Optical Diagnostics of Isooctane and n-Heptane Isobaric Combustion

Isobaric combustion has demonstrated a great potential to reach high thermodynamic efficiency in the advanced Double Compression Expansion Engine (DCEE) concept. It appears as one of few viable choices for applications with high-pressure combustion. At these conditions, releasing heat at a constant pressure minimizes the peak in-cylinder pressure and, hence, mitigates excessive mechanical stress on the engine. This study focuses on the effect of fuels on the multiple-injection isobaric combustion. A single-cylinder heavy-duty engine was utilized to test and compare the isobaric combustion with pure isooctane and n-heptane fuels. The engine was equipped with an optical piston to allow a bottom-view of the combustion chamber. The interactions of multiple injections and the combustion behavior were studied using high-speed acquisition of chemiluminescence. The examined isobaric cases have a peak pressure of 70 bar. For cases with high soot luminosity, a short band-pass filter was used to avoid image saturation. Fuels with short ignition delay time such as n-heptane are usually used for isobaric applications as they offer good controllability of injections. However, the study herein demonstrates that isobaric combustion can be achieved even with high octane number fuels such as isooctane. The dwell time between injections is much larger for isooctane, which allows enhanced mixing of the fuel jets with air and thus a partially premixed combustion behavior. The high-speed imaging demonstrated evidence of flame extinguishing during the sequential injection of n-heptane. This contributes to the staging of the heat release rate.