTM)

Government Engineering College, Thrissur

HCCI-PMC

mode is the added advantage of this technique [Jan (2001), Wang (2000) and Afsharvahid (2007)].

In the initial stage, the conventional engine was operated without any modifications. In the second stage, the engine was made to run in HCCI mode, established through the combination of technologies such as high pressure fuel injection, injection timing advance, pre-heating the air of induction manifold and cooled exhaust gas recirculation. The performance, combustion and emission characteristics of the engine under this mode were recorded. In the third stage, a ceramic material with large porosity was introduced into the combustion chamber of the engine to accomplish HCCI-PMC. Then the experiments were conducted and the readings were taken. As an end note, the combustion, performance and emission characteristics of engine under different modes of combustion such as Conventional, HCCI and HCCI-PMC were compared and presented in this paper. A typical comparison between conventional engines and HCCI engine is shown below.

Figure 1 Comparison between HCCI engine and conventional IC engines

Department of Mechanical Engineering

MTECH (ICTM)

Government Engineering College, Thrissur

HCCI-PMC

II.

EXPERIMENTAL SETUP

Generally, the porous medium combustion can be achieved by the precise placement of porous ceramic material in either of the following locations: cylinder, engine head or piston. In this research work, the porous ceramic material was placed on the top of piston cavity and had been detained in its position through an appropriate locking mechanism. The inherent physical and thermal characteristics of porous ceramic material was utilized for the fast and complete evaporation of the liquid fuel while large porosity characteristic being utilized for proper mixing with air and volumetric combustion. The photographic view of such a piston with porous medium implementation was shown in Fig. 1.The chemical composition and mechanical properties of porous ceramic material were given in Table 1.

Figure 2. Photographic view of piston with porous medium implementation

Molecular formula ZrO2

Density(g/cm3) 5.89

Solubility in water Negligible

Melting point(0c) 2715

Boiling point(0c) 4300

Table 1. Properties of porous ceramic material

Department of Mechanical Engineering

MTECH (ICTM)

Government Engineering College, Thrissur

HCCI-PMC

Figure 3. A typical porous ceramic material-ZrO2

A single cylinder four stroke direct injection air-cooled diesel engine, most commonly used for agricultural applications in India, was used for the experimental investigation. The specifications of this engine were given in Table 2. The schematic diagram of the experimental set-up was shown in Fig. 2. The engine was coupled to an electrical dynamometer to provide the brake load. The fuel consumption was measured with the aid of a glass burette and stopwatch on volume basis. A Piezo-electric pressure transducer (GH12D Miniature Pressure

Transducer) coupled with an angle encoder was used to measure the combustion chamber pressure with respect to crank angle. The setup was connected to a personal computer with AVL engine evaluation software. Five-gas exhaust analyzer was used to determine the emissions of CO (carbon monoxide), CO2 (carbon dioxide), HC (hydrocarbon) by infra-red measurement

and NOx (nitrogen oxides) by electrochemical sensors. Smoke intensity was measured with an AVL 415 smoke meter.

Department of Mechanical Engineering

MTECH (ICTM)

Government Engineering College, Thrissur

HCCI-PMC

Make Model Bore X Stroke (mm) Compression ratio Cubic capacity Rated power Rated speed Start of injection Connecting rod length Injector operating pressure

Kirloskar TAF 87.5 X 110 17.5:1 0.661 liters 4.4 kW 1500 rpm 23.4 bTDC 220 mm 200 205 bar Table 2. Engine specifications

Figure 4. Schematic layout of experimental setup

Department of Mechanical Engineering

MTECH (ICTM)

Government Engineering College, Thrissur

HCCI-PMC

8. Pressure transducer 1. Diesel engine 2. Electrical dynamometer 3. Dynamometer controls 4. Air box 5. U-tube manometer 6. Fuel tank 7. Fuel measurement 9. TDC position sensor 10. Charge amplifier 11. TDC amplifier circuit 12. Analog to digital card 13. Computer

14. Exhaust gas analyzer 15. AVL smoke meter 16. Air preheater 17. EGR control valve

III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

In this research work, an attempt has been performed to compare the combustion and performance characteristics of a DI diesel engine under conventional, HCCI and HCCI-PMC modes of combustion.

1. COMBUSTION CHARCTERISTICS
1.1 IGNITION DELAY

The variation of ignition delay with brake power for different modes of combustion was shown in Fig.5. It was inferred that ignition delay started to decrease with an increase in brake power for almost all modes of combustion. With an increase in brake power, the amount of fuel being burnt inside the cylinder gets increased and subsequently the temperature of in- cylinder

Department of Mechanical Engineering

MTECH (ICTM)

Government Engineering College, Thrissur

HCCI-PMC

gases gets increased. This may lead to reduced ignition delay in all modes of combustion. However, the ignition delay for diesel fuel was lower under HCCI and HCCI-PMC modes than the conventional combustion mode. It was evident that the ignition delay was lowest in HCCIPMC mode from medium to high load. This might be due to the positive influence of hot porous medium on the evaporation of liquid fuel and its mixing with air.

17

16.5

16 Ignition delay in degCA

Conventional

15.5

HCCI

15 HCCI-PMC 14.5

14

13.5 0 1.1 2.2 Brake power in kW 3.3 4.4

Figure 5. Variation of ignition delay with the increase in brake power

Department of Mechanical Engineering

MTECH (ICTM)

Government Engineering College, Thrissur

HCCI-PMC

1.2. PEAK PRESSURE


The variations of peak cylinder gas pressure with brake power for different modes of combustion were given in Fig. 6. It was observed that the peak pressure gets increased with an increase in brake power. During measurements, the maximum peak pressure under HCCI mode and lowest peak pressure under conventional combustion mode were observed. In a conventional direct injection diesel engine, at any point of time, only a fraction of total injected fuel was getting burnt. But on the other hand, under HCCI combustion mode, the entire fuel-air mixture got ignited and also burnt simultaneously (volumetric combustion). This might be leading to highest peak pressure in HCCI mode. However, in HCCI-PMC mode, the magnitude of peak pressure was slightly lower than HCCI, which might be due to pressure drop across the pores of ceramic medium placed inside the combustion chamber.

73 71 69 67 Peak pressure in bars 65 63 61 59 HCCI-PMC 57 55 53 0 1.1 2.2 3.3 Brake power in kW 4.4 Conventional

HCCI

Figure 6. Variation of peak pressure with increase of brake power

Department of Mechanical Engineering

MTECH (ICTM)

Government Engineering College, Thrissur

HCCI-PMC

1.3. HEAT REALASE RATE

The heat release rate at different crank angles at rated load for different modes of combustion was shown in Fig. 7.It was inferred that the heat release patterns of all combustion modes were similar but with slight variations. It was observed that the heat release pattern was rapid and intense in HCCI mode combustion. In HCCI-PMC mode, even though the heat release rate was more rapid than the conventional combustion mode; the heat was released in a controlled manner.

90

80

70

Rate of heat released in J/degCA

60

50

Conventional HCCI HCCI-PMC

40

30

20

10

0 -12 -10 -8 -6 -4 -2 0 2 4 6 8 10 12

-10 Crank angle in degrees(aTDC)

Figure 7 . Rate of heat release pattern for different modes of combustion

Department of Mechanical Engineering

MTECH (ICTM)

Government Engineering College, Thrissur

HCCI-PMC

2. PERFORMANCE CHARCTERISTICS
2.1 SPECIFIC FUEL CONSUMPTION
The variation in specific fuel consumption against brake power for different modes of combustion was shown in Fig.8. It was inferred that the specific fuel consumption was lower in the case of HCCI and HCCI-PMC, as these modes were predominately operated with a dilute homogeneous charge. Even within these two modes, HCCI-PMC had superior characteristics over HCCI mode, which might be due to enhanced evaporation and mixing of fuel with air by the presence of hot porous medium.

0.6

Specific fuel consumption in Kg/kW-hr

0.5

0.4

Conventional

HCCI 0.3 HCCI-PMC

0.2

0.1 0 1.1 2.2 Brake power in kW 3.3 4.4

Figure 8. Comparison of specific fuel consumption for different modes of combustion

Department of Mechanical Engineering

10

MTECH (ICTM)

Government Engineering College, Thrissur

HCCI-PMC

2.2 BRAKE THERMAL EFFICIENCY

30

25 Brake thermal efficiency in %

Conventional 20

HCCI 15 HCCI-PMC 10

5 0 1.1 2.2 3.3 4.4 Brake power in kW

Figure 9.Comparison of brake thermal efficiency for various modes of combustion From Fig 9, it was inferred that the brake thermal efficiencies were increasing with an increase in brake power for all modes of combustion that were under consideration. Even though the brake thermal efficiencies did not vary too much between HCCI and HCCI-PMC modes, these modes were found to offer better thermal efficiencies than the conventional combustion mode. This might be due to the enhanced evaporation and mixing rate in the case of HCCI-PMC mode of combustion.

Department of Mechanical Engineering

11

MTECH (ICTM)

Government Engineering College, Thrissur

HCCI-PMC

3. EMISSION CHARACTERISTICS

3.1 UNBURNED HYDROCARBONS (UBHC)


The comparison of unburned hydrocarbon emissions in a DI diesel engine with different modes of combustion was presented in Fig. 10. HC emissions were significantly higher for HCCI and HCCI-PMC modes. Since HCCI operates on lean mixtures, the peak temperatures were lower in comparison to a conventional diesel engine. These low peak temperatures might be leading to incomplete burning of fuel, especially near the walls of the combustion chamber, which was one of the possible reasons for higher HC emissions in these modes. However HC emissions were lower in HCCI-PMC over HCCI mode. This might be due to later stage oxidation of HC compounds inside the hot porous medium.
30

25 Unburned hydrocarbons in ppm

Conventional HCCI

20 HCCI-PMC 15

10

0 0 1.1 2.2 3.3 Brake power in kW 4.4

Figure 10. Comparison of hydrocarbon emissions for different modes of combustion

Department of Mechanical Engineering

12

MTECH (ICTM)

Government Engineering College, Thrissur

HCCI-PMC

3.2 CARBON MONOXIDE (CO)


The comparison of carbon monoxide emissions in a DI diesel engine with different modes of combustion was presented in Fig. 11. Carbon monoxide emissions were also higher for HCCI and HCCI-PMC modes. However, carbon monoxide emissions were lower in HCCIPMC mode than HCCI mode under low to medium loads. Surplus oxygen availability and the presence of hot porous medium might promote later stage oxidation of carbon monoxide across the combustion chamber, which consequently resulted in lower emissions at these loads.

0.21

Carbon monoxide in %

0.16 Conventional HCCI HCCI-PMC 0.11

0.06

0.01 0 1.1 2.2 3.3 4.4 Brake power in kW

Figure 11. Comparison of carbon monoxide emissions for different modes of combustion

Department of Mechanical Engineering

13

MTECH (ICTM)

Government Engineering College, Thrissur

HCCI-PMC

3.3 NITROGEN OXIDES (NOX)

As far as the nitrogen oxide emissions were concerned, it was found to be the lowest in the case of HCCI- PMC mode. This might be due to the heat absorbing characteristics of porous medium which was placed inside the combustion chamber. Due to this heat absorption from the reaction zone, the in-cylinder temperature was comparatively lower in HCCI-PMC mode throughout the cycle. This consequently resulted in low thermal NOx emissions. In HCCI mode of combustion, at higher loads, the combustion became more rapid and intense and eventually producing unacceptable levels of NOx emissions. This was shown in Fig. 12.

1350

1200

1050 Nitrogen oxides in ppm

900

750

Conventional

600

HCCI

450 HCCI-PMC 300

150 0 1.1 2.2 3.3 4.4 Brake power in kW

Figure 12. Comparison of nitrogen oxide emissions for different modes of combustion

Department of Mechanical Engineering

14

MTECH (ICTM)

Government Engineering College, Thrissur

HCCI-PMC

3.4 SOOT EMISSIONS


Due to diluted homogeneous charge in HCCI and HCCI-PMC modes, the soot emissions were found to be lower in these modes than the conventional mode of combustion. This was presented in Fig. 13. In HCCI-PMC mode, the soot emission was higher at low range of part loads due to ineffective evaporation of injected fuel. But under medium to higher loads in HCCI-PMC mode, the porous medium absorbed heat (from the reaction zone of the combustion chamber) was utilized for the effective evaporation of liquid fuel and its porosity distribution assisted in thorough mixing of fuel vapour with air, eventually leading to homogenous mixture which in turn resulted in lowest soot emission of all modes.

250

200

Soot in mg/m3

150

Conventional 100 HCCI HCCI-PMC 50

0 0 1.1 2.2 3.3 4.4

Brake power in kW

Figure 13. Comparison of soot emissions for different modes of combustion

Department of Mechanical Engineering

15

MTECH (ICTM)

Government Engineering College, Thrissur

HCCI-PMC

IV. CONCLUDING REMARKS


The combustion, performance and emission characteristics of single cylinder DI diesel engine under conventional, HCCI and HCCI-PMC modes were investigated and

summary of the findings were given below.

(1) The ignition delay was found to be lower in HCCI and HCCI-PMC modes due to homogeneous mixture conditions.

(2) Maximum peak gas pressure was observed in HCCI mode; whilst slightly lower peak pressure than HCCI mode was observed in HCCI-PMC mode due to pressure drop across the porous ceramic medium which was placed in the combustion chamber.

(3) The brake thermal efficiencies were higher in HCCI and HCCI-PMC modes than the conventional combustion mode.

(4) Soot emission under HCCI and HCCI-PMC modes were found to be superior to conventional mode of combustion.

(5) The NOx emissions were comparable with conventional mode under low to medium loads. But at high load under HCCI mode, the NOx emission was higher due to rapid

combustion established through homogeneous mixture. However, due to heat absorption characteristics of porous medium, the NOx emission was lower in HCCI-PMC mode when compared to HCCI mode.

(6)

HCCI and HCCI-PMC modes had inferior characteristics with respect to HC and CO emissions. But it could be easily resolved by the use of ultra low light-off temperature oxidation catalysts.

As an end note, this research work would like to conclude that with proper implementations, the HCCI-PMC mode had the potential of offering better combustion, performance and emission characteristics in direct injection diesel engines.

Department of Mechanical Engineering

16

MTECH (ICTM)

Government Engineering College, Thrissur

HCCI-PMC

V.

REFERENCES

[1] C Kannan et. al. / International Journal of Engineering Science and Technology Vol. 2(8), 2010, pp 3525-3534 [2] Afsharvahid.S., Ashman.P.J., Dally.B.B.,(2007): Investigation of NOx conversion

characteristics in a porous medium, Combustion and Flame, 06, pp.1-12 [3] Kannan Chidambaram, Tamilporai Packirisamy(2009): Smart ceramic materials for homogeneous combustion in internal combustion engines A review, Thermal Science,13 , pp. 153-163 [4] Miroslaw Weclas(2004): Potential of porous medium combustion technology as applied to internal combustion engines, Sonderdrunck Schriffenreihe Der Georg- Simon -Ohm

Fachhochschule Numberg NR.32, ISSN 1616-0762 [5] Miroslaw Weclas (2004): Strategy for intelligent internal combustion engine with homogeneous combustion in cylinder, Sonderdrunck Schriffenreihe Der Georg- Simon -Ohm Fachhochschule Numberg NR.32, ISSN 1616-0762 [6] U.S Department of Energy, A Report to US Congress (2001): Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) Technology [7] Wang.W.G., Lyons.D.W., Clark.N.N.,Gautam.M (2000): Emissions from nine heavy trucks fueled by diesel and biodiesel blend without engine modification, Environmental Science Technology, 34, pp.933-939

Department of Mechanical Engineering

17

MTECH (ICTM)

You might also like