Application of a Genetic Algorithm to the Optimization of Rate Constants in Chemical Kinetic Models for Combustion Simulation of HCCI Engines

Abstract

For numerically predicting the combustion processes in homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) engines, practical chemical kinetic models have been explored. A genetic algorithm (GA) has been applied to the optimization of the rate constants in detailed chemical kinetic models, and a detailed kinetic model (592 reactions) for gasoline reference fuels with arbitrary octane number between 60 and 100 has been obtained from the detailed reaction schemes for iso-octane and n-heptane proposed by Golovitchev. The ignition timing in a gasoline HCCI engine has been predicted reasonably well by zero-dimensional simulation using the CHEMKIN code with this detailed kinetic model. An original reduced reaction scheme (45 reactions) for dimethyl ether (DME) has been derived from Curran’s detailed scheme, and the combustion process in a DME HCCI engine has been predicted reasonably well in a practical computation time by three-dimensional simulation using the authors’ GTT code, which has been linked to the CHEMKIN subroutines with the proposed reaction scheme and also has adopted a modified eddy dissipation combustion model.