Effect of Fuel Volatility and Ignition Quality on Combustion and Soot Formation at Fixed Premixing Conditions

Event
SAE 2009 Powertrains Fuels and Lubricants Meeting
Authors Abstract
Content
This paper presents experimental results for two fuel-related topics in a diesel engine: (1) how fuel volatility affects the premixed burn and heat release rate, and (2) how ignition quality influences the soot formation.
Fast evaporation of fuel may lead to more intense heat release if a higher percentage of the fuel is mixed with air to form a combustible mixture. However, if the evaporation of fuel is driven by mixing with high-temperature gases from the ambient, a high-volatility fuel will require less oxygen entrainment and mixing for complete vaporization and, consequently, may not have potential for significant heat release simply because it has vaporized. Fuel cetane number changes also cause uncertainty regarding soot formation because variable ignition delay will change levels of fuel-air mixing prior to combustion.
To address these questions, experiments are performed using a constant-volume combustion chamber simulating typical low-temperature-combustion (LTC) diesel conditions. We use fuels that have the same ignition delay (and therefore similar time for premixing with air), but different fuel volatility, to assess the heat-release rate and spatial location of combustion. Under this condition, where fuel volatility is decoupled from the ignition delay, results show almost the same heat release rate and spatial location of the premixed burn.
The effect of ignition quality on soot formation has also been studied while maintaining similar levels of fuel-ambient mixing prior to combustion. To achieve the same ignition delay, the high-cetane-number fuel is injected into an ambient gas at a lower temperature and vice versa. The total soot mass within the spray is measured and compared for fuels with different cetane numbers but with the same premixing level (e.g. the same ignition delay and lift-off length). Experimental results show that the combination of high cetane number and low ambient gas temperature produces lower soot than the other combination, because the ambient temperature predominantly affects soot formation.
Meta TagsDetails
DOI
https://doi.org/10.4271/2009-01-2643
Pages
13
Citation
Kook, S., and Pickett, L., "Effect of Fuel Volatility and Ignition Quality on Combustion and Soot Formation at Fixed Premixing Conditions," SAE Int. J. Engines 2(2):11-23, 2010, https://doi.org/10.4271/2009-01-2643.
Additional Details
Publisher
Published
Nov 2, 2009
Product Code
2009-01-2643
Content Type
Journal Article
Language
English