Tailoring Charge Reactivity Using In-Cylinder Generated Reformate for Gasoline Compression Ignition Strategies

Isaac W. Ekoto, Benjamin M. Wolk, William F. Northrop, Nils Hansen, Kai Moshammer

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

10 Scopus citations

Abstract

In-cylinder reforming of injected fuel during a negative valve overlap (NVO) recompression period can be used to optimize main-cycle combustion phasing for low-load low-temperature gasoline combustion (LTGC). The objective of this work is to examine the effects of reformate composition on main-cycle engine performance. An alternate-fire sequence was used to generate a common exhaust temperature and composition boundary condition for a cycle-of-interest, with performance metrics measured for these custom cycles. NVO reformate was also separately collected using a dump-valve apparatus and characterized by both gas chromatography (GC) and photoionization mass spectroscopy (PIMS). To facilitate gas sample analysis, sampling experiments were conducted using a five-component gasoline surrogate (iso-octane, n-heptane, ethanol, 1-hexene, and toluene) that matched the molecular composition, 50% boiling point, and ignition characteristics of the research gasoline. For the gasoline, it was found that an advance of the NVO start-of-injection (SOI) led to a corresponding advance in main-period combustion phasing as the combination of longer residence times and lower amounts of liquid spray piston impingement led to a greater degree of fuel decomposition. The effect was more pronounced as the fraction of total fuel injected in the NVO period increased. Main-period combustion phasing was also found to advance as the main-period fueling decreased. Slower kinetics for leaner mixtures were offset by a combination of increased bulk-gas temperature from higher charge specific heat ratios and increased fuel reactivity due to higher charge reformate fractions.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number122801
JournalJournal of Engineering for Gas Turbines and Power
Volume139
Issue number12
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 1 2017

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
The authors would like to thank Alberto Garcia and Gary Hubbard for their dedicated engineering support. This work was performed at the Combustion Research Facility, Sandia National Laboratories, Livermore, CA. Financial support was provided by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Vehicle Technologies. Sandia National Laboratories is a multi-mission laboratory managed and operated by National Technology and Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC., a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell International, Inc., for the U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration under Contract No. DE-NA0003525.

Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © 2017 by ASME.

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Tailoring Charge Reactivity Using In-Cylinder Generated Reformate for Gasoline Compression Ignition Strategies'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this