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Influence of the compression ratio on the performance and emissions of a mini HCCI engine fuelled with diethyl ether

Manente, Vittorio LU ; Tunestål, Per LU and Johansson, Bengt LU (2007) SAE Powertrain & Fluid Systems Conference and Exhibition, 2007
Abstract
Power supply systems play a very important role in applications of everyday life. Mainly, for low power generation, there are two ways of producing energy: electrochemical batteries and small engines. In the last few years many improvements have been carried out in order to obtain lighter batteries with longer duration but unfortunately the energy density of 1 MJ/kg seems to be an asymptotic value. If the energy source is an organic fuel with an energy density of around 29 MJ/kg and a minimum overall efficiency of only 3.5%, this device can surpass the batteries. Nowadays the most efficient combustion process is HCCI combustion which is able to combine high energy conversion efficiency and low emission levels with a very low fuel... (More)
Power supply systems play a very important role in applications of everyday life. Mainly, for low power generation, there are two ways of producing energy: electrochemical batteries and small engines. In the last few years many improvements have been carried out in order to obtain lighter batteries with longer duration but unfortunately the energy density of 1 MJ/kg seems to be an asymptotic value. If the energy source is an organic fuel with an energy density of around 29 MJ/kg and a minimum overall efficiency of only 3.5%, this device can surpass the batteries. Nowadays the most efficient combustion process is HCCI combustion which is able to combine high energy conversion efficiency and low emission levels with a very low fuel consumption.



In this paper, an investigation has been carried out concerning the effects of the compression ratio on the performance and emissions of a mini, Vd me 4.11 [cmu3], HCCI engine fueled with diethyl ether. Because of its high reactivity, autoignition of the mixture was achieved only using compression energy. The compression ratio was changed by altering the squish distance: 0.25, 0.50, 0.75, 1.00 and 1.25 [mm]. For each compression ratio, three sets of measurements were performed: 3000, 7000 and 12000 [rpm]. The study showed that diethyl ether was only slightly affected by quenching problems when the squish distance was 0.25 and 0.50 [mm] at 7000 [rpm]. It was also demonstrated that the performance improved when decreasing the compression ratio to an optimum point and subsequently dropped to zero when the highest spacer, 1.25 [mm], was used. Due to a very low combustion and thermodynamic efficiencies, the specific emissions of CO and HC were one order of magnitude higher than for a normal car/truck engine, whereas NOx emissions were comparable to those of a conventional diesel engine. Finally, the study rendered it possible to understand how much an HCCI engine fueled with diethyl ether could be scaled down since it was shown that this fuel was not very sensitive to quenching, with a squish distance of 0.25 [mm]. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
; and
organization
publishing date
type
Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding
publication status
published
subject
keywords
power supply, HCCI, engine, mini engine, combustion
host publication
SAE Technical Paper Series
publisher
Society of Automotive Engineers
conference name
SAE Powertrain & Fluid Systems Conference and Exhibition, 2007
conference location
Chicago, United States
conference dates
2007-10-29 - 2007-10-31
external identifiers
  • other:SAE Technical Paper 2007-01-4075
  • scopus:85072424933
ISSN
0148-7191
DOI
10.4271/2007-01-4075
project
VIMPA
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
33b1f4ee-a8fc-4fae-927f-5039ac8aaff4 (old id 1215876)
alternative location
http://www.sae.org/technical/papers/2007-01-4075
date added to LUP
2016-04-01 16:50:52
date last changed
2022-01-28 22:34:02
@inproceedings{33b1f4ee-a8fc-4fae-927f-5039ac8aaff4,
  abstract     = {{Power supply systems play a very important role in applications of everyday life. Mainly, for low power generation, there are two ways of producing energy: electrochemical batteries and small engines. In the last few years many improvements have been carried out in order to obtain lighter batteries with longer duration but unfortunately the energy density of 1 MJ/kg seems to be an asymptotic value. If the energy source is an organic fuel with an energy density of around 29 MJ/kg and a minimum overall efficiency of only 3.5%, this device can surpass the batteries. Nowadays the most efficient combustion process is HCCI combustion which is able to combine high energy conversion efficiency and low emission levels with a very low fuel consumption.<br/><br>
<br/><br>
In this paper, an investigation has been carried out concerning the effects of the compression ratio on the performance and emissions of a mini, Vd me 4.11 [cmu3], HCCI engine fueled with diethyl ether. Because of its high reactivity, autoignition of the mixture was achieved only using compression energy. The compression ratio was changed by altering the squish distance: 0.25, 0.50, 0.75, 1.00 and 1.25 [mm]. For each compression ratio, three sets of measurements were performed: 3000, 7000 and 12000 [rpm]. The study showed that diethyl ether was only slightly affected by quenching problems when the squish distance was 0.25 and 0.50 [mm] at 7000 [rpm]. It was also demonstrated that the performance improved when decreasing the compression ratio to an optimum point and subsequently dropped to zero when the highest spacer, 1.25 [mm], was used. Due to a very low combustion and thermodynamic efficiencies, the specific emissions of CO and HC were one order of magnitude higher than for a normal car/truck engine, whereas NOx emissions were comparable to those of a conventional diesel engine. Finally, the study rendered it possible to understand how much an HCCI engine fueled with diethyl ether could be scaled down since it was shown that this fuel was not very sensitive to quenching, with a squish distance of 0.25 [mm].}},
  author       = {{Manente, Vittorio and Tunestål, Per and Johansson, Bengt}},
  booktitle    = {{SAE Technical Paper Series}},
  issn         = {{0148-7191}},
  keywords     = {{power supply; HCCI; engine; mini engine; combustion}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  publisher    = {{Society of Automotive Engineers}},
  title        = {{Influence of the compression ratio on the performance and emissions of a mini HCCI engine fuelled with diethyl ether}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.4271/2007-01-4075}},
  doi          = {{10.4271/2007-01-4075}},
  year         = {{2007}},
}