2D CFD Simulation of Water Injection Strategies in a Large Marine Engine

Abstract

A two-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (2D CFD) simulation of a low-speed two-stroke marine engine simulation was performed in order to investigate the performance of 2D meshes that allow the use of more complex chemical schemes and pollutant formation analysis. Various mesh density simulations were compared with a 3D mesh simulation and with the experimentally obtained cylinder pressure. A heavy fuel model and a soot model were implemented in the software. Finally, the influences of three water injection strategies were simulated and evaluated in order to investigate the capability of the model and the influence of water injection on NOx formation, soot formation, and engine performance. We conclude that the direct water injection strategy reduces NOx emissions without adversely affecting the engine performance or soot emissions. The other two strategies—Intake air humidification and direct injection of fuel–water emulsion—reduced NOx emissions but at the cost of higher soot emissions or reduced engine performance.