Numerical investigation of injection parameters and piston bowl geometries on emission and thermal performance of DI diesel engine

Abstract

AbstractTightening noose on engine emission norms compelled manufacturers globally to design engines with low emission specially NOx and soot without compromising their performance. Amongst various parameters, shape of piston bowls, injection pressure and nozzle diameter are known to have significant influence over the thermal performance and emission emanating from the engine. This paper investigates the combined effect of fuel injection parameters such as pressure at which fuel is injected and the injection nozzle size along with shape of piston bowl on engine emission and performance. Numerical simulation is carried out using one cylinder naturally aspirated diesel engine using AVL FIRE commercial code. Three geometries of piston bowls with different tumble and swirl characteristics are considered while maintaining the volume of piston bowl, compression ratio, engine speed and fuel injected mass constant along with equal number of variations for injection nozzle size and pressures for this analysis. The investigation corroborates that high swirl and large turbulence kinetic energy (TKE) are crucial for better combustion. TKE and equivalence ratio also increased as the injection pressure increases during the injection period, hence, enhances combustion and reduces soot formation. Increase in nozzle diameter produces higher TKE and equivalence ratio, while CO and soot emission are found to be decreasing and NOx formation to be increasing. Further, optimization is carried out for twenty-seven cases created by combining fuel injection parameters and piston bowl geometries. The case D2H1P1 (H1 = 0.2 mm, P1 = 200 bar) found to be an optimum case because of its lowest emission level with slightly better performance.