Experimental investigation of the effect of hydrogen ratio on engine performance and emissions in a compression ignition single cylinder engine with electronically controlled hydrogen-diesel dual fuel system

In recent years, there has been a rapid transition from internal combustion engines to hybrid and electric vehicles. It is an inevitable fact that the dominance of internal combustion engines in the market will continue for many years due to the charging and battery problems in these vehicles. Therefore, it is an important issue to improve the performance and emissions of internal combustion engines by making them work with alternative energy sources. In this study, hydrogen-diesel dual fuel mode was used in a dual-fuel compression ignition single cylinder engine with common rail fuel injection system and electronically controlled gas fuel system. The study was carried out at constant speed (1850 rpm), different load (3-4.5-6-7.5-9 Nm) and different hydrogen injector opening amounts (1.6-1.8-2.0 ms). The effects of hydrogen energy ratios obtained with different hydrogen injector opening amount on engine performance and emissions were examined. According to the results, it was determined that the in-cylinder pressure values increased at medium and high loads, and the specific energy consumption decreased. When the emission values were examined, it was determined that there was an increase in NO emissions and a significant decrease in other emissions. However, increasing the hydrogen energy ratio above 14% adversely affected engine performance and emissions.     

The utilization of hydrogen in hydrogen/diesel dual fuel engine

A hydrogen fueled internal combustion engine has great advantages on exhaust emissions including carbon dioxide (CO₂) emission in comparison with a conventional engine fueling fossil fuel. In addition, if it is compared with a hydrogen fuel cell, the hydrogen engine has some advantages on price, power density, and required purity of hydrogen. Therefore, they expect that hydrogen will be utilized for several applications, especially for a combined heat and power (CHP) system which currently uses diesel or natural gas as a fuel.A final goal of this study is to develop combustion technologies of hydrogen in an internal combustion engine with high efficiency and clean emission. This study especially focuses on a diesel dual fuel (DDF) combustion technology. The DDF combustion technology uses two different fuels. One of them is diesel fuel, and the other one is hydrogen in this study. Because the DDF engine is not customized for hydrogen which has significant flammability, it is concerned that serious problems occur in the hydrogen DDF engine such as abnormal combustion, worse emission and thermal efficiency.In this study, a single cylinder diesel engine is used with gas injectors at an intake port to evaluate performance swung the hydrogen DDF engine with changing conditions of amount of hydrogen injected, engine speed, and engine loads. The engine experiments show that the hydrogen DDF operation could achieve higher thermal efficiency than a conventional diesel operation at relatively high engine load conditions. However, it is also shown that pre-ignition with relatively high input energy fraction of hydrogen occurred before diesel fuel injection and its ignition. Therefore, such abnormal combustion limited amount of hydrogen injected. Fire-deck temperature was measured to investigate causal relationship between fire-deck temperature and occurrence of pre-ignition with changing operative conditions of the hydrogen DDF engine.     

Effect of pilot fuel injection pressure and injection timing on combustion,performance and emission of hydrogen-biodiesel dual fuel engine

The present study highlights the influence of fuel injection pressure (FIP) and fuel injection timing (FIT) of Jatropha biodiesel as pilot fuel on the performance, combustion and emission of a hydrogen dual fuel engine. The hydrogen flow rates used in this study are 5lit/min, 7lit/min, and 9lit/min. The pilot fuel is injected at three FIPs (500, 1000, and 1500 bar) and at three FITs (5°, 11°, and 17?bTDC). The results showed an increase in brake thermal efficiency (B_th)from 25.02% for base diesel operation to 32.15% for hydrogen-biodiesel dual fuel operation with 9lit/min flow rate at a FIP of 1500 bar and a FITof17?bTDC. The cylinder pressure and heat release rate (HRR) are also found to be higher for higher FIPs. Advancement in FIT is found to promote superior HRR for hydrogen dual fuel operations. The unburned hydrocarbon (UHC) and soot emissions are found to reduce by 59.52% and 46.15%, respectively, for hydrogen dual fuel operation with 9lit/min flow rate at a FIP of 1500 bar and a FIT of 11?bTDC. However, it is also observed that the oxides of nitrogen (NO_X) emissions are increased by 20.61% with 9lit/min hydrogen flow rate at a FIP of 1500 bar and a FIT of 17?bTDC. Thus, this study has shown the potential of higher FIP and FIT in improving the performance, combustion and emission of a hydrogen dual fuel engine with Jatropha biodiesel as pilot fuel.     

Investigation on the effect of injection schedule and EGR in hydrogen energy share using common rail direct injection dual fuel engine

In this research work, four different diesel injection schedules have been experimented at a BMEP of 2 bar (Low load) in hydrogen diesel dual fuel (HDDF) mode, which are namely single pulse, double pulse phase-1, double pulse phase-2 and multi-pulse. The maximum possible hydrogen energy shares (HES) for single pulse, double pulse phase-1, double pulse phase-2 and multi-pulse injection schedules were 73.99%, 48.98%, 34.46% and 24.39% respectively. Over the injection schedules, double pulse phase-2 improved the brake thermal efficiency (BTE) from 19.50% (single pulse) to 21.61% with a penalty in NO emission. On the other hand, multi-pulse moderately increased the BTE with significant reduction in NO beside rise in smoke emission. At a BMEP of 5 bar (Medium load) operation, there was a considerable reduction in NO emission at maximum range of HES level with 18.21% of EGR, moreover the engine stability was improved with minor increase in smoke emission.     

Fundamental characterization of backfire in a hydrogen fuelled spark ignition engine using CFD and experiments

Backfire, an abnormal combustion phenomenon, in a hydrogen fuelled spark ignition (SI) engine was analyzed using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and experimental tests. One of the main causes of backfire origin is the presence of any high temperature heat source including hot spot in the combustion chamber of the engine during intake process. A CFD based parametric study was carried out by varying the temperature of hot spot and its location in the combustion chamber of the engine in order to analyze their effects on backfire origin and its propagation in the intake manifold of the engine. The temperature of hot spot was varied from 800 K to till the temperature of backfire occurrence. The minimum temperature of hot spot at which backfire occurred was observed as 950 K and beyond. The probability of backfire occurrence increases with increase in hot spot temperature. The CFD simulations were also carried out by varying the location of hot spot (spark plug tip and exhaust valve) and the results indicate that the location of hot spot does not influence the characteristics of backfire but it affects the timing of its origin. The average backfire velocity is 230 m/s based on the average turbulent flame velocity during backfire propagation in the intake manifold and the value agreed reasonably well with the experimental observations of backfire propagation on the engine with the transparent intake manifold. Backfire propagation is under the category of deflagration based on its velocity (subsonic), and the maximum pressure gradient (<0.3 bar). The backfire phenomenon is characterized into three stages namely ignition delay for backfire, backfire propagation and its termination. The study results provide a better in-depth understanding of backfire origin and its propagation and would be helpful for developing a robust control strategy. Based on this study, it is recommended that the spark plug and exhaust valves of hydrogen fuelled SI engine should be customized in such a way that the temperature of spark plug tip and exhaust valves should not exceed 900 K during suction process in order to eliminate backfire occurrence.     

Effect of fuel injection timing and injection pressure on performance in a hydrogen direct injection engine

The in-cylinder hydrogen fuel injection method (diesel engine) induces air during the intake stroke and injects hydrogen gas directly into the cylinder during the compression stroke. Fundamentally, because hydrogen gas does not exist in the intake pipe, backfire, which is the most significant challenge to increasing the torque of the hydrogen port fuel injection engine, does not occur. In this study, using the gasoline fuel injector of a gasoline direct-injection engine for passenger vehicles, hydrogen fuel was injected at high pressures of 5 MPa and 7 MPa into the cylinder, and the effects of the fuel injection timing, including the injection pressure on the output performance and efficiency of the engine, were investigated. Strategies for maximizing engine output performance were analyzed.The fuel injection timing was retarded from before top dead center (BTDC) 350 crank angle degrees (CAD) toward top dead center (TDC). The minimum increase in the best torque ignition timing improved, and the efficiency and excess air ratio increased, resulting in an increase in torque and decrease in NO_x emissions. However, the retardation of the fuel injection timing is limited by an increase in the in-cylinder pressure. By increasing the fuel injection pressure, the torque performance can be improved by further retarding the fuel injection timing or increasing the fuel injection period. The maximum torque of 142.7 Nm is achieved when burning under rich conditions at the stoichiometric air-fuel ratio.     

The effects of hydrogen fuel usage on the exergetic performance of a turbojet engine

In this study, the hydrogen fuel effect on the exergetic performance of a turbojet engine used in a military trainer aircraft is investigated. For the first step, the performance assessments of the exergetic performance are conducted according to jet fuel usage and the actual test cell data of the engine. For the second step, an exergetic evaluation is parametrically estimated to use the hydrogen fuel in the engine. Finally, the performance results of the engine run by jet fuel are compared with the performance results of the engine run by hydrogen fuel. Regarding the results of this study, by using hydrogen fuel in the engine, the exergy efficiency of the engine decreases from 15.40% to 14.33%, while the waste exergy rate increases from 6196.51 kW to 6669.4 kW. At the same time, the exergy rate of the fuel rises from 7324.87 kW to 7785.25 kW, hence the specific fuel exergy of the hydrogen fuel is higher than that of the jet fuel. The waste exergy flow cost of the engine rises from 16.52 × 10^?3 US$/kW to 17.79 × 10^?3 US$/kW. The environmental effect factor of the engine escalates from 5.49 to 5.98 and the ecological effect factor increases from 6.49 to 6.98. On the other hand, the exergetic sustainability index of the engine reduces from 0.182 to 0.167 when the sustainable efficiency factor of the engine goes down from 1.182 to 1.167. Between the components, for both jet fuel and hydrogen fuel, the CC has the highest values of the fuel exergy waste ratio, the relative waste exergy ratio, the product exergy waste ratio, the fuel ratio indicator, the product ratio indicator, the waste exergy cost flow, the environmental effect factor, the ecological effect factor, and the exergetic improvement potential when the CC has the lowest values of the exergy efficiency, exergetic sustainability index, and sustainable efficiency factor, respectively. The reason for this result is that the combustion process contains high irreversibities. The obtained results indicate that the hydrogen fuel usage in the turbojet engine badly affects the exergetic performance of the engine and its components (especially the combustion chamber) hence the specific exergy of the hydrogen fuel is higher than the jet fuel's. On the other hand, the exhaust emissions emitted to the environment decrease from 0.509 kg/s to 0.0045 kg/s with the hydrogen fuel usage.     

Effects of split injection proportion and the second injection timings on the combustion and emissions of a dual fuel SI engine with split hydrogen direct injection

In this paper, a new kind of injection mode, split hydrogen direct injection, was presented for a dual fuel SI engine. Six different first injection proportions (IP1) and five different second injection timings were applied at the condition of excess air ratio of 1, first injection timing of 300°CA BTDC, low speed, low load conditions and the Minimum spark advance for Best Torque (MBT) on a dual fuel SI engine with hydrogen direct injection (HDI) plus port fuel injection (PFI). The result showed that, split hydrogen direct injection can achieve a higher brake thermal efficiency and lower emissions compared with single HDI. In comparison with single HDI, the split hydrogen direct injection can form a controlled stratified condition of hydrogen which could make the combustion more complete and faster. By adding an early spray to form a more homogeneous mixture, the split hydrogen direct injection not only can help to form a flame kernel to make the combustion stable, but also can speed up the combustion rate through the whole combustion process, which can improve the brake thermal efficiency. By split hydrogen direct injection, the torque reaches the highest when the first injection proportion is 33%, which improves by 1.13% on average than that of single HDI. With the delay of second injection timing, the torque increases first and then decreases. With the increase of first injection proportion, the best second injection timing is advanced. Furthermore, by forming a more homogeneous mixture, the split hydrogen direct injection can reduce the quenching distance to reduce the HC emission and reduce the maximum temperature to reduce the NO_X. The split hydrogen direct injection can reduce the HC emission by 35.8%, the NO_X emissions by 7.3% than that of single HDI.     

Direct injection of hydrogen main fuel and diesel pilot fuel in a retrofitted single-cylinder compression ignition engine

Up to 90% hydrogen energy fraction was achieved in a hydrogen diesel dual-fuel direct injection (H2DDI) light-duty single-cylinder compression ignition engine. An automotive-size inline single-cylinder diesel engine was modified to install an additional hydrogen direct injector. The engine was operated at a constant speed of 2000 revolutions per minute and fixed combustion phasing of ?10 crank angle degrees before top dead centre (°CA bTDC) while evaluating the power output, efficiency, combustion and engine-out emissions. A parametric study was conducted at an intermediate load with 20–90% hydrogen energy fraction and 180-0 °CA bTDC injection timing. High indicated mean effective pressure (IMEP) of up to 943 kPa and 57.2% indicated efficiency was achieved at 90% hydrogen energy fraction, at the expense of NO_x emissions. The hydrogen injection timing directly controls the mixture condition and combustion mode. Early hydrogen injection timings exhibited premixed combustion behaviour while late injection timings produced mixing-controlled combustion, with an intermediate point reached at 40 °CA bTDC hydrogen injection timing. At 90% hydrogen energy fraction, the earlier injection timing leads to higher IMEP/efficiency but the NO_x increase is inevitable due to enhanced premixed combustion. To keep the NO_x increase minimal and achieve the same combustion phasing of a diesel baseline, the 40 °CA bTDC hydrogen injection timing shows the best performance at which 85.9% CO₂ reduction and 13.3% IMEP/efficiency increase are achieved.     

国产机车柴油机燃油喷射系统的改进

从国产机车柴油机的运用特点出发,根据国外的成功经验,对调车用机车柴油机供油系统进行了改进。为了提高国产干线主型机车柴油机燃油喷射系统工作可靠性、耐久性,对国产240系列柴油机的燃油系统进行了攻关改进,改进方案经过油泵台、多缸机、实际装车、扩大装车运用考核表明,改进达到了预期的目的,已于1998年1月通过部级鉴定。     

Investigations on the combustion parameters of a dual fuel diesel engine with hydrogen and LPG as secondary fuels

This paper presents a detailed experimental investigations on the combustion parameters of a 4 cylinder (turbocharged and intercooled) 62.5 kW gen-set duel fuel diesel engine (with hydrogen and LPG as secondary fuels). A detailed account on maximum rate of pressure rise, peak cylinder pressure, heat release rate in first phase of combustion and combustion duration at a wide range of load conditions with different gaseous fuel substitutions has been presented in the paper. When 30% of hydrogen alone is used as secondary fuel, maximum rate of pressure rise increases by 0.82 bar/deg CA as compared to pure diesel operation, while, peak cylinder pressure and combustion duration increase by 8.44 bar and 5 deg CA respectively. When 30% of LPG alone is used as secondary fuel, the enhancements in maximum rate of pressure rise, peak cylinder pressure and combustion duration are found to be 1.37 bar/deg CA, 6.95 bar and 5 deg CA respectively. It is also found that heat release rate in first phase of combustion reduces at all load conditions as compared to the pure diesel operation in both types of fuel substitutions.One important finding of the present work is significant enhancement in performances of dual fuel engine when hydrogen-LPG mixture is used as the secondary fuel. The highlight of this case is that when the mixture of LPG and hydrogen (40% in the ratio LPG: hydrogen = 70:30) is used as secondary fuel, maximum rate of pressure rise (by 0.88 bar/deg CA) and combustion duration reduces (by 4 deg CA), while, peak cylinder pressure and heat release rate in first phase of combustion increase by 5.25 bar and 35.24 J/deg CA respectively.     

Effect of hydrogen and LPG addition on the efficiency and emissions of a dual fuel diesel engine

This paper presents some experimental investigations on dual fuel operation of a 4 cylinder (turbocharged and intercooled) 62.5 kW gen-set diesel engine with hydrogen, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and mixture of LPG and hydrogen as secondary fuels. Results on brake thermal efficiency and emissions, namely, un-burnt hydrocarbon (HC), carbon monoxide (CO), NO_x and smoke are presented here. The paper also includes vital information regarding performances of the engine at a wide range of load conditions with different gaseous fuel substitutions. When only hydrogen is used as secondary fuel, maximum enhancement in the brake thermal efficiency is 17% which is obtained with 30% of secondary fuel. When only LPG is used as secondary fuel, maximum enhancement in the brake thermal efficiency (of 6%) is obtained with 40% of secondary fuel. Compared to the pure diesel operation, proportion of un-burnt HC and CO increases, while, emission of NO_x and smoke reduces in both cases. On the other hand, when 40% of mixture of LPG and hydrogen is used (in the ratio 70:30) as secondary fuel, brake thermal efficiency enhances by 27% and HC emission reduces by 68%. Further, shortcoming of low efficiency at lower load condition in a dual fuel operation is removed when a mixture of hydrogen and LPG is used as the secondary fuel at higher than 10% load condition.     

Experimental study of engine performance and emissions for hydrogen diesel dual fuel engine with exhaust gas recirculation

With an alarming enlargement in vehicular density, there is a threat to the environment due to toxic emissions and depleting fossil fuel reserves across the globe. This has led to the perpetual exploration of clean energy resources to establish sustainable transportation. Researchers are continuously looking for the fuels with clean emission without compromising much on vehicular performance characteristics which has already been set by efficient diesel engines. Hydrogen seems to be a promising alternative fuel for its clean combustion, recyclability and enhanced engine performance. However, problems like high NOx emissions is seen as an exclusive threat to hydrogen fuelled engines. Exhaust gas recirculation (EGR), on the other hand, is known to overcome the aforementioned problem. Therefore, this study is conducted to study the combined effect of hydrogen addition and EGR on the dual fuelled compression ignition engine on a single cylinder diesel engine modified to incorporate manifold hydrogen injection and controlled EGR. The experiments are conducted for 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% loads with the hydrogen energy share (HES) of 0%, 10% and 30%. The EGR rate is controlled between 0%, 5% and 10%. With no substantial decrement in engine's brake thermal efficiency, high gains in terms of emissions are observed due to synergy between hydrogen addition and EGR. The cumulative reduction of 38.4%, 27.4%, 33.4%, 32.3% and 20% with 30% HES and 10% EGR is observed for NOx, CO2, CO, THC and PM, respectively. Hence, the combination of hydrogen addition and EGR is observed to be advantageous for overall emission reduction.     

Advantages of the direct injection of both diesel and hydrogen in dual fuel H2ICE

The turbocharged Diesel engine is the most efficient engine now in production for transport applications with full load brake engine thermal efficiencies up to 40-45% and reduced penalties in brake engine thermal efficiencies reducing the load. The secrets of the turbocharged Diesel engine performances are the high compression ratio and the lean bulk combustion mostly diffusion controlled in addition to the better use of the exhaust energy. Despite these advantages and the further complications of hydrogen in terms of abnormal combustion phenomena and displacement effect, the most part of the dual fuel Diesel-hydrogen engines has been developed so far injecting hydrogen in the intake manifold or in the intake port, and then injecting the Diesel fuel in the cylinder to ignite there a homogeneous mixture. This paper shows how a latest production common-rail Diesel engine could be modified replacing the Diesel injector by a double injector as those proposed by Westport since more than two decades for CNG first and then for CNG and hydrogen to provide much better performances. A model is first developed and validated versus extensive high quality dynamometer data for the Diesel engine only covering with almost 200 points the load and speed range. This model replaces the multiple injection strategy with a single equivalent injection for the purposes of the brake efficiency results still providing satisfactory accuracy. The model is then used to simulate the dual fuel operation with a pilot Diesel followed by a main hydrogen injection replacing the Diesel fuel with the hydrogen fuel and using the same parameters for start and duration of the equivalent injection at same percentage load and speed. While the top load air-to-fuel ratio of the Diesel is a lean 1.55, the top air-to-fuel ratio of the hydrogen is assumed to be a stoichiometric 1. Within the validity of these assumptions it is shown that the novel engine has better than Diesel fuel conversion efficiencies and higher than Diesel power outputs. These results clearly indicate the development of the direct injection system as the key factor where to focus research and development for this kind of engines.     

Effects of hydrogen injection strategy on the hydrogen mixture distribution and combustion of a gasoline/hydrogen SI engine under lean burn condition

Hydrogen is a carbon free energy carrier with high diffusivity and reactivity, it has been proved to be a kind of suitable blending fuel of spark ignition (SI) engine to achieve better efficiency and emissions. Hydrogen injection strategy affects the engine performance obviously. To optimize the combustion and emissions, a comparative study on the effects of the hydrogen injection strategy on the hydrogen mixture distribution, combustion and emission was investigated at a SI engine with gasoline intake port injection and four hydrogen injection strategies, hydrogen direct injection (HDI) with stratified hydrogen mixture distribution (SHMD), hydrogen intake port injection with premixed hydrogen mixture distribution (PHMD), split hydrogen direct injection (SHDI) with partially premixed hydrogen mixture distribution (PPHMD) and no hydrogen addition. Results showed that different hydrogen injection strategy formed different kinds of hydrogen mixture distribution (HMD). The ignition and combustion rate played an important role on engine efficiency. Since the SHDI could use two hydrogen injection to organize the HMD, the ignition and combustion rate with the PPHMD was the fastest. With the PPHMD, the brake thermal efficiency of the engine was the highest and the emissions were slight more than that with the PHMD. PHMD achieve the optimum emission performance by its homogeneous hydrogen. The engine combustion and emission performance can be optimized by adjusting the hydrogen injection strategy.     

Two—phase Flow of Liquid—gas in Diesel Fuel Injection System and Their Effect on Engine Performances

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Effect of natural gas enrichment with hydrogen on combustion characteristics of a dual fuel diesel engine

Environmental benefits are one of the main motivations encouraging the use of natural gas as fuel for internal combustion engines. In addition to the better impact on pollution, natural gas is available in many areas. In this context, the present work investigates the effect of hydrogen addition to natural gas in dual fuel mode, on combustion characteristics improvement, in relation with engine performance. Various hydrogen fractions (10, 20 and 30 by v%) are examined. Results showed that natural gas enrichment with hydrogen leads in general to an improved gaseous fuel combustion, which corresponds to an enhanced heat release rate during gaseous fuel premixed phase, resulting in an increase in the in-cylinder peak pressure, especially at high engine load (4.1 bar at 70% load). The highest cumulative and rate of heat release correspond to 10% Hydrogen addition. The combustion duration of gaseous fuel combustion phase is reduced for all hydrogen blends. Moreover, this technique resulted in better combustion stability. For all hydrogen test blends, COV_IMEP does not exceed 10%. However, no major effect on combustion noise was noticed and the ignition delay was not affected significantly. Regarding performance, an important improvement in energy conversion was obtained with almost all hydrogen blends as a result of improved gaseous fuel combustion. A maximum thermal efficiency of 32.5%, almost similar to the one under diesel operation, and a minimum fuel consumption of 236 g/kWh, are achieved with 10% hydrogen enrichment at 70% engine load.     

Performance analysis of a hybrid pulse detonation engine using liquid hydrogen as fuel

Aimed at enhancing the comprehensive performance of the air turbo rocket engine (ATR), two schemes of hybrid pulse detonation engine (PDE) configurations based on the ATR were proposed. The engines are fueled by liquid hydrogen, and the oxidant is the incoming air or self-carried liquid oxygen. The ideal thermodynamic cycle processes of the engines were analyzed, and the relevant mathematical models were established. The fuel pump pressure ratio of the ATREX and the oxidant-fuel ratio of the ATR-GG are respectively used as iterative variables. The performances of the two engine schemes at the design point were obtained and compared with that of the traditional ATR. The results show that, under ideal conditions, the specific thrust and specific impulse of the hybrid PDE based on the ATREX are about 20% higher than those of the traditional ATREX. Moreover, the mass of the oxidant required by the hybrid PDE based on the ATR-GG is about 49.5% lower than that of the traditional ATR-GG, while the specific thrust and specific impulse are not reduced as compared with those of the traditional ATR-GG.