Evaluation of the Oxidation Reactivity and Behavior of Exhaust Soot Particles from Diesel Engines with Different Emission Levels

The aim of this study was to investigate the oxidation reactivity and behavior of exhaust particulate matter(PM)from diesel engines.PM samples from two diesel engines(1K,CY4102)with different emission levels were collected by a thermophoretic system and a quartz filter.The oxidation reactivity,oxidation behaviors,and physicochemical properties of the PM samples were analyzed using thermogravimetric analysis(TGA),high-resolution transmission electron microscopy(HRTEM),Fourier-transform infrared spectrometry(FTIR),and Raman spectroscopy.The results showed that there was a great difference in the oxidation reactivity of soot particles emitted by the two different diesel engines.A qualitative analysis of the factors influencing oxidation reactivity showed that the nanostructure,degree of graphitization,and relative concentration of aliphatic C—H functional groups were the most important factors,whereas no significant correlation was found between the primary particle size and activation energy of the diesel soot.Based on the oxidation behavior analysis,the diesel soot particles exhibited both internal and surface oxidation modes during the oxidation process.Surface oxidation was dominant during the initial stage,and as oxidation progressed,the mode gradually changed to internal oxidation.Internal oxidation mode of soot particles from the 1K engine was significantly higher than that of CY4102.

Optimal Design and Experimental Study of Tightly Coupled SCR Mixers for Diesel Engines

Two types of tightly coupled Selective Catalytic Reduction(SCR)mixers were designed in this study,namely Mixer 1 integrated with an SCR catalyst and Mixer 2 arranged separately.Computational Fluid Dynamics(CFD)software was utilized to model the gas flow,spraying,and pyrolysis reaction of the aqueous urea solution in the tightly coupled SCR system.The parameters of gas flow velocity uniformity and ammonia distribution uniformity were simulated and calculated for both Mixer 1 and Mixer 2 in the tightly coupled SCR system to compare their advantages and disadvantages.The simulation results indicated that Mixer 1 exhibited a gas velocity uniformity of 0.972 and an ammonia distribution uniformity of 0.817,whereas Mixer 2 demonstrated a gas velocity uniformity of 0.988 and an ammonia distribution uniformity of 0.964.Mixer 2 performed better in the simulation analysis.Furthermore,a 3D-printed prototype of Mixer 2 was manufactured and installed on an engine test bench to investigate ammonia distribution uniformity and NOX conversion efficiency.The experimental investigations yielded the following findings:1)The ammonia distribution uniformity of Mixer 2 was measured as 0.976,which closely aligned with the simulation result of 0.964,with a deviation of 1.2%from the model calculations;2)As exhaust temperature increased,the ammonia distribution uniformity gradually improved,while an increase in exhaust flow rate resulted in a decrease in ammonia distribution uniformity;3)When utilizing Mixer 2,the NOX conversion efficiency reached 84.7%at an exhaust temperature of 200°C and 97.4%at 250°C.Within the exhaust temperature range of 300°C to 450°C,the NOX conversion efficiency remained above 98%.This study proposed two innovative mixer structures,conducted simulation analysis,and performed performance testing.The research outcomes indicated that the separately arranged Mixer 2 exhibited superior performance.The tightly coupled SCR systemequippedwith Mixer 2 achieved excellent levels of gas velocity uniformity,ammonia distribution uniformity,and NOX conversion efficiency.These findings can serve as valuable references for the design and development of ultra-low emission after-treatment systems for diesel engines in the field of diesel engine aftertreatment.

Demonstration of a small‐scale power generator using supercritical CO_(2)

The supercritical CO_(2)(sCO_(2))power cycle could improve efficiencies for a wide range of thermal power plants.The sCO_(2)turbine generator plays an important role in the sCO_(2)power cycle by directly converting thermal energy into mechanical work and electric power.The operation of the generator encounters challenges,including high temperature,high pressure,high rotational speed,and other engineering problems,such as leakage.Experimental studies of sCO_(2)turbines are insufficient because of the significant difficulties in turbine manufacturing and system construction.Unlike most experimental investigations that primarily focus on 100 kW‐or MW‐scale power generation systems,we consider,for the first time,a small‐scale power generator using sCO_(2).A partial admission axial turbine was designed and manufactured with a rated rotational speed of 40,000 rpm,and a CO_(2)transcritical power cycle test loop was constructed to validate the performance of our manufactured generator.A resistant gas was proposed in the constructed turbine expander to solve the leakage issue.Both dynamic and steady performances were investigated.The results indicated that a peak electric power of 11.55 kW was achieved at 29,369 rpm.The maximum total efficiency of the turbo‐generator was 58.98%,which was affected by both the turbine rotational speed and pressure ratio,according to the proposed performance map.

Insight into the Alkali Resistance Mechanism of CoMnHPMo Catalyst for NH_(3) Selective Catalytic Reduction of NO

The existence of alkali metals in fl ue gases originating from stationary sources can result in catalyst deactivation in the low-temperature selective catalytic reduction(SCR)of nitrogen oxides(NO_(x)).It is widely accepted that alkali metal poisoning causes damage to the acidic sites of catalysts.Therefore,in this study,a series of CoMn catalysts doped with heteropolyacids(HPAs)were prepared using the coprecipitation method.Among these,CoMnHPMo exhibited superior catalytic performance for SCR and over 95%NO_(x) conversion at 150-300.Moreover,it exhibited excellent catalytic activity and stability after alkali poisoning,demonstrating outstanding alkali metal resistance.The characterization indicated that HPMo increased the specifi c surface area of the catalyst,which provided abundant adsorption sites for NO_(x) and NH_(3).Comparing catalysts before and after poisoning,CoMnHPMo enhanced its alkali metal resistance by sacrifi cing Brønsted acid sites to protect its Lewis acid sites.In situ DRIFTS was used to study the reaction pathways of the catalysts.The results showed that CoMnHPMo maintained high NH_(3) adsorption capacity after K poisoning and then reacted rapidly with NO intermediates to ensure that the active sites were not covered.Consequently,SCR performance was ensured even after alkali metal poisoning.In sum-mary,this research proposed a simple method for the design of an alkali-resistant NH_(3)-SCR catalyst with high activity at low temperatures.

Optical investigations on lean combustion improvement of natural gas engines via turbulence enhancement

In the global background of“Carbon Peak”and“Carbon Neutral”,natural gas engines show great advantages in energy-saving and pollution reduction.However,natural gas engines suffer from the issues of combustion instabilities when operating under lean burning conditions.In this paper,the role of turbulence enhancement in improving the lean combustion of natural gas was investigated in an optical SI engine with high compression ratios.Variable swirl control valves(SCV)were designed and intake tumble and swirl were combined to regulate turbulent motion and turbulent intensity.Particle image velocimetry was employed to measure in-cylinder turbulence,and transient pressure acquisition and high-speed photography were synchronously performed to quantify combustion evolutions.The results show that incylinder turbulent intensity is enhanced significantly through reducing SCV closing angles.Such that flame propagation speed and thermal efficiency are significantly improved with an increment of turbulent intensity,which indicated that mean effective pressures are not sensitive to spark timing.The analysis of flame images shows that the combined turbulence increases in the radial orientation from the spark plug to the cylinder wall,leading to an earlier flame kernel formation and a faster burning rate.Therefore,the combined turbulence has the potential in reducing the cyclic variations of lean combustion in natural gas engines.

Pore-Scale Investigation of Coupled Two-Phase and Reactive Transport in the Cathode Electrode of Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells

A three-dimensional multicomponent multiphase lattice Boltzmann model(LBM)is established to model the coupled two-phase and reactive transport phenomena in the cathode electrode of proton exchange membrane fuel cells.The gas diff usion layer(GDL)and microporous layer(MPL)are stochastically reconstructed with the inside dynamic distribution of oxygen and liquid water resolved,and the catalyst layer is simplifi ed as a superthin layer to address the electrochemical reaction,which provides a clear description of the fl ooding eff ect on mass transport and performance.Diff erent kinds of electrodes are reconstructed to determine the optimum porosity and structure design of the GDL and MPL by comparing the transport resistance and per-formance under the fl ooding condition.The simulation results show that gradient porosity GDL helps to increase the reactive area and average concentration under fl ooding.The presence of the MPL ensures the oxygen transport space and reaction area because liquid water cannot transport through micropores.Moreover,the MPL helps in the uniform distribution of oxygen for an effi cient in-plane transport capacity.Crack and perforation structures can accelerate the water transport in the assembly.The systematic perforation design yields the best performance under fl ooding by separating the transport of liquid water and oxygen.

Mixture Preparation and Combustion of CNG Low-Pressure Compound Direct Injection Spark-Ignited Engines

A set of compressed natural gas (CNG) multi-point direct injection system of spark-ignited engines and the corresponding measurement and data acquisition systems were developed in this paper. Based on different injection modes, the mixture formation and combustion of CNG low-pressure direct injection (LPDI) engines were studied under varying factors such as air/ fuel ratio, injection timing. Meanwhile, three-dimensional simulations were adopted to explain the mixture formation mechanisms of CNG low-pressure compound direct injection (LPCDI) mode. On the basis of test results and simulation of the mixture homogeneous degree, the conception of injection window was proposed, and the LPCDI mode was proved to be more beneficial to the mixture concentration stratification formation in cylinder under lean-burning conditions, which resulted in effective combustion and stability.

Simulation of Turbulent Combustion Flame Feature Based on Fractal Theory for SI Engines

The flame structure of gasoline engine is complicated and has the characteristic of fractal geometry. A fractal combustion model was used to simulate the engine working cycle. Based on this model, the fractal dimension and laminar flame surface area of turbulent premixed flames were studied under different working conditions. The experimental system mainly includes an optical engine and a set of photography equipment used to shoot the images of turbulent flame of spark-ignition engine. The difference box-counting method was used to process 2D combustion images. In contrast to the experimental results, the computational results show that the fractal combustion model is an effective method of simulating the engine combustion process. The study provides a better understanding for flame structure and its propagation.

Effects of I-EGR and Pre-Injection on Performance of Gasoline Compression Ignition(GCI)at Low-Load Condition

Gasoline compression ignition(GCI)has been considered as a promising combustion concept to yield ultralow NOX and soot emissions while maintaining high thermal efficiency.However,how to improve the low-load performance becomes an urgent issue to be solved.In this paper,a GCI engine model was built to investigate the effects of internal EGR(i-EGR)and pre-injection on in-cylinder temperature,spatial concentration of mixture and OH radical,combustion and emission characteristics,and the control strategy for improving the combustion performance was further explored.The results showed an obvious expansion of the zone with an equivalence ratio between 0.8∼1.2 is realized by higher pre-injection ratios,and the s decreases with the increase of pre-injection ratio,but increases with the increase of i-EGR ratio.The high overlap among the equivalentmixture zone,the hightemperature zone,and the OH radical-rich zone can be achieved by higher i-EGR ratio coupled with higher preinjection ratio.By increasing the pre-injection ratio,the combustion efficiency increases first and then decreases,also achieves the peak value with a pre-injection ratio of 60%and is unaffected by i-EGR.The emissions of CO,HC,NOX,and soot can also be reduced to low levels by the combination of higher i-EGR ratios and a pre-injection ratio of 60%.

Experimental Study on Gas Flow Uniformity in a Diesel Particulate Filter Carrier

A Diesel Particulate Filter(DPF)is a critical device for diesel engine exhaust products treatment.When using active-regeneration purification methods,on the one hand,a spatially irregular gas flow can produce relatively high local temperatures,potentially resulting in damage to the carrier;On the other hand,the internal temperature field can also undergo significant changes contributing to increase this risk.This study explores the gas flow uniformity in a DPF carrier and the related temperature behavior under drop-to-idle(DTI)condition by means of bench tests.It is shown that the considered silicon carbide carrier exhibits good flow uniformity,with a temperature deviation of no more than 2%with respect to the same radius measurement point at the outlet during the regeneration stage.In the DTI test,the temperature is relatively high within r/2 near the outlet end,where the maximum temperature peak occurs,and the maximum radial temperature gradient is located between r/2 and the edge.Both these quantities grow as the soot load increases,thereby making the risk of carrier burnout greater.Finally,it is shown that the soot load limit of the silicon carbide DPF can be extended to 11 g/L,which reduces the frequency of active regeneration by approximately 40%compared to a cordierite DPF.

Source Separation of Diesel Engine Vibration Based on the Empirical Mode Decomposition and Independent Component Analysis

Vibration signals from diesel engine contain many different components mainly caused by combustion and mechanism operations,several blind source separation techniques are available for decomposing the signal into its components in the case of multichannel measurements,such as independent component analysis（ICA）.However,the source separation of vibration signal from single-channel is impossible.In order to study the source separation from single-channel signal for the purpose of source extraction,the combination method of empirical mode decomposition（EMD） and ICA is proposed in diesel engine signal processing.The performance of the described methods of EMD-wavelet and EMD-ICA in vibration signal application is compared,and the results show that EMD-ICA method outperforms the other,and overcomes the drawback of ICA in the case of single-channel measurement.The independent source signal components can be separated and identified effectively from one-channel measurement by EMD-ICA.Hence,EMD-ICA improves the extraction and identification abilities of source signals from diesel engine vibration measurements.

Fatigue Crack Growth Rate of Ti-6Al-4V Considering the Effects of Fracture Toughness and Crack Closure

Fatigue fracture is one of the main failure modes of Ti-6A1-4V alloy,fracture toughness and crack closure have strong effects on the fatigue crack growth（FCG）rate of Ti-6A1-4V alloy.The FCG rate of Ti-6A1-4V is investigated by using experimental and analytical methods.The effects of stress ratio,crack closure and fracture toughness on the FCG rate are studied and discussed.A modified prediction model of the FCG rate is proposed,and the relationship between the fracture toughness and the stress intensity factor（SIF）range is redefined by introducing a correcting coefficient.Notched plate fatigue tests（including the fracture toughness test and the FCG rate test）are conducted to investigate the influence of affecting factors on the FCG rate.Comparisons between the predicted results of the proposed model,the Paris model,the Walker model,the Sadananda model,and the experimental data show that the proposed model gives the best agreement with the test data particularly in the near-threshold region and the Paris region,and the corresponding calculated fatigue life is also accurate in the same regions.By considering the effects of fracture toughness and crack closure,the novel FCG rate prediction model not only improves the estimating accuracy,but also extends the adaptability of the FCG rate prediction model in engineering.

Analysis of Thermoelastohydrodynamic Performance of Journal Misaligned Engine Main Bearings

To understand the engine main bearings＇ working condition is important in order to improve the performance of engine. However, thermal effects and thermal effect deformations of engine main bearings are rarely considered simultaneously in most studies. A typical finite element model is selected and the effect of thermoelastohydrodynamic（TEHD） reaction on engine main bearings is investigated. The calculated method of main bearing＇s thermal hydrodynamic reaction and journal misalignment effect is finite difference method, and its deformation reaction is calculated by using finite element method. The oil film pressure is solved numerically with Reynolds boundary conditions when various bearing characteristics are calculated. The whole model considers a temperature-pressure-viscosity relationship for the lubricant, surface roughness effect, and also an angular misalignment between the journal and the bearing. Numerical simulations of operation of a typical I6 diesel engine main bearing is conducted and importance of several contributing factors in mixed lubrication is discussed. The performance characteristics of journal misaligned main bearings under elastohydrodynamic（EHD） and TEHD loads of an I6 diesel engine are received, and then the journal center orbit movement, minimum oil film thickness and maximum oil film pressure of main bearings are estimated over a wide range of engine operation. The model is verified through the comparison with other present models. The TEHD performance of engine main bearings with various effects under the influences of journal misalignment is revealed, this is helpful to understand EHD and TEHD effect of misaligned engine main bearings.

Heteroclinic Bifurcation of Strongly Nonlinear Oscillator

Analytical prediction of heteroclinic bifurcation of the strongly nonlinear oscillator is presented by using the extended normal form method. We consider the approximate periodic solution of the system subject to the quintic nonlinearity by introducing the undetermined fundamental frequency. For the occurrence of heteroclinicity, the bifurcation criterion is accomplished. It depends on the contact of the limit cycle with the saddle equilibrium. As is illustrated, the explicit application shows that the new results coincide very well with the results of numerical simulation when disturbing parameter is of arbitrary magnitude.

An Experimental Investigation on Low Load Combustion Stability and Cold-Firing Capacity of a Gasoline Compression Ignition Engine

Gasoline compression ignition (GCI) is one of the most promising combustion concepts to maintain low pollutant emissions and high efficiency. However, low load combustion stability and firing in cold-start operations are two major challenges for GCI combustion. Strategies including negative valve overlap (NVO), advanced injection strategies, fuel reforming, and intake preheating have been proposed in order to solve these difficulties;however, the cold start is still an obstacle. The objective of this work is to study effective methods to achieve GCI engine cold start-up. This work combines NVO, in-cylinder fuel reforming, and intake preheating to achieve quick firing under cold-start conditions and the subsequent warmup conditions. The results show that start of injection (SOI) during the intake stroke yields the best fuel economy, and injection during the compression stroke has the potential to extend the low load limit. Furthermore, SOI during the NVO period grants the ability to operate under engine conditions with cold intake air and coolant. With highly reactive products made by in-cylinder fuel reforming and fast heat accumulation in the combustion chamber, the NVO injection strategy is highly appropriate for GCI firing. An additional assisted technical method, such as intake preheating, is required to ignite the first firing cycle for a cold-start process. With the combination of NVO, in-cylinder fuel reforming, and intake preheating, the GCI engine successfully started within five combustion cycles in the experiment. After the firing process, the engine could stably operate without further intake preheating;thus, this method is appropriate for engine cold-start and warm-up.

Fault Diagnosis of Valve Clearance in Diesel Engine Based on BP Neural Network and Support Vector Machine

Based on wavelet packet transformation(WPT), genetic algorithm(GA), back propagation neural network(BPNN)and support vector machine(SVM), a fault diagnosis method of diesel engine valve clearance is presented. With power spectral density analysis, the characteristic frequency related to the engine running conditions can be extracted from vibration signals. The biggest singular values(BSV)of wavelet coefficients and root mean square(RMS)values of vibration in characteristic frequency sub-bands are extracted at the end of third level decomposition of vibration signals, and they are used as input vectors of BPNN or SVM. To avoid being trapped in local minima, GA is adopted. The normal and fault vibration signals measured in different valve clearance conditions are analyzed. BPNN, GA back propagation neural network(GA-BPNN), SVM and GA-SVM are applied to the training and testing for the extraction of different features, and the classification accuracies and training time are compared to determine the optimum fault classifier and feature selection. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed features and classification algorithms give classification accuracy of 100%.

FEM Analysis on Acoustic Performance of Wall Flow Diesel Particulate Filters

Diesel powered vehicles, in compliance with the more strict exhaust emission standards such as Euro V, is likely to require a diesel particulate filter （DPF）. A DPF used on a vehicle will affect the acoustic emission of the diesel engine, so it is important to investigate the sound propagation rule in DPF and further to propose the optimum DPF design. However, due to the geometrical complexity of the DPF, the traditional analysis method, such as analytical method, can not assess the acoustic performance of DPF accurately in medium and high frequency band. In this paper, a combined approach of finite element analysis and viscosity correction is proposed to predict acoustic performance of DPF. A simplified model of the full DPF is established and is used to analyze the sound propagation characteristic of the DPF. The distribution of the sound pressure and velocity, the transmission matrix of the DPF are obtained using the finite element method. In addition, the method of the viscosity correction is used in the transmission matrix of the DPF to evaluate the acoustic performance of DPF. Based on the FEM computation and the viscosity correction, the transmission losses under the rated load and idle condition of a diesel engine are calculated. The calculation results show that DPF can effectively attenuate exhaust noise, and sound attenuation increase with the rise of the frequency. Sound attenuation is better under rated condition than idle condition of diesel engine, particularly in frequency above 1 000 Hz.

Application of Improved LMD, SVD Technique and RVM to Fault Diagnosis of Diesel Valve Trains

Targeting the non-stationary characteristics of diesel engine vibration signals and the limitations of singular value decomposition(SVD) technique, a new method based on improved local mean decomposition(LMD), SVD technique and relevance vector machine(RVM) was proposed for the identification of diesel valve fault in this study. Firstly, the vibration signals were acquired through the vibration sensors installed on the cylinder head in one normal state and four fault states of valve trains. Secondly, an improved LMD method was used to decompose the non-stationary signals into a set of stationary product functions(PF), from which the initial feature vector matrices can be formed automatically. Then, the singular values were obtained by applying the SVD technique to the initial feature vector matrixes. Finally, slant binary tree and sort separability criterion were combined to determine the structure of multi-class RVM, and the singular values were regarded as the fault feature vectors of RVM in the identification of fault types of diesel valve clearance. The experimental results showed that the proposed fault diagnosis method can effectively extract the features of diesel valve clearance and identify the diesel valve fault accurately.

Analysis of Oil Consumption in Cylinder of Diesel Engine for Optimization of Piston Rings

The performance and particulate emission of a diesel engine are affected by the consumption of lubricating oil. Most studies on oil consumption mechanism of the cylinder have been done by using the experimental method, however they are very costly. Therefore, it is very necessary to study oil consumption mechanism of the cylinder and obtain the accurate results by the calculation method. Firstly, four main modes of lubricating oil consumption in cylinder are analyzed and then the oil consumption rate under common working conditions are calculated for the four modes based on an engine. Then, the factors that affect the lubricating oil consumption such as working conditions, the second ring closed gap, the elastic force of the piston rings are also investigated for the four modes. The calculation results show that most of the lubricating oil is consumed by evaporation on the liner surface. Besides, there are three other findings： （1） The oil evaporation from the liner is determined by the working condition of an engine; （2） The increase of the ring closed gap reduces the oil blow through the top ring end gap but increases blow-by; （3） With the increase of the elastic force of the ring, both the left oil film thickness and the oil throw-off at the top ring decrease. The oil scraping of the piston top edge is consequently reduced while the friction loss between the rings and the liner increases. A neural network prediction model of the lubricating oil consumption in cylinder is established based on the BP neural network theory, and then the model is trained and validated. The main piston rings parameters which affect the oil consumption are optimized by using the BP neural network prediction model and the prediction accuracy of this BP neural network is within 8%, which is acceptable for normal engineering applications. The oil consumption is also measured experimentally. The relative errors of the calculated and experimental values are less than 10%, verifying the validity of the simulation results. Applying the established simulation model and the validated BP network model is able to generate numerical results with sufficient accuracy, which significantly reduces experimental work and provides guidance for the optimal design of the piston rings diesel engines.

Identification of Axial Vibration Excitation Source in Vehicle Engine Crankshafts Using an Auto-regressive and Moving Average Model

Violent axial vibration of a vehicle engine crankshaft might lead to multiple defects to the engine.Much research on mechanism and control measures has been done on engines,such as using the dynamic stiffness matrix method,rayleigh differential method,and system matrix method.But the source of axial vibration has not been identified clearly because there are many excitation factors for the axial vibration of a crankshaft,such as coupled torsional-axial vibration and coupled bending-axial vibration,etc.In order to improve the calculation reliability and identify the excitation source of axial vibration of in vehicle engine crankshafts,this paper presents a method to identify the axial vibration excitation source of crankshafts for high speed diesel engines based on an auto-regressive and moving average（ARMA） model.Through determining initial moving average variables and measuring axial /bending/torsional vibrations of a crankshaft at the free-end of a 4-cylinder diesel engine,autoregressive spectrum analysis is applied to the measured vibration signal.The results show that the axial vibration of the crankshaft is mainly excited by coupled bending vibration at high speed.But at low speed,the axial vibration in some frequencies is excited primarily by torsional excitation.Through investigation of axial vibration source of engine crankshafts,calculation accuracy of vibration can be improved significantly.