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.