No description available.

No description available.

In the present investigation a new phenomenological model for Quiescent and Swirl Type Direct Injection Diesel Engines has been developed. The model enables prediction of engine cylinder pressure, fuel injection and evaporation rates, air entrainment rate into fuel sprays, heat release rate, heat transfer and mean cylinder gas temperatures and exhaust smoke level. A soot model is proposed based on chemical kinetics and a turbulent mixing rate concept. The model predictions are verified with several experimental data. The predictions are made over a range of engine speed, load, injection timing, boost pressure and intake swirl level. Comparison with available engine experiments is in general good.

A numerical investigation of the exit plane boundary conditions of an engine exhaust duct is presented. The conventional boundary condition which is used in non-linear analysis is the so-called zero-pressure condition. Various forms of implementation of this condition are used to investigate the relative effects upon the error which arises from numerical approximation oferö pressure condition. The computational domain is then extended downstream of the exit boundary, to model acoustic radiation into a free or half space without the need for any boundary condition at the duct exit plane. The Sommerfeld radiation condition is used to set the boundary conditions at a finite far-field location, making it possible for the computational domain to be set at a finite size. Calculations on the extended domain are used to determine the error in the radiated sound levels which is caused by the fundamental inadequacy of the zero-pressure boundary condition in representing the actual conditions at the exit exit plane. A modification of the conventional zero-pressure exit boundary condition is used, which gives improved results in the non-linear flow regime, without the need to extend the flow domain downstream of the exit boundary. For calculations on the simple duct domain, the flux-split scheme of Radespeil and Kroll is used to reduce spurious modes of the numerical scheme, which are convected to the exit boundary, so that the solution is improved. For the different flow domains considered, examples of small-amplitude single-frequency and multiple-frequency disturbances are presented, followed by higher amplitude multiple-frequency engine source examples. The results for small-amplitude disturbances are compared to those from linearised frequency-domain acoustic analysis. Exit plane velocity profiles and far-field noise spectra corresponding to the computed flows are presented and discussed. Finally, two sets of experimental data, one for a Wankel Rotary Engine and one for a piston engine, are examined against computed data.

A Hilton combustor was substantially modified to a suitable symmetrical configuration for research purposes. Provisions for swirl, preheat and injection of LCV gases were incorporated with appropriate burner management systems for safe operation. Instrumentation for temperature, velocity and concentration measurements was developed and fully automated by interfacing to a microprocessor for rapid data acquisition. Flame stability limits were determined over a wide range of operating conditions by varying swirl, secondary air temperature and excess air levels while maintaining the burner momentum constant. Addition of swirl up to a limit of O~ 69 generally improved stability. Preheating secondary air alone was beneficial only if the temperature was raised to at least 250 oC. A combination of intermediate swirl and moderate preheat of the secondary air resulted in satisfactory flame stability over a wide range of calorific values of the fuel. Thus, existing concentric pipe burner systems may be easily modified at low cost to burn LCV gases of variable compositions. With LCV gas flames the excess air factor (EAF) had a major influence on values of temperature, species concentration and velocity. Unburnt hydrocarbon (UHC) and CO not surprisingly increased in concentration close to the blow-off limits under the majority of operating conditions. This indicated incomplete combustion probably resulting from the lowered flame temperatures and partial flame lift-off. On the other hand, burnout efficiencies at the exhaust were reasonably high for most operating conditions involving LCV gases. The combustion data were analysed to extract the characteristic mixing and chemical reaction times the ratio of which gave the parameter epsilon, originally proposed for unconfined flames. Close to the blow-off limit epsilon took the value 4.9 compared with 6.2 for fully stable flames. This finding showed that the criterion was also valid for confined flames, supporting the extinction mechanism proposed by Peters and Williams, and providing an important basis for predicting stability limits and burner design parameters.

Two nominally 15, and 30 kW Helmholtz-type pulsed combustors were designed and constructed. These were bench mounted with the heat exchangers (i.e. combustion chamber and tailpipe) immersed in the water bath. Their design was based upon the design of a nominally 7.5 kW pulsed unit previously developed at Middlesex University. The design enabled the lengths of the combustion chambers to be varied so that various combustion chamber volumes could be achieved. This provided a new dimension to the study of pulsed combustors which is lacking in many reported works. It was found that the required input rates could be achieved by scaling up or down each combustion chamber dimensions linearly by a factor of 1.5, while maintaining the geometry identical. Tests showed that the present design of pulsed combustors can operate successfully at various input rates of mains natural gas (93 % methane) with a maximum turn-down ratio of 1.8:1. Results indicated that the three developed combustors would generally operate in the fuel-lean condition. Interestingly, these tests revealed that the amount of excess air reduced as the combustion chamber volume (CCV) was increased. Systematic investigation on the three developed combustors showed that the temperature within the combustor was principally controlled by the air-to-fuel ratio (A/F). Analysis of the average measured NOx concentrations at various operating conditions indicated that NOx emission in this type of pulsed combustor is principally controlled by combustion temperature with no significant influence of combustion chamber volume, tailpipe length or scale of the combustors except in so far as these influenced the A/F and hence the temperature within the combustor. The dominant role of temperature on NOx production from these combustors become more evident when nitrogen or argon was injected into the system resulting in reduced NOx emissions at a given A/F. Systematic analysis of data indicated that as the amount of diluent increased, the temperature within the combustor decreased. Almost all the NOx values recorded were in the form of NO which is believed to be as a result of the high flame temperature (typically above 1850K). The minimum recorded NOx value was 5 ppm at the upper limiting value of excess air ratio, λ ; importantly it was round that at these high A/F values there was no significant reduction in overall efficiency of the pulsed units, showing calculated values above 90%. Analysis of data indicated that combustion temperature is also a primary factor controlling CO emissions from the present design of pulsed combustors. CO concentrations exhibited U-shaped characteristics when plotted vs λ, showing maximum values at the lowest and highest λ values. By changing water bath temperature (WBT) and hence modifying heat losses to the combustion chamber wall, it was shown that the quenching of the combustion reactions and incomplete mixing of air and gas prior to combustion are contributing factors to CO formation in this type of pulsed combustor. The developed pulsed combustors were operated successfully with standard test gases. The composition and flame stability of these test gases were similar to the standard test gases G21 (incomplete combustion gas), G222 (light back gas) and G23 (flame lift gas). Analysis of the exhaust gas composition showed similar trends to those obtained when burning mains natural gas; as the heat input was increased, O2 levels decreased while CO2 and NOx emission levels increased. Similarly, CO concentrations showed U-shaped characteristics when plotted against firing rate. Measurements of peak pulsing pressure and frequency were used as a guide to operation and stability performance of the pulsed units. It was found that the operating frequency was a function of configuration of the combustors and temperature of the internal gases. Frequency of operation showed a reciprocal correlation with volume of combustion chamber and tailpipe length and increased as the heat input was increased. Pulsing pressure amplitude also was influenced by change of configuration of the combustors, increasing as the CCV and tailpipe length were decreased. Analysis of experimental data obtained at fixed configuration of the combustors showed that the peak pulsing pressure was a strong function of the heat release per cycle in the present design of pulsed combustors. A major drawback of the use of pulsating combustors is the high noise level which is associated with their operation. It was found that it is possible to reduce overall noise levels of the pulsed burners to acceptable values by configuring the system appropriately. This included the use of expansion chambers at the inlet and the exhaust outlet which reduced the overall noise levels to a minimum value of 65 dBA.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.