CFD Modeling of a Two-Stroke Free Piston Energy Converter using Detailed Chemistry

This paper presents the detailed CFD model and the numerical simulation results used to analyze the combustion processes in a two-stroke, uniflow scavenging dual free piston engine prototype, designed for electricity generation. A limited size chemical reaction mechanism consisting of 70 species participating in 305 reactions was used to approximate the complex combustion kinetics of a diesel oil surrogate, represented by a mixture of n-heptane and toluene. The direct injection schedules were varied in the course of searching for optimal regimes of HCCI-like combustion.