In a port-fuel-injected engine, the fuel is generally injected at the backside of a closed intake valve to take advantage of the warm valve and port surfaces for vaporization [22–24]. However, a large part of the injected spray is deposited on the intake manifold surfaces and forms a layer of liquid film on the valve and port surfaces. The film needs to be re-atomized by the shearing airflow as the intake valves open. If these fuel layers are not well atomized, they enter the cylinder as drops and ligaments [25–27]. These phenomena occur in varying degrees and depend upon the engine design, injector location and engine operation. Previous experiments on the same engine fuelled by gasoline and BU20 demonstrated that the injector sprayed the fuel towards the plate between the intake valves and on the intake valves stems [28–30]. The droplet impingement induced fuel layer formation on the intake manifold walls. The fuel layers were drawn by gravity to the valve head and gap, where they remained as film due to surface tension. The stripping of the squeezed fuel film created fuel deposits on the optical window. When the injection occurred in open-valve condition, part of the droplets was carried directly into the combustion chamber by the gas flow. These droplets, sucked in the combustion chamber, stuck on the cylinder walls. In both injection conditions, the fuel deposits on the combustion chamber walls created fuel-rich zones on the piston surfaces that influenced the composition of the mixture charge and, hence, the combustion process. During the normal combustion process, only a fraction of the fuel deposits was completely burned. Thus, more fuel should be injected to reach the selected air-fuel ratio measured at the exhaust [23].
In the open-valve injection, the fuel deposits amount and size were smaller than in the closed-valve injection; thus, the duration of injection resulted shorter [25, 29]. Regarding the difference in the injection duration, as with any alcohol, gasoline-butanol blends have a lower stoichiometric air-fuel ratio. Therefore, when using gasoline blended with butanol, fuel flow must be increased to ensure the same relative air-fuel ratio as with pure gasoline.
In order to estimate the effect on engine performance of the selected fuel injection conditions, IMEP and COVIMEP were evaluated as average on 100 consecutive engine cycles. For each spark timing, the IMEP variation was lower than 5% for all engine conditions and fuels. For each fuel, the IMEP of CV injection was higher than that of OV, in agreement with previous works [20, 29]. For BU20, the IMEP in the OV condition was higher than gasoline in OV condition and very close to gasoline in CV condition. This occurred because butanol-gasoline blend burns faster than pure gasoline at the same conditions, making higher the indicated efficiency of the engine work cycle. For BU20_OV, the best stability was measured too [7]. This concurs with the results reported in the works by Irimescu [31] and Yang et al. [32] in which, at full load, the power drop is significant only for butanol concentrations higher than 30% to 40%. About the spark timing effect, for gasoline fuel, the knocking limit was evaluated around 16 CAD BTDC for both fuel injection conditions.
For BU20, the knocking limit was evaluated around 18 CAD BTDC, and for BU40, it advanced until around 20 CAD BTDC. It means that butanol blend allowed working in more advanced spark timing without occurrence of knocking combustion. The COVIMEP increased with spark advance until reaching the highest value in knocking regime. From 16 CAD BTDC, the COVIMEP increased with retarding spark timing too. This result agrees with those reported in the works by Szwaja and Naber [7] and Morey and Seers [33]. It occurs because, when the ignition is too advanced, the cylinder temperature is comparatively low. Besides, the quite low and uneven mixture concentration near the spark plug brings negative influence on the flame kernel initiation and development. When the ignition is too delayed, the low combustion efficiency does harm to combustion stability. In this work, the optical results obtained at 14 CAD BTDC spark timing are discussed. This choice was done in order to evaluate the effect of selected fuels on the normal combustion process at comparable IMEP (±1%) with satisfactory engine stability. Cycle-resolved visualization was used for detailing thermal and fluid dynamic phenomena that occur in the combustion chamber. Figures 2 and 3 report images of cycle-resolved flame front evolution for gasoline, BU20 and BU40 in CV and OV conditions. The images' brightness and contrast were changed to enhance the kernel flame luminosity. The combustion process was visualized from the spark ignition until the flame front reached the cylinder walls. As expected, for gasoline [29, 31], after the evidence of the spark ignition, thanks to the plasma luminosity detected at 14 CAD BTDC, the flame front started as kernel from the spark plug, and then, it spread with radial-like behavior for around 6 to 10 CAD. Then, the flame front shape showed an asymmetry that induced the flame to reach first the cylinder wall in the exhaust valves region, around 20 CAD after the start of spark timing. This was due to the fuel film deposited on the intake valves and combustion chamber surfaces previously discussed. The fuel film develops dynamically under the effect of the gas flow, influencing mixture composition and combustion process. In fact, the flame propagation is influenced by the thermodynamic conditions, mixture composition and local turbulence intensity. When a flame propagates in the normal direction to a region with an equivalence ratio gradient, each part of the front evolves in a field with varying fuel concentration. This induces propagation speed variation along the flame front and an increase in flame wrinkling in comparison with the homogeneous case. A similar combustion process evolution was detected for both butanol blends.
In a port-fuel-injected engine, the fuel is generally injected at the backside of a closed intake valve to take advantage of the warm valve and port surfaces for vaporization [22–24]. However, a large part of the injected spray is deposited on the intake manifold surfaces and forms a layer of liquid film on the valve and port surfaces. The film needs to be re-atomized by the shearing airflow as the intake valves open. If these fuel layers are not well atomized, they enter the cylinder as drops and ligaments [25–27]. These phenomena occur in varying degrees and depend upon the engine design, injector location and engine operation. Previous experiments on the same engine fuelled by gasoline and BU20 demonstrated that the injector sprayed the fuel towards the plate between the intake valves and on the intake valves stems [28–30]. The droplet impingement induced fuel layer formation on the intake manifold walls. The fuel layers were drawn by gravity to the valve head and gap, where they remained as film due to surface tension. The stripping of the squeezed fuel film created fuel deposits on the optical window. When the injection occurred in open-valve condition, part of the droplets was carried directly into the combustion chamber by the gas flow. These droplets, sucked in the combustion chamber, stuck on the cylinder walls. In both injection conditions, the fuel deposits on the combustion chamber walls created fuel-rich zones on the piston surfaces that influenced the composition of the mixture charge and, hence, the combustion process. During the normal combustion process, only a fraction of the fuel deposits was completely burned. Thus, more fuel should be injected to reach the selected air-fuel ratio measured at the exhaust [23].
In the open-valve injection, the fuel deposits amount and size were smaller than in the closed-valve injection; thus, the duration of injection resulted shorter [25, 29]. Regarding the difference in the injection duration, as with any alcohol, gasoline-butanol blends have a lower stoichiometric air-fuel ratio. Therefore, when using gasoline blended with butanol, fuel flow must be increased to ensure the same relative air-fuel ratio as with pure gasoline.
In order to estimate the effect on engine performance of the selected fuel injection conditions, IMEP and COVIMEP were evaluated as average on 100 consecutive engine cycles. For each spark timing, the IMEP variation was lower than 5% for all engine conditions and fuels. For each fuel, the IMEP of CV injection was higher than that of OV, in agreement with previous works [20, 29]. For BU20, the IMEP in the OV condition was higher than gasoline in OV condition and very close to gasoline in CV condition. This occurred because butanol-gasoline blend burns faster than pure gasoline at the same conditions, making higher the indicated efficiency of the engine work cycle. For BU20_OV, the best stability was measured too [7]. This concurs with the results reported in the works by Irimescu [31] and Yang et al. [32] in which, at full load, the power drop is significant only for butanol concentrations higher than 30% to 40%. About the spark timing effect, for gasoline fuel, the knocking limit was evaluated around 16 CAD BTDC for both fuel injection conditions.
For BU20, the knocking limit was evaluated around 18 CAD BTDC, and for BU40, it advanced until around 20 CAD BTDC. It means that butanol blend allowed working in more advanced spark timing without occurrence of knocking combustion. The COVIMEP increased with spark advance until reaching the highest value in knocking regime. From 16 CAD BTDC, the COVIMEP increased with retarding spark timing too. This result agrees with those reported in the works by Szwaja and Naber [7] and Morey and Seers [33]. It occurs because, when the ignition is too advanced, the cylinder temperature is comparatively low. Besides, the quite low and uneven mixture concentration near the spark plug brings negative influence on the flame kernel initiation and development. When the ignition is too delayed, the low combustion efficiency does harm to combustion stability. In this work, the optical results obtained at 14 CAD BTDC spark timing are discussed. This choice was done in order to evaluate the effect of selected fuels on the normal combustion process at comparable IMEP (±1%) with satisfactory engine stability. Cycle-resolved visualization was used for detailing thermal and fluid dynamic phenomena that occur in the combustion chamber. Figures 2 and 3 report images of cycle-resolved flame front evolution for gasoline, BU20 and BU40 in CV and OV conditions. The images' brightness and contrast were changed to enhance the kernel flame luminosity. The combustion process was visualized from the spark ignition until the flame front reached the cylinder walls. As expected, for gasoline [29, 31], after the evidence of the spark ignition, thanks to the plasma luminosity detected at 14 CAD BTDC, the flame front started as kernel from the spark plug, and then, it spread with radial-like behavior for around 6 to 10 CAD. Then, the flame front shape showed an asymmetry that induced the flame to reach first the cylinder wall in the exhaust valves region, around 20 CAD after the start of spark timing. This was due to the fuel film deposited on the intake valves and combustion chamber surfaces previously discussed. The fuel film develops dynamically under the effect of the gas flow, influencing mixture composition and combustion process. In fact, the flame propagation is influenced by the thermodynamic conditions, mixture composition and local turbulence intensity. When a flame propagates in the normal direction to a region with an equivalence ratio gradient, each part of the front evolves in a field with varying fuel concentration. This induces propagation speed variation along the flame front and an increase in flame wrinkling in comparison with the homogeneous case. A similar combustion process evolution was detected for both butanol blends.
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