Combustion Optimization of a Premixed Ultra-Lean Blend of Natural Gas and Hydrogen in a Dual Fuel Engine Running at Low Load

The numerical study presented in this article is based on an automotive diesel engine (2.8 L, 4-cylinder, turbocharged), considering a NG–H2 blend with 30 vol% of H2, ignited by multiple diesel fuel injections. The 3D-CFD investigation aims at improving BTE, CO, and UHC emissions at low load, by means of an optimization of the diesel fuel injection strategy and of the in-cylinder turbulence (swirl ratio, SR). The operating condition is 3000 rpm – BMEP = 2 bar, corresponding to about 25% of the maximum load of a gen-set engine, able to deliver up to 83 kW at 3000 rpm (rated speed). The reference diesel fuel injection strategy, adopted in all the previous numerical and experimental studies, is a three-shot mode. The numerical optimization carried out in this study consisted in finding the optimal number of injections per cycle, as well as the best timing of each injection and the fuel mass split among the injections. The analysis revealed that combustion can be improved by increasing the local concentration of the more reactive fuel (diesel): in detail, the best strategy is a two-shot mode, with SOI1 = −35°CA AFTDC and SOI2 = −20°CA AFTDC, injecting 70% of the total diesel fuel mass at the first shot. As far as the SR is concerned, the best compromise between performance and emissions was found for a relatively low SR = 1.4. The optimization permitted to extract the full potential of the H2 enrichment in the DF H2/NG–diesel combustion also at low loads: in comparison to the DF NG case, combustion efficiency, and gross indicated thermal efficiency have been improved by 45.7% and 61.0%, respectively; CO- and UHC-specific emissions have been reduced by about 85.0%. Comparing CDC to the optimized DF 30 vol% H2/NG–diesel case, soot emissions are completely canceled, CO2-specific emissions have been reduced by approximately 42.0%, NOx-specific emissions by 33.8%. However, further work has to be done in order to reach comparable values of HC and CO, which are still higher than in a standard diesel combustion.