Abstract
Hydrogen-fuelled internal combustion engines (ICE) offer a zero-carbon fuel option for many ICE applications. As part of a global interest to characterise and study the behavior of hydrogen fuel in existing ICE applications Ricardo is collaborating with the University of Brighton to test hydrogen fuel in a Ricardo designed Proteus single cylinder engine. The engine is representative of a 13 litre Euro VI heavy duty (HD) production application converted to run on hydrogen fuel with minimal changes. The engine is fitted with a 35-bar direct injection (DI), hydrogen injector which gives improved flexibility for injection strategies and greatly reduces the presence of hydrogen in the intake system compared to a PFI system. Steady-state testing was carried out at an array of speed load points covering a large part of a typical heavy duty (HD) drive cycle area. An extract of the test results are shared and discussed in this paper. Lambda (λ) sweeps show the system is capable of running out to values exceeding λ = 5.0, exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) sweeps show over 40% EGR can be tolerated at given lambda conditions. Abnormal combustion events present sizeable challenges at lower lambdas due to very large knocking pressures and pre ignition risks. The lambda-threshold where the majority of these events are observed increases with speed and load thus narrowing the initial operating range of the engine prior to introducing mitigating measures like cooled EGR. The basic impact of lambda, EGR, injection and ignition timing sweeps are presented in this paper and show how the system responds to the corresponding changes in specific heat capacity, mixture preparation, and combustion phasing.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the University of Brighton for the use of their facilities and equipment as well as their collaboration and support in carrying out this extensive study. Finally, the authors would like to thank the Ricardo UK Test Operations team for their support and the wider Ricardo technical teams for their input and expertise in assisting with this study and paper.
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Glossary
ATDCF | After top dead centre firing | GISFC | Gross indicated fuel consumption |
ATS | Aftertreatment systems | GITE | Gross indicated thermal efficiency |
CA | Crank angle | HC | Hydrocarbon |
CFD | Computational fluid dynamics | HCD | Hydrogen Combustion Duration Sub-model |
CHG | Compressed hydrogen gas | ICE | Internal Combustion Engine |
CNG | Compressed natural gas | LNV | Lower normalised value |
CO | Carbon Monoxide | MFB | Mass fraction burned |
CO2 | Carbon dioxide | NOx | Nitrogen oxides |
COL | Carbon monoxide low range | PI | Preignition |
COV | Coefficient of variation | PPM | parts per million |
EGR | Exhaust Gas Recirculation | SCE | Single cylinder engine |
EQR | Equivalence ratio | TDC | Top dead centre |
GIMEP | Gross indicated mean effective pressure |
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© 2023 Der/die Autor(en), exklusiv lizenziert an Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, ein Teil von Springer Nature
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Hughes, J. et al. (2023). Assessment of a Direct-Injection, Spark-Ignited, Hydrogen-Fuelled Heavy-Duty Engine. In: Heintzel, A. (eds) Heavy-Duty-, On- und Off-Highway-Motoren 2022. HDENGI 2022. Proceedings. Springer Vieweg, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-41477-1_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-41477-1_5
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