Experimental study on the effect of stoichiometric air/fuel ratio of three binary oxygenated fuel blends on combustion and emissions of a heavy duty Diesel engine

Low Temperature Combustion (LTC) is believed to be the best solution to the Diesel NOx and soot emissions trade-off: the latest development in LTC methods is PPC (Partially Premixed Combustion) which can be considered as a combination of Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) and conventional Diesel combustion. The increasing interest in high-octane alternative fuels, such as alcohols and aromatic compounds, leads to investigate their combustion behaviour, in order to develop cleaner fuels, making another small step towards new cleaner engines. In this thesis, three binary oxygenated fuel blends are selected, with the aim of studying how their molecular structures and stoichiometric air-fuel ratio influenced the combustion performances and emissions of a truck heavy-duty Diesel engine. The first part describes the fundamental elements of LTC and gives a background on the typical Diesel combustion emissions, with the description of the alternative test fuels of this research. The second part is about the engine setup, with particular attention towards the emission measurement and data acquisition systems. The third part gives a background on the important parameters of this research, mostly combustion control parameters: it is fundamental to understand the test results, which are presented in the final part of the thesis. This master thesis project has been developed in collaboration with the “Multiphase and reactive flows” research group at TU/e, Eindhoven University of Technology, in the Netherlands.