Some effects of gasoline and diesel mixtures on partially premixed combustion and comparison with the practical fuels gasoline and diesel in a compression ignition engine

Abstract

If fuels that are more resistant to autoignition are injected near top dead centre in compression ignition engines, they ignite much later than diesel fuel does, and combustion occurs when the fuel and air have had more chance to mix. This helps to reduce nitrogen oxide and smoke emissions. Moreover, this can be achieved at much lower injection pressures than for a diesel fuel. However, it is preferable to have fuels with a lower research octane number than those of commonly available gasolines, because this makes low-load operation easier while retaining the advantages at higher loads. A practical approach to making such fuels is to blend the gasoline and diesel fuel available in the market. Such fuel blends have a wide volatility range since they contain high-boiling-point components from the diesel but have a lower research octane number than that of the gasoline used but have a much longer ignition delay than that of the diesel fuel. This work describes the results of running a single-cylinder diesel engine on three such fuel blends. The engine could be run on such blends with extremely low smoke and low nitrogen oxide emissions at speeds of up to 4000 r/min and loads (indicated mean effective pressures) of up to 10 bar with an injection pressure of only 400 bar. The smoke levels at comparable nitrogen oxide levels were extremely high with diesel fuel in these conditions, even with an injection pressure of 1100 bar. The engine could also be run at near-idle conditions on these blends but with higher hydrocarbon and carbon monoxide emissions but much lower nitrogen oxide emissions and maximum pressure rise rate compared with those of the diesel fuel. The wider volatility range might be of benefit in avoiding over-mixing and over-leaning, which could lead to poor combustion stability. The paper also considers the trade-offs between the nitrogen oxide, smoke, hydrocarbon and carbon monoxide emissions and the maximum pressure rise rate and discusses approaches to optimise this type of combustion.

Reducing Diesel Engine Emission Using Reactivity Controlled Approach

“…9(c) shows the un-burnt hydrocarbon amount versus (G/D) ratio; it shows that when increasing gasoline ratio in the mixture, the un-burnt hydrocarbon fraction formed near the cylinder wall increases which results in an incomplete combustion. The same results have been confirmed by Micklow et al [5] and Yang et al [22]. Additionally, the proposed model confirms that n-heptane, the most-reactive fuel component, burns at a faster rate compared to iso-octane which is less-reactive [15].…”

“…However, the effects of gasoline blending on combustion performance and exhaust emissions diminished as the engine load increased. Yang et al [22] investigated different dual-fuel combustion modes (gasoline /diesel blend) on diesel engine performance and emissions. Highly Premixed Charge Combustion (HPCC) and (LTC) modes have been performed.…”

Gasoline compression ignition approach to efficient, clean and affordable future engines

“…However, given that GCI requires appropriate stratification to ensure combustion at low loads and to mitigate high heat release rates at high loads, it might indeed be better to have larger hole sizes. In fact, preliminary experiments by Won et al 53,54 demonstrated, in a single-cylinder engine, that the operating limits can be extended by larger-diameter injector nozzle holes and lower injection pressures. Since mixture preparation is so critical in GCI engines, other injector parameters such as the included angle 36 have to be optimized with the combustion bowl shape.…”

Flash points and volatility characteristics of gasoline/diesel blends

“…One alternative might be to use mixtures of gasoline and diesel, ''dieseline'', to reduce the octane number of the market gasoline to better enable GCI technology e.g. [8,9]. Blends with gasoline concentrations of 50% by volume or more (most likely between 80% and 90% by volume gasoline) would be of interest for such applications.…”