Effects of Piston Crevice Flows and Lubricant Oil Vaporization on Diesel Engine Deposits

The effect of piston ring pack crevice flow and lubricant oil vaporization on heavy-duty diesel engine deposits is investigated numerically using a multidimensional CFD code, KIVA3V, coupled with Chemkin II, and computational grids that resolve part of the crevice region appropriately. Improvements have been made to the code to be able to deal with the complex geometry of the ring pack, and sub-models for the crevice flow dynamics, lubricating oil vaporization and combustion, soot formation and deposition were also added to the code. Eight parametric cases were simulated under reacting conditions using detailed chemical kinetics to determine the effects of variations of lube-oil film thickness, distribution of the oil film thickness, number of injection pulses, and the main injection timing on engine soot deposition. The results show that crevice-borne hydrocarbon species play an important role in deposit formation on crevice surfaces. The existence of the lubrication oil film increases the gas temperature in the crevice region through reactions of the oil species, and the lube-oil increases the amount of soot deposited on the crevice surfaces. Also, variations of operating parameters that affect the distribution of soot deposited on the cylinder head, liner, piston surfaces, and the crevice surfaces is discussed.