Pressure sensitivity of HCCI auto-ignition temperature for gasoline surrogate fuels

An index to relate fuel properties to HCCI auto-ignition would be valuable to predict the performance of fuels in HCCI engines from their properties and composition. The indices for SI engines, the Research Octane Number (RON) and Motor Octane Number (MON) are known to be insufficient to explain the behavior of oxygenated fuels in an HCCI engine. One way to characterize a fuel is to use the Auto-Ignition Temperature (AIT). The AIT can be extracted from the pressure trace. Another potentially interesting parameter is the amount of Low Temperature Heat Release (LTHR) that is closely connected to the ignition properties of the fuel. A systematic study of fuels consisting of gasoline surrogate components of n-heptane, iso-octane, toluene, and ethanol was made. 21 fuels were prepared with RON values ranging from 67 to 97. Five different inlet air temperatures ranging from 50°C to 150°C were used to achieve different cylinder pressures and the compression ratio was changed accordingly to keep a constant combustion phasing, CA50, of 3±1° after TDC. The experiments were carried out in lean operation with a constant equivalence ratio of 0.33 and with a constant engine speed of 600 rpm. The effect of ethanol and toluene on the LTHR was evaluated. The conclusion was that ethanol had a quenching effect, which is consistent with other studies. Toluene was found only to have a quenching effect at the lowest inlet air temperature. The AIT and the amount of LTHR for different combinations of n-heptane, iso-octane, ethanol and toluene were charted.