Isobaric Combustion at a Low Compression Ratio

In a previous study, it was shown that isobaric combustion cycle, achieved by multiple injection strategy, is more favorable than conventional diesel cycle for the double compression expansion engine (DCEE) concept. In spite of lower effective expansion ratio, the indicated efficiencies of isobaric cycles were approximately equal to those of a conventional diesel cycle. Isobaric cycles had lower heat transfer losses and higher exhaust losses which are advantageous for DCEE since additional exhaust energy can be converted into useful work in the expander. In this study, the performance of low-pressure isobaric combustion (IsoL) and high-pressure isobaric combustion (IsoH) in terms of gross indicated efficiency, energy flow distribution and engine-out emissions is compared to the conventional diesel combustion (CDC) but at a relatively lower compression ratio of 11.5. The experiments are conducted in a Volvo D13C500 single-cylinder heavy-duty engine using standard EU diesel fuel. The current study consists of two sets of experiments. In the first set, the effect of exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) is studied at different combustion modes using the same air-fuel ratio obtained from the preceding work. In the second set of experiments, different injection strategies are investigated for IsoL and IsoH combustion at constant and varying load conditions. From the results, it is found that isobaric combustion has similar or higher gross indicated efficiency than those of CDC. The exhaust losses are higher while the heat transfer losses are lower than CDC, which could be beneficial for DCEE concept. For isobaric cases, the NOx emissions were lower with higher uHC/CO/Soot emissions compared to CDC. From the injection strategy study, it was found that the gross indicated efficiency is highest with three injections i.e. at medium load. The efficiency is lower for both low and high load conditions due to increased exhaust and heat transfer losses, respectively. Also, the gross indicated efficiency is largely unchanged when more than one injection event is executed; however the IsoL yields higher overall emissions as compared to IsoH combustion.