Ducted Fuel Injection: A New Approach for Lowering Soot Emissions from Direct-Injection Engines.
Abstract not provided.
Mueller, Charles J.↗
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Measurement of runaway electron energy distribution function during high-Z gas injection into runaway electron plateaus in DIII-D
The evolution of the runaway electron (RE) energy distribution function f{sub ε} during massive gas injection into centered post-disruption runaway electron plateaus has been reconstructed. Overall, f{sub ε} is found to be much more skewed toward low energy than predicted by avalanche theory. The reconstructions also indicate that the RE pitch angle θ is not uniform, but tends to be large at low energies and small θ ∼ 0.1–0.2 at high energies. Overall power loss from the RE plateau appears to be dominated by collisions with background free and bound electrons, leading to line radiation. However, the drag on the plasma current appears to be dominated by collisions with impurity ions in most cases. Synchrotron emission appears not to be significant for overall RE energy dissipation but may be important for limiting the peak RE energy.
70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
Using Ducted Fuel Injection to Attenuate Soot Formation in a Mixing-Controlled Compression Ignition Engine
Ducted fuel injection (DFI) has been introduced as a strategy to enhance the fuel/charge gas mixing within the combustion chamber of a direct-injection mixing-controlled compression ignition engine. The concept involves injecting each fuel spray through a small tube within the combustion chamber to facilitate the creation of a leaner mixture in the autoignition zone, relative to a conventional free-spray configuration (i.e., a fuel spray that is not surrounded by a duct). While previous experiments demonstrated that DFI lowers both soot incandescence and soot mass in a constant-volume combustion vessel with a single-component normal-alkane fuel (n-dodecane), here we provide the first evidence that the technology provides similar benefits in an engine application using a commercial diesel fuel containing ~30 wt% aromatics. The present study investigates the effects on engine-out emissions and efficiency with a two-orifice injector tip for charge gas mixtures containing 16 and 21 mol% oxygen. The result is that DFI is confirmed to be effective at curtailing engine-out soot emissions. It also breaks the tradeoff between emissions of soot and nitrogen oxides (NOx) by simultaneously attenuating soot and NO x with increasing dilution.
33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗
Effects of Fuel Laminar Flame Speed Compared to Engine Tumble Ratio, Ignition Energy, and Injection Strategy on Lean and EGR Dilute Spark Ignition Combustion
Previously we show that fuels with higher laminar flame speed also have increased tolerance to EGR dilution. In this work, the effects of fuel laminar flame speed on both lean and EGR dilute spark ignition combustion stability were examined. Fuels blends of pure components (iso-octane, n-heptane, toluene, ethanol, and methanol) were derived at two levels of laminar flame speed. Each fuel blend was tested in a single-cylinder spark-ignition engine under both lean-out and EGR dilution sweeps until the coefficient of variance of indicated mean effective pressure increased above thresholds of 3% and 5%. The relative importance of fuel laminar flame speed to changes to engine design parameters (spark ignition energy, tumble ratio, and port vs. direct injection) was also assessed. Our results showed that fuel laminar flame speed can have as big an effect on lean or EGR dilute engine operation as engine design parameters, with the largest effects seen during EGR dilute operation and when changes were made to cylinder charge motion.
10 SYNTHETIC FUELS↗
Influence of Injector Location on Part-Load Performance Characteristics of Natural Gas Direct-Injection in a Spark Ignition Engine
Interest in natural gas as an alternative fuel source to petroleum fuels for light-duty vehicle applications has increased due to its domestic availability and stable price compared to gasoline. With its higher hydrogen-to-carbon ratio, natural gas has the potential to reduce engine out carbon dioxide emissions, which has shown to be a strong greenhouse gas contributor. For part-load conditions, the lower flame speeds of natural gas can lead to an increased duration in the inflammation process with traditional port-injection. Direct-injection of natural gas can increase in-cylinder turbulence and has the potential to reduce problems typically associated with port-injection of natural gas, such as lower flame speeds and poor dilution tolerance. A study was designed and executed to investigate the effects of direct-injection of natural gas at part-load conditions. Steady-state tests were performed on a single-cylinder research engine representative of current gasoline direct-injection engines. Tests were performed with direct-injection in the central and side location. The start of injection was varied under stoichiometric conditions in order to study the effects on the mixture formation process. In addition, exhaust gas recirculation was introduced at select conditions in order to investigate the dilution tolerance. Relevant combustion metrics were then analyzed for each scenario. Experimental results suggest that regardless of the injector location, varying the start of injection has a strong impact on the mixture formation process. Delaying the start of injection from 300 to 120°CA BTDC can reduce the early flame development process by nearly 15°CA. While injecting into the cylinder after the intake valves have closed has shown to produce the fastest combustion process, this does not necessarily lead to the highest efficiency, due to increases in pumping and wall heat losses. When comparing the two injection configurations, the side location shows the best performance in terms of combustion metrics and efficiencies. For both systems, part-load dilution tolerance is affected by the injection timing, due to the induced turbulence from the gaseous injection event. CFD simulation results have shown that there is a fundamental difference in how the two injection locations affect the mixture formation process. Delayed injection timing increases the turbulence level in the cylinder at the time of the spark, but reduces the available time for proper mixing. Side injection delivers a gaseous jet that interacts more effectively with the intake induced flow field, and this improves the engine performance in terms of efficiency.
Sevik, James↗
Injection of multiple shattered pellets for disruption mitigation in DIII-D
Plasma shutdown experiments in DIII-D have injected multiple shattered pellets at different toroidal locations for the first time, as is planned for the ITER disruption mitigation system. Systematically varying the relative timing of the two pellets suggests that simultaneously injected pellets may influence the assimilation of each other, altering the resulting disruption characteristics compared to a single pellet injecting similar neon quantities. Thermal quench (TQ) radiation measured near the injection location is reduced with the dual pellets, contrary to TQ radiation measured away from the injection ports, which does not show a clear difference between single or dual pellet injections. The mitigation of other disruption loads, such as the current quench (CQ) duration and divertor heat loads, decrease when the pellets enter the plasma simultaneously compared to single shattered pellet injections with similar neon quantities. This similar reduction in mitigation of CQ and conductive loads is consistent with the observed reduction in total TQ radiation. The time between initial pellet injection and the end of the TQ is shorter when both pellets are injected simultaneously compared to a single pellet. This lower cooling duration may limit the amount of the neon assimilated by the plasma prior to the end of the TQ, consistent with the observed reduction in radiation. The injected impurities spread primarily in the parallel direction, away from the source at the injection location. The addition of two shattered pellet injectors shows that the initial poloidal radiation is spread out into two distinct regions, cooling multiple flux tubes simultaneously, which may induce global MHD instabilities more rapidly than a single flux tube of impurities leading to a shorter cooling duration. The electron density increased by approximately a factor of two with the addition of multiple pellets, but is highly sensitive to the time between injections. Here, a maximum density increase is found when both pellets arrive at the plasma prior to the start of the TQ.
70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
INVESTIGATION INTO REACTIVITY SEPARATION BETWEEN DIRECT INJECTED AND PREMIXED FUELS IN RCCI COMBUSTION MODE
This experimental study focuses on the effects of the reactivity separation between the port injected fuel and the direct injection fuel, the amount of external-cooled exhaust gas recirculation (EGR), and the direct injection timing of the high reactivity fuel on Reactivity Controlled Compression Ignition (RCCI) combustion. The experiments were conducted on a lightduty, single-cylinder diesel engine with a production GM/Isuzu engine head and piston and a retrofitted port fuel injection system. The global charge-mass equivalence ratio, ϕ′, was fixed at 0.32 throughout all of the experiments. To investigate the effects of the fuel reactivity separation, different Primary Reference Fuels (PRF) were port injected, with the PRF number varying from 50 to 90. To investigate the effects of EGR, an EGR range of 0 to 55% was used. To investigate the effects of the injection timing, an injection timing window of -65 to -45 degrees ATDC was chosen. The results indicate that there are several tradeoffs. First, decreasing the port injected fuel reactivity (increasing the PRF number) delays combustion phasing, decreases the combustion efficiency by up to 9%, increases the gross indicated thermal efficiency up to 22%, enhances the combustion sensitivity to the direct injection timing, and slightly increases the UHC, CO, and NOx emissions. Second, increasing the EGR percentage delays combustion phasing, lowers the peak heat release rate, and lowers the NOx emissions. The combustion efficiency first increases and then decreases with EGR percentage for high reactivity fuels (low PRF number), but only decreases for low reactivity fuels. Finally, delaying the injection timing advances combustion phasing and increases the combustion efficiency, but decreases the gross indicated thermal efficiency and increases the NOx emissions. Across all of the experiments, delays in CA50 increase the gross indicated thermal efficiency and decrease the combustion efficiency, which represents an inherent tradeoff for RCCI combustion on a lightduty engine.
Yan, Ziming↗
Use of Adaptive Injection Strategies to Increase the Full Load Limit of RCCI Operation
Dual-fuel combustion using port-injection of low reactivity fuel combined with direct injection (DI) of a higher reactivity fuel, otherwise known as reactivity controlled compression ignition (RCCI), has been shown as a method to achieve low-temperature combustion with moderate peak pressure rise rates, low engine-out soot and NO x emissions, and high indicated thermal efficiency. A key requirement for extending to high-load operation is moderating the reactivity of the premixed charge prior to the diesel injection. One way to accomplish this is to use a very low reactivity fuel such as natural gas. In this work, experimental testing was conducted on a 13 l multicylinder heavy-duty diesel engine modified to operate using RCCI combustion with port injection of natural gas and DI of diesel fuel. Engine testing was conducted at an engine speed of 1200 rpm over a wide variety of loads and injection conditions. The impact on dual-fuel engine performance and emissions with respect to varying the fuel injection parameters is quantified within this study. The injection strategies used in the work were found to affect the combustion process in similar ways to both conventional diesel combustion (CDC) and RCCI combustion for phasing control and emissions performance. As the load is increased, the port fuel injection (PFI) quantity was reduced to keep peak cylinder pressure (PCP) and maximum pressure rise rate (MPRR) under the imposed limits. Overall, the peak load using the new injection strategy was shown to reach 22 bar brake mean effective pressure (BMEP) with a peak brake thermal efficiency (BTE) of 47.6%.
Hanson, Reed↗
Multiple injection for improving knock, gaseous and particulate matter emissions in direct injection SI engines
Advances in fuel injector technology have enabled research and development on a large variety of direct injection spark ignition (DISI) engine fueling strategies targeted to improve engine performance and reduce engine-out emissions. This study explores the effect of multiple injections on knock, engine efficiency and stability, and particulate number and gaseous emissions on a single-cylinder DISI research engine. Work to date on multiple injections in the literature is reviewed, and then two aspects of multiple injection strategies are experimentally investigated: the number of injections (up to five times in a cycle); and the timing of the injections (classified relative to the timing of intake valve opening and closing). A boosted, single-cylinder research engine equipped with a state-of-the-art piezoelectric hollow cone spray direct injector and research-grade E10 gasoline was used for the study. The results show multiple injections maintain torque and combustion stability compared with single injection and slightly increase the knock limits and indicated thermal efficiencies (maximum 0.7% absolute, 2.8% relative compared with single-injection baseline) due to improved heat release phasing, especially with an additional late injection during the intake valve closed (compression stroke) period. The gaseous pollutant emissions including nitrogen oxides and unburned hydrocarbons were reduced by 25% with multiple injections, particularly with injection during the compression stroke. In contrast, carbon monoxide emissions increased with multiple injections for all conditions. Increasing the number of injection events significantly reduced particulate number emissions (half with each additional injection), and the decrease in particulate number was not sensitive to the injection timing.
42 ENGINEERING↗
Leveraging operational information from wastewater injection wells to evaluate CO 2 injection performance for carbon storage applications in the Appalachian Basin
Abstract Geologic parameters, geophysical logging, injection testing, and operational metrics from wastewater injection wells were integrated to develop a preliminary design of a carbon storage facility in the Appalachian Basin. A scattered group of 10–20 commercial wastewater injection wells dispose off produced water from oil and gas wells in the region, utilizing a sequence of stacked deep saline formations for injection zones. These wastewater injection wells provide practical benchmarks for understanding the feasibility of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) storage. Geologic models were developed based on characterization data from the wastewater injection wells. Reservoir simulations were calibrated according to injection testing and operational data from the wastewater injection wells. Long‐term operational data on injection flow rates and pressures measured in the wastewater injection wells were especially useful to evaluate the performance of carbon storage applications. The simulations were used to estimate injection pressures, radius of CO 2 saturation, and pressure response for industrial scale CO 2 storage applications. Results were also used to provide a design basis in terms of number of injection wells, well spacing, area of review, injection system components, monitoring plan, and CO 2 pipeline distribution system. The analysis demonstrates that there is sufficient injectivity in the deep saline formations in the west‐central Appalachian Basin to store commercial volumes of anthropogenic CO 2 . The geologic system appears suitable for supporting CO 2 injection rates of 0.5–1.0 million metric tons per year at injection pressures below formation fracture pressure in a single well. The long‐term operational data of wastewater injection wells within the study area suggested a lower permeability‐thickness values than indicated by initial reservoir tests. A workflow for developing realistic permeability values for input into reservoir simulations is presented. © 2020 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Valluri, Manoj↗
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↗
Extracting electrode space charge limited current: Charge injection into conjugated polyelectrolytes with a semiconductor electrode
Conjugated polyelectrolytes and related mixed ionic-electronic conductors (MIECs) are being explored for energy applications including solid-state lighting and photovoltaics. Fundamental models of charge injection into MIECs have been primarily developed for MIECs contacted with highly conductive or metal electrodes (MEs), despite many potential applications involving semiconductors. We theoretically and experimentally demonstrate that an appropriate semiconductor electrode (SE), n-type for electron or p-type of hole injection, can limit injection into MIECs. When the SE is the injecting electrode and is under accumulation, there is little difference from a ME. When the SE acts as the extracting electrode, however, injection into the MIEC can be limited because a fraction of any applied bias must support charge depletion in the semiconductor rather than charge injection into the MIEC. In a ME/MIEC/SE system, this can lead to significant asymmetry in current-voltage and injected charge-voltage behavior.
71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
Study of soot production for double injections of n-dodecane in CI engine-like conditions
Not Available
Moiz, Ahmed Abdul↗
NSLS-II Storage Ring Injection Using a Pair on Nonlinear Injection Kickers
Introduction In a previous technical note, the author discussed the possibility of using a Nonlinear Injection Kicker in the cell 1 straight of the NSLS-II. The purpose of this kicker was to design an injection scheme which would not require the present 4 injection dipole kickers so as to minimize the disturbance to the stored beam. The conclusion of the tech note was that it should be possible to design such a system, but that certain beam studies were required to validate the simulations, especially as the beam travels near the physical aperture of the ring and outside of the good field region of the magnets. After that note, it occurred to the author that a perhaps a more robust solution could be found using a similarly designed pair of kickers. The idea is the following: storage ring injection kickers 3 and 4 would be replaced with a pair of nonlinear kickers of a similar design as in the previous tech note. Injection kickers 1 and 2 would not be utilized. The nonlinear kickers would have the field maximum at the location of the injected beam at each kicker. Then as far as the injected beam is concerned, injection would be much like the present injection scheme. As the nonlinear kickers have no field on the stored beam axis, the disturbance to the stored beam would be minimal. In this technical note, we describe this new injection scheme. We show that it is a robust design, requires fewer modifications to the ring and transport line, and provides similar injection performance as the present system without the stored beam disturbance.
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
Performance, Efficiency and Emissions Assessment of Natural Gas Direct Injection compared to Gasoline and Natural Gas Port-Fuel Injection in an Automotive Engine
Interest in natural gas as a fuel for light-duty transportation has increased due to its domestic availability and lower cost relative to gasoline. Natural gas, comprised mainly of methane, has a higher knock resistance than gasoline making it advantageous for high load operation. However, the lower flame speeds of natural gas can cause ignitability issues at part-load operation leading to an increase in the initial flame development process. While port-fuel injection of natural gas can lead to a loss in power density due to the displacement of intake air, injecting natural gas directly into the cylinder can reduce such losses. A study was designed and performed to evaluate the potential of natural gas for use as a light-duty fuel. Steady-state baseline tests were performed on a single-cylinder research engine equipped for port-fuel injection of gasoline and natural gas, as well as centrally mounted direct injection of natural gas. Experimental results suggest that similar efficiencies can be achieved in part-load operation for both gasoline and natural gas. While the effects of injection timing are generally minimal for port-fuel injection, varying the injection timing for direct injection, especially after intake valve closure, can speed up the early flame development process by nearly 18°CA. Results at full-load suggest that operation with natural gas regardless of fuel system allows for an efficiency increase. While port-fuel injection of natural gas leads to a power density loss, direct injection of natural gas allows for up to a 10% improvement in full-load power density over liquid and gaseous port-fuel injection for a naturally aspirated engine. In addition to increasing full-load efficiencies, natural gas operation allows for up to a 30% reduction in engine out carbon dioxide emissions at full-load.
Sevik, James M↗
A robust deep learning workflow to predict multiphase flow behavior during geological C O 2 sequestration injection and Post-Injection periods
Simulation of multiphase flow in porous media is essential to manage the geologic CO 2 sequestration (GCS) process, and physics-based simulation approaches usually take prohibitively high computational cost due to the nonlinearity of the coupled physics. This paper contributes to the development and evaluation of a deep learning workflow that accurately and efficiently predicts the temporal-spatial evolution of pressure and CO 2 plumes during injection and post-injection periods of GCS operations. Based on a Fourier Neural Operator, the deep learning workflow takes input variables or features including rock properties, well operational controls and time steps, and predicts the state variables of pressure and CO 2 saturation. To further improve the predictive fidelity, separate deep learning models are trained for CO 2 injection and post-injection periods due to the difference in primary driving force of fluid flow and transport during these two phases. We also explore different combinations of features to predict the state variables. We use a realistic example of CO 2 injection and storage in a 3D heterogeneous saline aquifer, and apply the deep learning workflow that is trained from physics-based simulation data and emulate the physics process. Through this numerical experiment, we demonstrate that using two separate deep learning models to distinguish post-injection from injection period generates the most accurate prediction of pressure, and a single deep learning model of the whole GCS process including the cumulative injection volume of CO 2 as a deep learning feature, leads to the most accurate prediction of CO 2 saturation. For the post-injection period, it is key to use cumulative CO 2 injection volume to inform the deep learning models about the total carbon storage when predicting either pressure or saturation. The deep learning workflow not only provides high predictive fidelity across temporal and spatial scales, but also offers a speedup of 250 times compared to full physics reservoir simulation, and thus will be a significant predictive tool for engineers to manage the long-term process of GCS.
58 GEOSCIENCES↗