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Numerical study on liquid ammonia direct injection spray characteristics under engine-relevant conditions

Zhang, Yanzhi LU ; Xu, Leilei LU ; Zhu, Yizi ; Xu, Shijie LU orcid and Bai, Xue Song LU (2023) In Applied Energy 334.
Abstract

This paper reports on CFD modeling of the fuel/air mixing characteristics of liquid ammonia under direct injection engine-relevant conditions. Several questions are addressed including, whether the widely used Lagrange particle tracking (LPT) spray models developed for traditional fossil fuels are suitable for ammonia spray, whether certain improvement of the current models should be introduced, and under what conditions the improvement of models needs to be considered. It is found that liquid ammonia spray characteristics can be well reproduced by the current Lagrange-based spray models under non-flash boiling conditions. However, there are obvious gaps between measurements and predictions under strong flash boiling conditions. A... (More)

This paper reports on CFD modeling of the fuel/air mixing characteristics of liquid ammonia under direct injection engine-relevant conditions. Several questions are addressed including, whether the widely used Lagrange particle tracking (LPT) spray models developed for traditional fossil fuels are suitable for ammonia spray, whether certain improvement of the current models should be introduced, and under what conditions the improvement of models needs to be considered. It is found that liquid ammonia spray characteristics can be well reproduced by the current Lagrange-based spray models under non-flash boiling conditions. However, there are obvious gaps between measurements and predictions under strong flash boiling conditions. A strong flash boiling region is found near the nozzle while its intensity decreases downstream due to the significant cooling effect of ammonia spray, and initial superheat degree defined as the ratio of ambient pressure to the saturation vapor pressure at initial fuel temperature, can be adopted to determine the boundary of flash boiling model that needs to be employed in the modeling of liquid ammonia spray. Spray included angle is a crucial parameter within the LPT simulation framework to reproduce the collapse effect for multi-plume sprays. The flash model considering only the evaporation promotion effect cannot replicate the ammonia spray characteristics and it does not result in obvious differences compared with the results from the normal evaporation model. Liquid ammonia is a thermal sensitive fuel and has a strong tendency of flash boiling, and a more accurate flash boiling model that considers the thermal breakup effect should be proposed to accurately predict ammonia fuel/air mixing characteristics under wide engine-relevant conditions.

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author
; ; ; and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
keywords
Computational fluid dynamics (CFD), Decarbonization, Flash boiling, Fuel/air mixing, Liquid ammonia spray
in
Applied Energy
volume
334
article number
120680
publisher
Elsevier
external identifiers
  • scopus:85146462391
ISSN
0306-2619
DOI
10.1016/j.apenergy.2023.120680
language
English
LU publication?
yes
additional info
Funding Information: This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 52106154 ), and the Nordic Energy Research (NER), China and Swedish Transport Administration (Trafikverket) through the CAHEMA project within the Nordic Maritime Transport and Energy Research Programme, as well as the EU ENGIMMONIA project. Dr. L. Xu is partially supported by the Å Forsk foundation, Sweden ( ID:21-345 ). Convergent Science provided CONVERGE licenses and technical support for this work. Publisher Copyright: © 2023 The Author(s)
id
d097f1d8-e5e1-4b14-9482-f6a3726313b4
date added to LUP
2024-01-15 13:11:27
date last changed
2024-01-15 13:13:51
@article{d097f1d8-e5e1-4b14-9482-f6a3726313b4,
  abstract     = {{<p>This paper reports on CFD modeling of the fuel/air mixing characteristics of liquid ammonia under direct injection engine-relevant conditions. Several questions are addressed including, whether the widely used Lagrange particle tracking (LPT) spray models developed for traditional fossil fuels are suitable for ammonia spray, whether certain improvement of the current models should be introduced, and under what conditions the improvement of models needs to be considered. It is found that liquid ammonia spray characteristics can be well reproduced by the current Lagrange-based spray models under non-flash boiling conditions. However, there are obvious gaps between measurements and predictions under strong flash boiling conditions. A strong flash boiling region is found near the nozzle while its intensity decreases downstream due to the significant cooling effect of ammonia spray, and initial superheat degree defined as the ratio of ambient pressure to the saturation vapor pressure at initial fuel temperature, can be adopted to determine the boundary of flash boiling model that needs to be employed in the modeling of liquid ammonia spray. Spray included angle is a crucial parameter within the LPT simulation framework to reproduce the collapse effect for multi-plume sprays. The flash model considering only the evaporation promotion effect cannot replicate the ammonia spray characteristics and it does not result in obvious differences compared with the results from the normal evaporation model. Liquid ammonia is a thermal sensitive fuel and has a strong tendency of flash boiling, and a more accurate flash boiling model that considers the thermal breakup effect should be proposed to accurately predict ammonia fuel/air mixing characteristics under wide engine-relevant conditions.</p>}},
  author       = {{Zhang, Yanzhi and Xu, Leilei and Zhu, Yizi and Xu, Shijie and Bai, Xue Song}},
  issn         = {{0306-2619}},
  keywords     = {{Computational fluid dynamics (CFD); Decarbonization; Flash boiling; Fuel/air mixing; Liquid ammonia spray}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  month        = {{03}},
  publisher    = {{Elsevier}},
  series       = {{Applied Energy}},
  title        = {{Numerical study on liquid ammonia direct injection spray characteristics under engine-relevant conditions}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2023.120680}},
  doi          = {{10.1016/j.apenergy.2023.120680}},
  volume       = {{334}},
  year         = {{2023}},
}