MODELING DIESEL SPRAY IGNITION USING DETAILED CHEMISTRY WITH A PROGRESS VARIABLE APPROACH

Abstract

In this work, a progress variable approach is used to model diesel spray ignition with detailed chemistry. The flow field and the detailed chemistry are coupled using the flamelet assumption. A flamelet progress variable is transported by the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code. The progress variable source term is obtained from an unsteady flamelet library that is evaluated in each grid cell. The progress variable chosen is based on sensible enthalpy. By using an unsteady flamelet library for the progress variable, the impact of local effects, for example variations in the turbulence field, effects of wall heat transfer etc. on the autoignition chemistry can be considered on a cell level. The coupling between the unsteady flamelet library and the transport equation for total enthalpy follows the ideas of the representative interactive flamelet (RIF) approach. The method can be compared to having an interactive flamelet in each computational cell in the CFD grid. The results obtained using the proposed model are compared to results obtained using the RIF model. Differences are exhibited during the autoignition process. After ignition, the results obtained using the proposed model and RIF are virtually identical. The model was used to study lift-off lengths in sprays as function of nozzle diameter and injection pressure. A good agreement between model predictions and experimental trends was found.

Keywords:

• non-premixed combustion
• progress variable
• unsteady flamelets

Acknowledgments

The financial support from the Swedish Agency for Innovation Systems, Volvo Car Corp., Volvo Truck Corp. and Scania CV, within the framework of “GIHR − Grön Bil HCCI Horisontellt” is hereby acknowledged.