No abstract

To improve engine response and decrease exhaust smoke and NOx emission during transient operations, variations in cycle-to-cycle and cylinder-to-cylinder combustion were investigated in a two-stage turbocharged, exhaust gas recirculation heavy-duty diesel truck engine. Variations in combustion were confirmed to be caused by insufficient mixing of the exhaust gas recirculation with intake air. And steady operation, by increasing the length of the mixing path, coefficient of variation of the exhaust gas recirculation rate in cylinder 1 declined from 8.12% to 3.68%, while that for the other cylinders decreased from approximately 4.0% to 2.98%. These improvements also caused reductions in coefficient of variations for indicated mean effective pressure and crank angle of 50% fuel burned (CA50). By using an intake valve closing timing retarding actuator system, coefficient of variation of the exhaust gas recirculation rate for cylinder 1 was further decreased from 3.68% to 2.82%. It was interesting to find that EGR/air mixing length revealed a great effect on soot and NOx emissions during transient operations, especially those involving sudden increases in load. By using long mixing path instead of short mixing path combined with suitable fuel injection strategy and exhaust gas recirculation rate, transient response of load was reduced by 10% and transient smoke spike decreased from 0.8m-1 to 0.5m-1.

With increasingly stringent emissions regulations, there are growing demands for the transient performance of diesel engines. This study conducted a transient bench test on a two-stage turbocharged heavy-duty diesel engine to optimize its performance during a load increase (20% to 100% in 1 s) at a constant speed (1200 RPM) transient process. The results showed that the transient control scheme using the low-pressure EGR system resulted in a 42.1% reduction in the peak value of soot emission, a 24.8% decrease in the peak value of NOx emission, a 9.14% decrease in ISFC and a 30.6% increase in maximum IMEP achieved in 1 s, compared to the steady-state optimization control scheme without EGR. Transient control scheme using the high-pressure EGR system resulted in a 24.4% reduction in the peak value of soot emission, a 31.8% reduction in the peak value of NOx emission, a 9.52% reduction in ISFC, and a 31.7% increase in maximum IMEP achieved in 1 s. The comparison of high and low-pressure EGR systems revealed that the low-pressure EGR system produced lower compromising emissions, while alterations in control parameters for the diesel engine with a high-pressure EGR system had a more significant impact on the transient process performance.

To meet increasingly stringent emission regulations, this study investigates the transient process of a heavy-duty diesel engine equipped with a two-stage turbocharger. The study focuses on analyzing the impact of the EGR system and fuel injection strategy during a transient process of a load increase (20% to 100% in 1 s) at a constant speed (1300 rpm). The research results showed that delaying the opening time of the high-pressure EGR valve from 0.1 s to 0.5 s reduces peak carbon soot emissions by 51.3%, with only a 3.13% increase in NOx emissions. By extending the high-pressure exhaust gas recirculation mixing length, the issue of an excessively high fuel–oxygen equivalence ratio caused by uneven exhaust gas mixing in individual cylinders can be avoided, resulting in a maximum reduction of 47.0% in peak soot emissions. Building on exhaust gas recirculation optimization, further modifications to the main and post-injection strategies led to a 28.1% reduction in soot emissions, a 4.73% decrease in peak NOx emissions, and a minor increase of 1.87% in the indicated fuel specific consumption compared to the single-injection strategy. The significant reduction in soot emissions will provide benefits for public health and environmental sustainability.