Studies on Combustion and Exhaust Emissions in a High Speed DI Diesel Engine

Cylinder pressures at several locations and the radiant heat emission were measured simultaneously in order to better understand the combustion behavior in the combustion chamber of a high speed DI diesel engine. The radiant measurements utilized an optical fiber thermometer (OFT) with a light pipe sensor. The exhaust emissions of NOx, smoke and particulates were also measured. The formation of NOx and soot and the soot burn-up processes were analyzed applying an in-cylinder two-zone model. The results were compared with the experiment.

It was confirmed that diffusion burning stage started close to the first peak of the heat release rate curve. The OFT output was closely related to the diffusion combustion process. The measured exhaust smoke correlated well with the cumulative diffusion combustion quantity. The dry soot in the particulate emission also correlated well with the Bosch smoke density except for the cases of high sulfur fuel and water-emulsified fuel. With a good combination of various techniques for reducing NOx, an NOx level about half of the original was attained, while retaining the original low levels of fuel consumption, smoke density and engine noise.