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Optical investigations on lean combustion improvement of natural gas engines via turbulence enhancement

通过提高湍流改善天然气发动机稀薄燃烧的光学研究

  • The 2nd World Congress on Internal Combustion Engines
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Abstract

In the global background of “Carbon Peak” and “Carbon Neutral”, natural gas engines show great advantages in energy-saving and pollution reduction. However, natural gas engines suffer from the issues of combustion instabilities when operating under lean burning conditions. In this paper, the role of turbulence enhancement in improving the lean combustion of natural gas was investigated in an optical SI engine with high compression ratios. Variable swirl control valves (SCV) were designed and intake tumble and swirl were combined to regulate turbulent motion and turbulent intensity. Particle image velocimetry was employed to measure in-cylinder turbulence, and transient pressure acquisition and high-speed photography were synchronously performed to quantify combustion evolutions. The results show that in-cylinder turbulent intensity is enhanced significantly through reducing SCV closing angles. Such that flame propagation speed and thermal efficiency are significantly improved with an increment of turbulent intensity, which indicated that mean effective pressures are not sensitive to spark timing. The analysis of flame images shows that the combined turbulence increases in the radial orientation from the spark plug to the cylinder wall, leading to an earlier flame kernel formation and a faster burning rate. Therefore, the combined turbulence has the potential in reducing the cyclic variations of lean combustion in natural gas engines.

摘要

在“碳达峰”和“碳中和”的全球背景下,天然气发动机在节能减排方面显示出巨大优势。然 而,天然气发动机在稀薄燃烧条件下运行时,存在燃烧稳定性较差的问题。本文在一台高压缩比的火 花点火光学机上探究了提高湍流对天然气稀薄燃烧的影响。设计了可变涡流控制阀(SCV),并结合进 气滚流和涡流来调节湍流方向和强度。采用粒子图像测速技术测量缸内湍流情况,并同步进行瞬态压 力采集和高速摄影以量化燃烧过程。结果表明,减小SCV闭合角可以显著提高缸内湍流强度。随着湍 流强度的增加,火焰传播速度和热效率显著提高,并且指示平均有效压力对火花正时不敏感。分析火 焰图像发现,沿火花塞到气缸壁的径向方向上组合式湍流逐步增强,导致火核形成更早和燃烧速率更 快。因此,组合式湍流具有降低天然气发动机稀薄燃烧循环变动的潜力。

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Engines, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300072, China

    Jin-guang Li  (李金光), Ren Zhang  (张韧), Peng-hui Yang  (杨鹏晖), Jia-ying Pan  (潘家营) & Hai-qiao Wei  (卫海桥)

  2. School of Optical Information and Energy Engineering, Wuhan Institute of Technology, Wuhan, 430205, China

    Lin Chen  (陈林)

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  1. Jin-guang Li  (李金光)
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  2. Ren Zhang  (张韧)
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Contributions

LI Jin-guang provided the concept and edited the draft of manuscript. ZHANG Ren and CHEN Lin analyzed the experimental results. YANG Peng-hui was responsible for designing the experimental scheme. PAN Jia-ying replied to reviewers’ comments and revised the final version. The main work of WEI Hai-qiao was to provide technical support.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jia-ying Pan  (潘家营).

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Conflict of interest

LI Jin-guang, ZHANG Ren, YANG Peng-hui, PAN Jia-ying, WEI Hai-qiao, and CHEN Lin declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Foundation item: Projects(52076149, 51825603) supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China

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Li, Jg., Zhang, R., Yang, Ph. et al. Optical investigations on lean combustion improvement of natural gas engines via turbulence enhancement. J. Cent. South Univ. 29, 2225–2238 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11771-022-4923-y

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