Numerical Studies of Combustion Recession on ECN Diesel Spray A

Abstract

It is known that low-temperature combustion (LTC) strategies can help simultaneously reduce nitrogen oxides (NOx) and particulate matter (PM) emissions from diesel engines to very low levels. However, it is also known that LTC may cause emissions of unburned hydrocarbons (UHC) to rise — especially in low load operating conditions. Recent studies indicate that end-of-injection (EOI) processes may support ignition recession back to injector nozzle thereby helping to reduce these emissions. This paper contributes to the physical understanding of this EOIphe-nomenon, combustion recession, using computational fluid dynamics studies at LTC conditions. Simulations are performed on a single-hole injection of n-dodecane under a range of Engine Combustion Network’s “Spray A” conditions. The primary objective of this paper is to assess the ability of a Flamelet Generated Manifold (FGM) combustion model to predict and characterize combustion recession. First, a baseline condition FGM simulation is compared with two other combustion models namely the Well Stirred model (WSR), the Representative Interactive Flamelet model (RIF) using the commercially-available CFD solver, CONVERGE. Further studies were carried out for FGM model alone including: varying ambient temperature conditions and chemical mechanisms. Two chemical kinetics mechanisms with low temperature chemistry for n-dodecane are employed to help to predict the occurrence of combustion recession. All simulations are performed under the Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) framework in a grid-converged Lagrangian spray scenario. The simulation of combustion recession is qualitatively validated against experimental data from literature and the efficacy of each model in predicting combustion recession is evaluated. Overall, it was found that the FGM model was able to capture the combustion recession phenomenon well — showing particular strength in predicting distinct auto-ignition events in the near nozzle region.