Mobile hydraulic power supply: Liquid piston Stirling engine pump

Conventional mobile hydraulic power supplies involve numerous kinematic connections and are limited by the efficiency, noise, and emissions of internal combustion engines. The Stirling cycle possesses numerous benefits such as the ability to operate from any heat source, quiet operation, and high theoretical efficiency. The Stirling engine has seen limited success due to poor heat transfer in the working chambers, difficulty sealing low-molecular weight gases at high pressure, and non-ideal piston displacement profiles. As a solution to these limitations, a liquid piston Stirling engine pump is proposed. The liquid pistons conform to irregular volumes, allowing increased heat transfer through geometry features on the interior of the working chambers. Creating near-isothermal operation eliminates the costly external heat exchangers and increases the engine efficiency through decreasing the engine dead space. The liquid pistons provide a positive gas seal and thermal transport to the working chambers. Controlling the flow of the liquid pistons with valves enables matching the ideal Stirling cycle and creates a direct hydraulic power supply. Using liquid hydrogen as a fuel source allows cooling the compression side of the engine before expanded the fuel into a gas and combusting it to heat the expansion side of the engine. Cooling the compression side not only increases the engine power, but also significantly increases the potential thermal efficiency of the engine. A high efficiency Stirling engine makes energy regeneration through reversing the Stirling cycle practical. When used for regeneration, the captured energy can be stored in thermal batteries, such as a molten salt. The liquid piston Stirling engine pump requires further research in numerous areas such as understanding the behavior of the liquid pistons, modeling and optimization of a full engine pump, and careful selection of materials for the extreme operating temperatures. Addressing these obtainable research quandaries will enable a transformative Stirling engine pump with the potential to excel in numerous applications.     

Energy, exergy and cost analysis of a micro-cogeneration system based on an Ericsson engine

Hot air engines (Stirling and Ericsson engines) are well suited for micro-cogeneration applications because they are noiseless, and they require very low maintenance. Ericsson engines (i.e. Joule cycle reciprocating engines with external heat supply) are especially interesting because their design is less constrained than Stirling engines, leading to potentially cheaper and energetically better systems. We study the coupling of such an Ericsson engine with a system of natural gas combustion. In order to design this plant, we carry out classic energy, exergy and exergo-economic analyses. This study does not deal with a purely theoretical thermodynamic cycle. Instead, it is led with a special attempt to describe as accurately as possible what could be the design and the performance of a real engine. It allows us to balance energetic performance and heat exchanger sizes, to plot the exergy Grassmann diagram, and to evaluate the cost of the thermal and electric energy production. These simple analyses confirm the interest of such systems for micro-cogeneration purposes. The main result of this study is thus to draw the attention on Ericsson engines, unfortunately unfairly fallen into oblivion.     

基于集总参数法的坦克发动机热性能模型

发展了一个基于集总参数法的坦克发动机热性能模型，考虑了发动机燃烧室的传热、发动机主要部件的传热、冷却系统和润滑系统的工作及坦克动力舱内的空气流动，建立了燃烧气体与发动机部件、各部件之间、部件与冷却液、部件与润滑油、部件与动力舱空气之间的热耦合计算公式．对一台坦克涡轮增压柴油机的热性能进行了实例计算，结果证实这个模型可以用于坦克发动机热性能的研究．     

湍流射流点火对天然气发动机燃烧特性影响的试验研究

湍流射流点火（Turbulent Jet Ignition,TJI）是一种有效的燃烧增强技术,可提供更高的点火能量,使发动机稳定着火,且可以提高燃烧压力和燃烧速率,缩短燃烧持续期,是实现发动机稀薄燃烧的有效手段。基于一台带有预燃室的点燃式单缸试验机,开展了TJI模式下天然气发动机性能的试验研究。首先,研究了不同过量空气系数下TJI对天然气发动机动力性能、排放性能及燃烧特性的影响,并与火花塞点火（Spark Ignition,SI）模式进行对比;其次,在稀燃条件下分别探究了进气增压和预燃室喷氢对天然气发动机动力性、经济性及燃烧过程的优化作用。结果表明：TJI的使用可有效拓展天然气发动机的稀燃极限,且燃烧滞燃期和燃烧持续期均更短,放热率更高;过量空气系数1.5为甲烷TJI最佳稀燃工况,此时燃油消耗率最低,且可实现氮氧化物近零排放;此外,采用进气增压的方式可以提高TJI发动机在高负荷下的经济性;TJI模式下,相较于预燃室喷甲烷,预燃室喷氢气可进一步缩短滞燃期和燃烧持续期,提高放热率,达到提升TJI性能的效果。     

Numerical analysis of two-stroke free piston engine operating on HCCI combustion

An opposed-piston hydraulic free piston engine operating with homogenous charge compression ignition (HCCI) combustion, has been proposed by State Key Laboratory of Engines as a means of significantly improving the IC engine’s cycle thermal efficiency and lowering exhaust emissions. Single and multi-zone Chemkin model with detailed chemical kinetics, and unique piston dynamics extracted from one dimensional gas dynamic model, have been used to analyze the combustion characteristics and engine performance. Intake heating, variable compression ratio and internal EGR are utilized to control the combustion phasing and duration in the cycle simulations, revealing the critical factors and possible limits of performance improvement relative to conventional crank engines. Furthermore, real engine effects such as heat transfer with air swirl, residual mass fraction, thermal stratification, and heat loss fraction between zones are considered in the sequential CFD/multi-zone method to approach the realistic engine performance at an acceptable knock level.     

An update technology for integrated biomass gasification combined cycle power plant

A discussion is presented on the technical analysis of a 6.4 MW_e integrated biomass gasification combined cycle (IBGCC) plant. It features three numbers of downdraft biomass gasifier systems with suitable gas clean-up trains, three numbers of internal combustion (IC) producer gas engines for producing 5.85 MW electrical power in open cycle and 550 kW power in a bottoming cycle using waste heat. Comparing with IC gas engine single cycle systems, this technology route increases overall system efficiency of the power plant, which in turn improves plant economics. Estimated generation cost of electricity indicates that mega-watt scale IBGCC power plants can contribute to good economies of scale in India. This paper also highlight’s the possibility of activated carbon generation from the char, a byproduct of gasification process, and use of engine’s jacket water heat to generate chilled water through VAM for gas conditioning.     

Thermal design of methane steam reformer with low-temperature non-reactive heat source for high efficiency engine-hybrid stationary fuel cell system

In hybrid fuel cell systems, the fuel-lean anode-off gas is very useful to improve the system efficiency via additional power generation or utilization of thermal energy for heating up of auxiliary devices. In this study, the thermal energy of the hybrid systems is firstly utilized in homogeneous charge combustion engine for additional power and is then supplied to heat up the external reformer. Different from other hybrid fuel cell systems, it is very difficult to utilize heat energy of exhausted gas from engine due to its low temperature characteristics. This study is concentrated on the computation analysis of external methane steam reformers with engine out exhausted gases. Computational model is validated with experiment and parametric study is conducted. Results show that the temperature uniformity of the longitudinal and radial directions is crucial for the methane conversion efficiency. Additionally, the methane conversion rate also depends on the performance of tube-side heat transfer. When the total methane flow is fixed, the methane conversion rate shows trade-off with increasing steam-to-carbon ratio (SCR). Finally, the sensitivity study shows that heat transfer area and reactor length are dominant parameters for steam reforming with engine out exhausted gases.     

Finite-time power limit for solar-radiant Ericsson engines in space applications

The power output and thermal efficiency of a finite-time optimized solar-radiant Ericsson heat engine is studied. The thermodynamic model adopted is a regenerative gas Ericsson cycle coupled to a heat source and heat sink by radiant heat transfer. Both the heat source and heat sink have infinite heat capacity rates. Mathematical expressions for optimum power and the efficiency at optimum power are obtained for the cycle based on higher and lower temperature bounds. The results of this theoretical work provide a base line criteria for use in the performance evaluation and design of such engines as well as for use in performance comparisons with existing extra-terrestrial solar power plants.     

Ammonia–water bottoming cycles: a comparison between gas engines and gas diesel engines as prime movers

Ammonia–water cycles can produce more power than steam Rankine cycles in several applications. One of these applications is as a bottoming cycle to internal combustion engines. In the present study, ammonia–water bottoming cycle configurations for spark-ignition gas engines and compression-ignition gas diesel engines have been compared. Single-pressure Rankine cycles have been used as a basis for the comparison. Low heat source temperatures should increase the difference in power output between the ammonia–water cycle and the Rankine cycle. However, in this study, the results of the simulations show different trends. In most cases, the ammonia–water bottoming cycles with gas engines as prime movers generate more power compared to a Rankine cycle than when gas diesel engines are the prime movers. The temperature of the most important waste heat source, the exhaust gas, is approximately 100°C higher for the gas engines than for the gas diesel engines. Therefore, for the gas engines, most of the waste heat available to a bottoming cycle is in the form of relatively high-temperature exhaust gas, while for the gas diesel engines more of the waste heat is in the form of relatively low-temperature heat sources.     

Study on homogeneous charge compression ignition combustion in argon circulated closed cycle hydrogen engine

It is important to improve thermal efficiency and to reduce harmful exhaust gas emissions in internal combustion engines. A closed cycle engine system that uses a monatomic molecular gas as the working fluid can be expected to have high thermal efficiency due to the high specific heat ratio of the gas. Several studies have been reported on closed cycle engines with conventional spark ignition or compression ignition. This research newly proposes an argon circulated closed cycle homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) engine system fueled with hydrogen. In this engine system, effects of in-cylinder gas initial temperature and residual water in recirculated gas on combustion characteristics were investigated. The results show that the system with argon circulation has the wider range of operable conditions and the higher thermal efficiency compared to the case with air as the working fluid.     

Investigation of the temperature oscillations in the cylinder walls of a diesel engine with special reference to the limited cooled case

This work investigates the interesting phenomenon of the temperature (cyclic) oscillations in the combustion chamber walls of a diesel engine. For this purpose, a comprehensive simulation code of the thermodynamic cycle of the engine is developed taking into account both the closed and the open parts of it. The energy and state equations are applied, with appropriate combustion, gas heat transfer, and mass exchange with the atmosphere sub‐models, to yield cylinder pressure, local temperatures and heat release histories as well as various performance parameters of the engine. The model is appropriately coupled to a wall periodic conduction model, which uses the gas temperature variation as boundary condition throughout the engine cycle after being treated by Fourier analysis techniques. It is calibrated against measurements, at various load and speed conditions, from an experimental work carried out on a direct injection (DI), naturally aspirated, four‐stroke, diesel engine located at the authors' laboratory, which has been reported in detail previously. After gaining confidence into the predictive capabilities of the model, it is used to investigate the phenomenon further, thus providing insight into many interesting aspects of transient engine heat transfer, as far as the influence that engine wall material properties have on the values of cyclic temperature swings. These swings can take prohibitive values causing high wall thermal fatigue, when materials of specific technological interest such as thermal insulators (ceramics) are used, and may lead to deterioration in engine performance. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Effect of hydrogen direct injection on natural gas/hydrogen engine performance under high compression-ratio conditions

In traffic transportation, the use of low-carbon fuels is the key to being carbon-neutral. Hydrogen-enhanced natural gas gets more and more attention, but practical engines fueled with it often suffer from low engine power output. In this study, the inner mechanism of hydrogen direct injection on methane combustion was optically studied based on a dual-fuel supply system. Simultaneous pressure acquisition and high-speed direct photography were used to analyze engine performance and flame characteristics. The results show that lean combustion can improve methane engine's thermal efficiency, but is limited by cyclic variations under high excess air coefficient conditions. Hydrogen addition mainly acts as an ignition promoter for methane lean combustion, as a result, the lean combustion limit and thermal efficiency can be improved. As for hydrogen injection timing, late injection can increase the in-cylinder turbulence intensity but also the inhomogeneity, so a suitable injection timing is needed for improving the engine's performance. Besides, late hydrogen injection is more effective under lean conditions because of the reduced mixture inhomogeneity. The current study shall give some insights into the controlling strategies for natural gas/hydrogen engines.     

一种带回热的新型节能燃气灶的研究

提出一种带回热的新型节能燃气灶,即采用回热循环来提高燃气灶的热效率.利用燃烧后排走的高温烟气加热助燃空气.一方面提高了助燃空气的温度使燃烧效率得到提高;另一方面回收了烟气的热量提高了总的热效率,并且改变了传统的上抽油烟方式为下抽油烟,使厨房环境得到明显改善.理论计算表明在考虑上部进风20%的情况下热回收率为6.07%,相对热回收率为20.25%,热效率可提高4.25%.本文给出了燃气灶热力计算的基本流程,希望会对节能燃气灶的设计提供参考.     

Performance of a single nutating disk engine in the 2 to 500 kW power range

A new type of internal combustion engine with distinct advantages over conventional piston-engines and gas turbines in small power ranges is presented. The engine has analogies with piston engine operation, but like gas turbines it has dedicated spaces and devices for compression, burning and expansion. The engine operates on a modified limited-pressure thermodynamic cycle. The core of the engine is a nutating non-rotating disk, with the center of its hub mounted in the middle of a Z-shaped shaft. The two ends of the shaft rotate, while the disk nutates. The motion of the disk circumference prescribes a portion of a sphere. In the single-disk configuration a portion of the surface area of the disk is used for intake and compression, a portion is used to seal against a center casing, and the remaining portion is used for expansion and exhaust. The compressed air is admitted to an external accumulator, and then into an external combustion chamber before it is admitted to the power side of the disk. The external combustion chamber enables the engine to operate on a variable compression ratio cycle. Variations in cycle temperature ratio and compression ratio during normal operation enable the engine to effectively become a variable-cycle engine, allowing significant flexibility for optimizing efficiency or power output. The thermal efficiency is similar to that of medium sized diesel engines. For the same engine volume and weight this engine produces approximately twice the power of a two-stroke engine and four times the power of a four-stroke engine. The computed sea-level engine performance at design and off-design conditions in the 2 to 500 kW power range is presented.     

Development and test of combustion chamber for Stirling engine heated by natural gas

The combustion chamber is an important component for the Stifling engine heated by natural gas. In the paper, we develop a combustion chamber for the Stifling engine which aims to generate 3-5 kWe electric power. The combustion chamber includes three main components： combustion module, heat exchange cavity and thermal head. Its feature is that the structure can divide ＂combustion＂ process and ＂heat transfer＂ process into two appar- ent individual steps and make them happen one by one. Since natural gas can mix with air fully before burning, the combustion process can be easily completed without the second wind. The flame can avoid contacting the thermal head of Stifling engine, and the temperature fields can be easily controlled. The designed combustion chamber is manufactured and its performance is tested by an experiment which includes two steps. The experi- mental result of the first step proves that the mixture of air and natural gas can be easily ignited and the flame burns stably. In the second step of experiment, the combustion heat flux can reach 20 kW, and the energy utiliza- tion efficiency of thermal head has exceeded 0.5. These test results show that the thermal performance of com- bustion chamber has reached the design goal, The designed combustion chamber can be applied to a real Stifling engine heated by natural gas which is to generate 3-5 kWe electric power.     

Impact of oxygen enriched combustion on the performance of a single cylinder diesel engine

In the present experiment, a computerized single cylinder diesel engine with a data acquisition system was used to study the effects of oxygen enriched combustion technology (OECT) on the performance characteristics. The use of different levels of oxygen-enriched air was compared with respect to percentage load. Increasing the oxygen content in the air leads to faster burn rates and increases the combustibility at the same stoichiometry (oxygen-to-fuel ratio). These effects have the potential to increase the thermal efficiency and specific power output of a diesel engine. The power increases considerably with oxygen enrichment. In addition, oxygen enrichment can also be considered as a way to reduce the sudden loss in power output when the engine operates in a high load condition. Assessed high combustion temperature from the oxygen enriched combustion leads to high combustion efficiency. OECT reduces the volume of flue gases and reduces the effects of greenhouse effects. Engine tests were conducted in the above said engine for different loads and the following performance characteristics like brake power (BP), specific fuel consumption (SFC), mean effective pressure, brake thermal efficiency, mechanical efficiency, and exhaust gas temperature were studied. The objective of this paper is to address, in a systematic way, the key technical issues associated with applying OECT to single cylinder diesel engines.     

Miniaturization limitations of HCCI internal combustion engines

Small-scale energy conversion devices are being developed for a variety of applications. Notable are propulsion units for micro-aircraft vehicles (MAV). In spite of the fact that batteries have low energy density, batteries today power most of the micro aircrafts. Their low energy density significantly limits the aircraft performances. The high specific energy of hydrocarbon and hydrogen fuels, as compared to other energy storing means, like, batteries, elastic elements, flywheels, pneumatics, and fuel cells, appears to be an important advantage, and favors the internal-combustion-engine (ICE) as a candidate. In addition, the specific power (power per unit of mass) of the ICE is much higher than that of other candidates like fuel cells, photovoltaic, and battery units. Micro-engines are not simply smaller versions of full-size engines. Physical processes such as combustion, gas exchange, and heat transfer, are performed in regimes different from those occur in full-size engines. Consequently, engine design principles are different at a fundamental level, and have to be re-considered before they are applied to micro-engines. When a spark-ignition (SI) cycle is considered, part of the energy that is released during combustion is used to heat-up the mixture in the quenching volume, and therefore the flame-zone temperature is lower and in some cases can theoretically fall below the self-sustained combustion temperature. The flame quenching thus seems to limit the minimum dimensions of a SI engine. This limit becomes irrelevant when a homogeneous-charge compression-ignition (HCCI) cycle is considered. In this case friction losses and charge leakage through the cylinder-piston gap become dominant, constrain the engine size, and impose minimum engine speed limits. In the present work a phenomenological model has been developed to consider the relevant processes inside the cylinder of a homogeneous-charge compression-ignition (HCCI) engine. The lower possible limits of scaling-down HCCI cycle engines are proposed. The present work postulates the inter-relationships between the pertinent parameters, and proposes the lower possible miniaturization limits of IC engines.     

Energy efficiency improvement strategies for a diesel engine in low‐temperature combustion

The lowered combustion temperature in diesel engines is capable of reducing nitrogen oxides and soot simultaneously, which can be implemented by the heavy use of exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) or the homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) type of combustion. However, the fuel efficiency of the low‐temperature combustion (LTC) cycles is commonly compromised by the high levels of hydrocarbon and carbon monoxide emissions. More seriously, the scheduling of fuel delivery in HCCI engines has lesser leverage on the exact timing of auto‐ignition that may even occur before the compression stroke is completed, which may cause excessive efficiency reduction and combustion roughness. New LTC control strategies have been explored experimentally to achieve ultralow emissions under independently controlled EGR, intake boost, exhaust backpressure, and multi‐event fuel‐injection events. Empirical comparisons have been made between the fuel efficiencies of LTC and conventional diesel cycles. Preliminary adaptive control strategies based on cylinder pressure characteristics have been implemented to enable and stabilize the LTC when heavy EGR is applied. The impact of heat‐release phasing, duration, shaping, and splitting on the thermal efficiency has also been analyzed with engine cycle simulations. This research intends to identify the major parameters that affect diesel LTC engine thermal efficiency. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Main routes for the thermo-conversion of biomass into fuels and chemicals. Part 2: Gasification systems

Gasification as a thermo-chemical process is defined and limited to combustion and pyrolysis. The gasification of biomass is a thermal treatment, which results in a high production of gaseous products and small quantities of char and ash. The solid phase usually presents a carbon content higher than 76%, which makes it possible to use it directly for industrial purposes. The gaseous products can be burned to generate heat or electricity, or they can potentially be used in the synthesis of liquid transportation fuels, H₂, or chemicals. On the other hand, the liquid phase can be used as fuel in boilers, gas turbines or diesel engines, both for heat or electric power generation. However, the main purpose of biomass gasification is the production of low- or medium heating value gas which can be used as fuel gas in an internal combustion engine for power production. In addition to limiting applications and often compounding environmental problems, these technologies are an inefficient source of usable energy.     

Evaluation of heat transfer correlations for HCCI engine modeling

Combustion in HCCI engines is a controlled auto-ignition of well-mixed fuel, air and residual gas. The thermal conditions of the combustion chamber are governed by chemical kinetics strongly coupled with heat transfer from the hot gas to the walls. The heat losses have a critical effect on HCCI ignition timing and burning rate, so it is essential to understand heat transfer process in the combustion chamber in the modeling of HCCI engines. In the present paper, a comparative analysis is performed to investigate the performance of well-known heat transfer correlations in an HCCI engine. The results from the existing correlations are compared with the experimental results obtained in a single-cylinder engine. Significant differences are observed between the heat transfer results obtained by using Woschni, Assanis and Hohenberg correlations.