Biodiesel Spray Characteristics and a CFD Simulation Study of Injection Timing Effects on the Combustion Process in a Biodiesel-Fueled, Direct-Injection Rotary Engine
Publication: Journal of Energy Engineering
Volume 146, Issue 5
Abstract
Energy conservation is important in this modern era because of its high demand in transportation systems coupled with the depletion of fossil fuels. Biodiesel is thus an alternative fuel to replace conventional diesel. This study investigates the effect of chamber pressure () and chamber temperature () on biodiesel spray penetration length () and spray pattern () characteristics in a constant-volume vessel, under rotary engine working conditions, using spray visualization and image processing techniques. Furthermore, a three-dimensional (3D) direct-injection rotary engine model was developed and used for computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation studies of biodiesel distribution, mixture forming, and combustion process at different injection timing (IT) in the cylinder. Results indicate that increasing decreases and broadens , while increasing decreases and narrows . At advanced IT, biodiesel diffuses and disperses, and at retarded IT, which is the suitable rate for combustion, biodiesel concentrates and narrows. Compared with the original scheme [80° crank angle before top dead center (CA BTDC)], increases by 16.79%, decreases by 28.75%, NO and CO change a little, and decreases. Its drawback is a 15.65% increase in soot formation.
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Data Availability Statement
Some or all of the data, models, and code generated or used during the study are available from the corresponding author by request (mesh model, chemkin file, MATLAB code).
Acknowledgments
We gratefully acknowledge financial support from National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 51576093 and 51606089) and 333 Project of Jiangsu Province (Grant No. BRA2016447).
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Journal of Energy Engineering
Volume 146 • Issue 5 • October 2020
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©2020 American Society of Civil Engineers.
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Received: Sep 10, 2019
Accepted: Feb 6, 2020
Published online: Jun 23, 2020
Published in print: Oct 1, 2020
Discussion open until: Nov 23, 2020
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