Fuel design real-time to control HCCI combustion

In order to achieve lower emissions and extensive load in the homogeneous charge com- pression ignition (HCCI) engine system, a novel fuel design concept that high-octane number fuel and high-cetane number fuel are mixed real-time to con- trol HCCI combustion is proposed in this study. HCCI combustion fueled with iso-octane/n-heptane mix- tures controlled real-time on a single-cylinder HCCI combustion engine is studied. The test results show that the equivalence ratio of n-heptane in mixtures decides ignition and controls the combustion phase of HCCI combustion. The addition of iso-octane ex- tends knocking limit in equivalence ratio somewhat, but knocking occurrence mainly depends on the total concentration of mixture. Although operating range in equivalence ratio becomes narrow with the increas- ing proportion of iso-octane, the maximum load of HCCI combustion fueled with iso-octane/n-heptane mixtures controlled real-time is increased about 80% more than that of pure n-heptane. When iso-octane/ n-heptane mixtures are controlled in optimized method, it is proved that the load of HCCI combustion can be fully extended and emissions can be de- creased remarkably, while at the same time the higher indicated thermal efficiencies are obtained over the extensive operation range.