A regenerative multiple zone model for HCCI combustion

A new conserved scalar approach, the so-called regenerative multiple zone (RMZ) model, is introduced to simulate combustion in homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) engines with significant products of combustion. In this approach, two conserved scalars are introduced, the mixture fraction Z and the initial exhaust gas fraction J, to determine uniquely the state of the reactive system as a function of the two conserved scalars and time. For the numerical solution of the HCCI combustion, the conserved scalar plane is divided into different zones, which represent homogeneous reactors with constant initial exhaust gas level. Particularly, the zones are created based on the distribution of the initial exhaust gases and are mixed and regenerated at every time step during combustion in order to account for the history effects which are due to the finite rate chemistry. A proper methodology to create and initialize the new zones during the combustion, the so-called zone creation strategy (ZCS), is also proposed. For validation, the RMZ model is implemented in the 2DRD code, which is a computational fluid dynamics code that solves the governing equations for a two-dimensional reaction-diffusion problem. Initially, the consistency of the new model is validated in a one-dimensional reaction-diffusion (RD) case. Subsequently, the necessity for a proper zone creation strategy is demonstrated by a two-dimensional RD case. Next, a parametric study is performed to investigate the sensitivity of the new model on the maximum number of zones that is used. Finally, the limitations as well as the advantages of the RMZ model are discussed.