Fuel and Combustion

Fuel and Combustion

Effects of Natural Gas Composition on the Performance of a Homogenous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) Engine

Authors
Omid Jahanian
Seyed Ali Jazayeri
Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, K. N. Toosi University of Technology, Tehran, Iran
Abstract
Homogenous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) engine is a promising idea to reduce fuel consumption and engine emissions. Natural gas, usually referred as clean fuel, is an appropriate choice for HCCI engines due to its suitable capability of making homogenous mixture with air. However, composition of natural gas strongly affects the auto-ignition characteristics of in-cylinder mixture and the performance of the HCCI engine. This paper has focused on the influence of natural gas composition on engine operation in HCCI mode. To this end, six different compositions of natural gas (including pure methane) have been considered to study the engine performance via a thermo-kinetic zero-dimensional model. The simulation code covers the detailed chemical kinetics of natural gas combustion and includes Zeldovich extended mechanism to evaluate NOx emission. Validations have been made using experimental data from other works to ensure the accuracy needed for comparison study. The equivalence ratio and the compression ratio were held constant but the engine speed and mixture initial temperature were changed for comparison study. The results show that the operational parameters of the engine such as gross indicated work, gross mean effective pressure, and NOx are dependent to natural gas composition. SOC is highly dependent to the amount of heavier hydrocarbons existing in the fuel composition, which leads to noticeable changes in the time and value of in-cylinder pressure/temperature peak.
Keywords
HCCI engine
Thermodynamic modeling
Natural gas composition
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