Dans cette thèse, nous avons étudié des décharges nanosecondes répétitives pulsées dans une géométrie pointe-pointe à la pression atmosphérique dans l’air et dans des mélanges hydrogène-air. Expérimentalement, trois régimes de décharges ont été observés dans l’air à pression atmosphérique entre 300 et 1000 K : couronne, diffus et arc. Pour étudier ces différents régimes, nous avons tout d’abord simulé une décharge ayant lieu pendant un des pulses de tension nanosecondes. Nous avons montré qu’un paramètre clé pour la transition entre les régimes est le rapport entre le temps de connexion entre les décharges positives et négatives initiées aux pointes et la durée du pulse de tension. Dans une seconde étape, nous avons étudié la dynamique des espèces chargées entre les pulses de tension à 300 et 1000 K et nous avons montré que les caractéristiques de la décharge pendant un pulse de tension dépendaient très peu du niveau de préionisation (dans la gamme 109-1011 cm��3) laissé par les décharges précédentes. Nous avons ensuite simulé plusieurs pulses de tensions consécutifs à Tg=1000 K à une fréquence de 10 kHz. Nous avons montré que, en quelques pulses de tension, la décharge atteint un régime diffus "stable", observé dans les expériences. Nous avons ensuite étudié le régime de décharge de type arc nanoseconde. Nous avons montré que la fraction d’énergie de la décharge allant dans le chauffage rapide de l’air est de 20-30 %. A cause de ce chauffage rapide, nous avons observé la propagation d’une onde de choc cylindrique suivie par la formation d’un canal chaud, sur le passage initial de la décharge, qui se dilate radialement sur des temps courts (t 6 1 _s), comme observé dans les expériences. Ensuite nous avons pris en compte un modèle de circuit externe pour limiter le courant et ainsi nous avons simulé plusieurs pulses consécutifs pour étudier la transition entre les régimes diffus et d’arc nanoseconde. Pour finir, les résultats de cette thèse ont été utilisés pour trouver des conditions d’obtention d’un régime diffus stable à 300 K et à la pression atmosphérique. Puis nous avons étudié l’allumage sur des temps courts (t 6 100 _s) d’un mélange pauvre H2-air par une décharge de type arc nanoseconde à 1000 K et à pression atmosphérique avec une richesse de 0.3. Nous avons comparé les importances relatives pour l’allumage du chauffage rapide et de la production d’oxygène atomique. Nous avons montré que l’allumage par l’oxygène atomique semble être légèrement plus efficace et a une dynamique complètement différente de celle initiée par le chauffage rapide. / In this Ph.D. thesis, we have carried out numerical simulations to study nanosecond repetitively pulsed discharges (NRPD) in a point-to-point geometry at atmospheric pressure in air and in H2-air mixtures. Experimentally, three discharge regimes have been observed for NRPD in air at atmospheric pressure for the temperature range Tg = 300 to 1000 K: corona, glow and spark. To study these regimes, first, we have considered a discharge occurring during one of the nanosecond voltage pulses. We have shown that a key parameter for the transition between the discharge regimes is the ratio between the connection-time of positive and negative discharges initiated at point electrodes and the pulse duration. In a second step, we have studied the dynamics of charged species during the interpulse at Tg = 300 and 1000 K and we have shown that the discharge characteristics during a given voltage pulse remain rather close whatever the preionization level (in the range 109-1011 cm��3) left by previous discharges. Then, we have simulated several consecutive nanosecond voltage pulses at Tg = 1000 K at a repetition frequency of 10 kHz. We have shown that in a few voltage pulses, the discharge reaches a stable quasi-periodic glow regime observed in the experiments. We have studied the nanosecond spark discharge regime. We have shown that the fraction of the discharge energy going to fast heating is in the range 20%- 30%. Due to this fast heating, we have observed the propagation of a cylindrical shockwave followed by the formation of a hot channel in the path of the discharge that expands radially on short timescales (t < 1 _s), as observed in experiments. Then we have taken into account an external circuit model to limit the current and then, we have simulated several consecutive pulses to study the transition from multipulse nanosecond glow to spark discharges. Finally the results of this Ph.D. have been used to find conditions to obtain a stable glow regime in air at 300 K and atmospheric pressure. Second we have studied on short time-scales (t_ 100_s) the ignition by a nanosecond spark discharge of a lean H2-air mixture at 1000 K and atmospheric pressure with an equivalence ratio of _ = 0:3. We have compared the relative importance for ignition of the fast-heating of the discharge and of the production of atomic oxygen. We have shown that the ignition with atomic oxygen seems to be slightly more efficient and has a completely different dynamics.

This study investigates the impact of employing the Miller cycle on a high specific power downsized gasoline engine by means of Early Intake Valve Closing (EIVC) and Late Intake Valve Closing (LIVC). This investigation assesses the potential for the Miller cycle to improve fuel economy at part load points, as well as high load points with significantly elevated boost pressures (Deep Miller) of up to 4 bar abs. The impact of geometric Compression Ratio (CR) and Exhaust Back Pressure (EBP) has also been investigated. The knock mitigating qualities of Deep Miller have been assessed, and its ability to increase maximum engine load explored. Low Speed Pre-ignition (LSPI) and autoignition tendencies with reduced coolant flow rates and with aged and new fuels have also been studied. This study comprises both experimental and analytical studies. A Ricardo Hydra single cylinder thermodynamic engine was developed and used for the experimental component of the study. This engine features a high specific power output (120kW/l) cylinder head from the Mahle 1.2l 3 cylinder aggressively downsized engine. The analytical component was carried out using a 1-dimensional GT-Power model based on the Ricardo Hydra experimental engine. A Design of Experiments (DoE) based test plan was adopted for this analytical study. The experimental study found that EIVC was the optimal strategy for improving fuel economy at both part-load and high-load conditions. LIVC yielded a fuel economy penalty at part-load operations and a fuel economy improvement at high-loads. The unexpected part-load LIVC result was attributed to the engine breathing dynamics of the experimental engine. The analytical study found moderate LIVC to be the optimal strategy at lower speeds, unless compensation for the increased degree of scavenging experienced with EIVC was compensated for, in which case EIVC was optimum. At higher speeds EIVC was found to be optimum regardless of whether or not compensation for scavenging was employed. It was generally found that less sensitivity to EBP was exhibited the more extreme the EIVC and LIVC. It was also found that a higher geometric CR could be tolerated with extreme EIVC and LIVC, and a fuel economy benefit could be obtained through the elevation of Geometric CR.

The ignition temperature of the aluminium copper oxide (Al-CuO) thermite was measured using differential thermal analysis (DTA) at a scan rate of 50 °C/min in an inert nitrogen atmosphere. Thermite reactions are difficult to start as they require very high temperatures for ignition, e.g. for the Al-CuO thermite comprising micron particles it is ca. 940 °C. It was found that the ignition temperature is significantly reduced when the binary Si-Bi2O3 system is used as sensitiser. Further improvement is achieved when nano-sized particles are used. For the composition CuO + Al + Bi2O3 + Si (65.5:14.5:16:4 wt %), when all components except the aluminium fuel are nano-sized, the observed ignition temperature is reduced to ca. 615 °C and results in a thermal runaway. / Dissertation (MSc)--University of Pretoria, 2011. / Chemical Engineering / unrestricted

Current stoichiometric spark-ignited engine technologies require costly catalytic converters for reductions in tailpipe emissions. Load control is achieved by using a throttle, which is a leading contributor to reductions in efficiency. Spark-ignited lean burn natural gas engines have been proven to be more efficient and emit fewer pollutants than their stoichiometric counterparts. Load reduction in these engines can be achieved by regulating the air/fuel ratio of the intake charge thereby reducing the efficiency penalties inherent to throttling. Partially stratified charge (PSC) can provide further reductions in emissions and improvements in efficiency by extending the lean limit of operation. PSC is achieved by the ignition of a small quantity of natural gas in the vicinity of the spark plug. This creates an easily ignitable mixture at the spark plug electrodes, thereby providing a high energy ignition source for the ultra-lean bulk charge. Stratified charge engine operation using direct injection (DI) has been proposed as a method of bridging the throttleless load reduction gap between idle and ultra-lean conditions. A previous study was conducted to determine if PSC can provide a high-energy ignition source in a direct injected stratified charge engine. Difficulties with igniting the PSC injections in an air-only bulk charge were encountered. This study focuses on a fundamental Schlieren image-based analysis of PSC combustion. Natural gas was injected through a modified spark plug located in an optically accessible combustion bomb. The relationships between PSC injection timing, fuel supply pressure and spark timing were investigated. Spark timing is defined as the duration between commanded start of injection and the time of spark. As the fuel supply pressure was increased, the minimum spark timing that lead to successful combustion also increased. The largest spark timing window that led to successful combustion was determined to be 80 ms wide at an injection fuel supply pressure of 300 psi. The amount of unburned natural gas increased with increasing spark timing. A cold flow study of the PSC injection system was also conducted. The PSC injection solenoid was found to have a consistent average injection delay of 1.95 ms. The slope of the linear response region of observed injection duration to commanded injection duration was 8.4. Due to plenum effects, the average observed injection duration of the entire PSC system was an order of magnitude longer than the commanded injection duration and was found to vary significantly with fuel supply pressure. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Mechanical Engineering, Department of / Graduate

Combustion research currently aims to reduce emissions, whilst improving the fuel economy. Burning fuel in excess of air, or lean-burn combustion, is a promising alternative to conventional combustion, and can achieve these requirements simultaneously. However, lean-burn combustion poses new challenges, especially for internal combustion (IC) engines. Therefore, models used to predict such combustion have to be reliable, accurate and robust. In this work, the flamelet approach in the Reynolds-Averaged Navier- Stokes framework, is used to simulate flames relevant to spark-ignition IC engines. A central quantity in the current modelling approach is the scalar dissipation rate, which represents coupling between reaction and diffusion, as well as the flame front dynamics. In the first part of this thesis, the predictive ability of two reaction rate closures, viz. strained and unstrained flamelet models, are assessed through a series of experimental test cases. These cases are: spherically propagating methane- and hydrogen-air flames and combustion in a closed vessel. In addition to these models, simpler algebraic closures are also used for comparison. It is shown that the strained flamelet model can predict unconfined, spherically propagating methane-air flames reasonably well. By comparing spherical flame results with planar flames, under identical thermochemical and turbulence conditions, it is shown that the turbulent flame speed of spherical flames are 10 to 20% higher than that of planar flames, whilst the mean reaction rates are less influenced by the flame geometry. Growth of the flame brush thickness in unsteady spherical flames have been attributed to turbulent diffusion in past studies. However, the present analyses revealed that the dominant cause for this increase is the heat-release induced convective effects, which is a novel observation. Unlike methane-air flames, hydrogen-air flames have non-unity Lewis numbers. Hence, a novel two degrees of freedom approach, using two progress variables, is used to describe the thermochemistry of hydrogen-air flames. Again, it is shown that the strained flamelet model is able to predict the experimental flame growth for stoichiometric hydrogen-air flames. However, none of the models used in this work were able to predict lean hydrogen-air flames. This is because these flames are thermo-diffusively unstable and the current approach is inadequate to represent them. When combustion takes place inside a closed vessel, the compression of the end gases by the propagating flame causes the pressure to rise. This is more representative of real IC engines, where intermittent combustion takes place. The combustion models are implemented in a commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code, STAR-CD, and it is shown that both strained and unstrained flamelet models are able to predict the experimental pressure rise in a closed vessel. In the final part of this work, a spark-ignition engine is simulated in STAR-CD using the flamelet model verified for simpler geometries. It is shown that this model, together with a skeletal mechanism for iso-octane, compares reasonably well with experimental cylinder pressure rise. Results obtained from this model are compared with two models available in STAR- CD. These models require some level of tuning to match the experiments, whereas the modelling approach used in this work does not involve any tunable parameters.

This thesis presents the results of an investigation of the differences in combustion between gasoline and natural gas in a spark-ignition engine. Combustion development is influenced by calorific value, specific heat, flame speed and the gaseous or liquid state of the fuel. Simple simulation programs were set up to investigate the effects of low flame speed and higher specific heat of the fuel-air mixture. Actual performance was measured on a single cylinder test engine using ionization probes as flame detectors and a pressure pick-up. The experimental results show that longer ignition delay and limited flame speed at high pressure and temperature are the main reasons for' the power loss of natural gas at high engine speed; this is in addition to the basic loss due to the replacement of air by gaseous fuel in the cylinder. From calculations, it was learned that specific heat and dissociation differences had little effect on power. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Mechanical Engineering, Department of / Graduate

The move from fossil fuels is getting more relevant throughout the globe, mainly for it getting more costly to emit CO$_2$. The steel industry is one of the biggest contributor of the CO$_2$ emissions, and is therefore very motivated to reduce their emissions. One way to reduce the emissions is to go from coal to bio-char as a reducing agent. BEST(Bio-energy and sustainable technologies) is a research institute in Austria, and have been tasked to do research on bio-char and what problems that may occur with changing from coal to bio-char. One problem with bio-char is that it is prone to self ignition. This project aims is to develop a numerical model that can simulate self heating within bio-char stockpiles. The tool will be for a one-dimensional case using Cartesian coordinates. The calculations are based on the SIMPLE algorithm for Navier-Stokes equations, which is widely used within CFD calculations. This tool has been used to do sensitivity analysis for multiple variables and parameter studies for kinetic parameters related to the oxidation that occurs when bio-char is exposed to oxygen. Results show that oxygen concentration is the limiting factor to how much heat is released within the bag during simulations. Results also show that the accurate descriptions of reaction schemes and their rate expressions is very important to get results that is in line with real world scenarios.

Turbocharged spark-ignited engines may encounter stochastic events of premature ignition of the fuel-air mixture, termed as pre-ignition. Pre-ignition often leads to extremely high peak pressure and pressure oscillations, causing engine damage. A review of pre-ignition in historic times is done in this dissertation, and the similarities and differences compared to modern pre-ignition issue are brought forth. Experiments conducted with varying injection strategies yielded varying pre-ignition tendency. The pre-ignition tendency correlated with the charge cooling tendency and the mass of liquid fuel impinging on the cylinder liner and diluting the oil film. The diluted oil is trapped in the piston ring area and from time-to-time gets launched into the combustion chamber near top dead center. The fuel-oil mixture droplet may ignite the surrounding charge before the spark timing. Experiments conducted with varying exhaust back pressure showed dependence of pre-ignition tendency on in-cylinder temperature near top dead center, for cases when intake pressure is higher than exhaust pressures. For exhaust pressure higher than intake pressure, fuel wall impingement was critical to pre-ignition. This research also devised ion-current based sensors for pre-ignition detection. Initial experiments were done with DC-power based ion-current sensor, which detected a pre-ignition event when a flame brushed past the sensor. There was a need of faster-response sensor with high signal-to-noise ratio, that would allow pre-ignition detection at its inception stage, thereby giving enough time to trigger an evasive action. In this regard, an AC-powered ion-current sensor was devised and patented. Sudden fuel enrichment at the time of pre-ignition detection was investigated as an evasive method. Various strategies were investigated for their pre-ignition suppression tendency. Split injection, water injection, Octane-on-Demand, injecting different fluids in late compression stroke and dual fuel operation with gasoline and methane were found to be highly effective at suppressing pre-ignition completely. Use of ethanol in blends with different FACE gasolines is investigated to suggest fuel effects on pre-ignition. The strategies were successful at either reducing the mass of liquid fuel impinging the liner, reducing the in-cylinder temperature near top dead center or reducing the potential of residual gas content to trigger pre-ignition in the next cycle.

The landscape of equity trading changed when computer algorithms commenced to analyse large volumes of stock market data faster than a fraction of a second. Advances in technology have enabled trading algorithms to initiate, route, and execute orders on aspects of market timing, optimising order quantity, and deciding price parameters with limited human intervention. The distinctive features of high-frequency trading are low latency, high order to trade ratio, co-location, and short holding periods. Besides contributing to profitability, cost efficiency, and competitiveness, it has also amplified issues such as systemic risk and market disruption.  European legal frameworks – in particular the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II (MiFID II) and the Market Abuse Regulation (MAR) – have been and still are a response to this fairly new proprietary trading paradigm. This thesis interprets and analyses the risk mitigation and market manipulation requirements in order to clarify whether the legislation regarding high-frequency trading is compliant with the underlying appropriateness of MiFID II, MAR, and the Swedish Securities Act. The following two chapters provide an overview of the capital market with its participating actors and an outline of requirements for high-frequency trading investment firms. The ban on market manipulation is thereafter examined, systemised, and exemplified vis-à-vis fictitious transactions through manipulative schemes. Lastly, a case law analysis is conducted in respect of market abuse and defective trading algorithms.  This thesis finds plausible causation between defective trading algorithms, investor confidence, and market manipulation. Nevertheless, high-frequency trading per se is not considered to meet the necessary prerequisites for market manipulation stated in MAR. Information provision is one of the foremost tools to mitigate risk linked to systemic events and disruptive markets. However, too extensive requirements can potentially inhibit innovation and infringe legal rights related to inter alia, intellectual property, exempli gratia, trade secrets.

Controlling ignition timing and flame stabilization is one of the most outstanding challenges limiting the development of modern, efficient and low-emission compression ignition engines (CIEs). In this study, the role of turbulence on two-stage ignition dynamics and subsequent flame stabilization at diesel engine conditions is assessed by performing direct numerical simulations in a simplified inflow-outflow premixed configuration. The thermochemical conditions are chosen to match those of the most reactive mixture in the Engine Combustion Network’s n-dodecane Spray A flame (temperature of 813 K, pressure of 60 atm, equivalence ratio of 1.3, and with 15% vol. O2 in the ambient gas). Inflow velocities 4 to 16 times larger than the laminar flame speed are considered. As a result, in the absence of turbulence, ignition and flame stabilization are controlled by advection and chemistry, diffusion being negligible. Ignition delays match those of the homogeneous reactor and both the cool flame, due to low-temperature chemistry (LTC), and the hot flame, due to high-temperature chemistry (HTC), are spontaneous ignition fronts. Turbulence alters this picture in two ways. First, the second-stage (HTC) ignition delay is increased considerably, in contrast with the first-stage (LTC) ignition delay, which remains virtually unaffected. Second, a sufficiently high turbulence intensity makes the cool spontaneous ignition front transition to a cool deflagration which moves upstream to the inlet, while the hot flame is pushed downstream, still stabilized by spontaneous ignition. The latter phenomenon is caused by the reduced reactivity of LTC products as the cool flame transitions from spontaneous ignition to deflagration. Further increasing the turbulence intensity leads to both cool and hot flames transitioning to deflagrations. For the hot flame, the mechanism governing this transition is the increase in magnitude of progress variable gradient under increased turbulence or reduced inflow velocity, while in cool flames it is mainly due to the reduction in chemical source terms. In addition to turbulence intensity, the role of inflow velocity, integral length scale, and oxygen concentration level on this transition is assessed and modeling challenges are discussed. Finally, a chemical explosive mode analysis is provided to further characterise the ignition and transition phenomena. The present results highlight important fundamental roles of turbulence expected to modulate CIE combustion dynamics.