An Optical Study of the Effects of Diesel-like Fuels with Different Densities on a Heavy-duty CI Engine with a Wave-shaped Piston Bowl Geometry

The novel wave-shaped bowl piston geometry design with protrusions has been proved in previous studies to enhance late-cycle mixing and therefore significantly reduce soot emissions and increase engine thermodynamic efficiency. The wave-shaped piston is characterized by the introduction of evenly spaced protrusions around the inner wall of the bowl, with a matching number with the number of injection holes, i.e., flames. The interactions between adjacent flames strongly affect the in-cylinder flow and the wave shape is designed to guide the near-wall flow. The flow re-circulation produces a radial mixing zone (RMZ) that extends towards the center of the piston bowl, where unused air is available for oxidation promotion. The waves enhance the flow re-circulation and thus increase the mixing intensity of the RMZ. This flame-wall interaction is related to the momentum of the injected fuel sprays and therefore it is reasonable to investigate the impact of fuels of different densities that contain varied momentums. Conventional diesel and n-Heptane are tested in a single-cylinder optical heavy-duty compression ignition engine, as the fuels have similar characteristics but different densities. The spray and combustion processes are visualized by natural luminescence, captured by high-speed video. The experiment results indicate that there is a correlation between fuel densities and the flame-wall interaction.