Automatic Chemistry Mechanism Reduction of Hydrocarbon Fuels for HCCI Engines Based on DRGEP and PCA Methods with Error Control

Abstract

The chemical kinetics of hydrocarbon fuels determines the combustion characteristics and pollutant emissions of homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) engines. Including comprehensive chemical mechanisms in HCCI engine models provides accurate predictive results that can be used to improve engine designs. However, a large number of simulations are usually required to optimize an HCCI engine, and the use of comprehensive chemical mechanisms is prohibitive. Furthermore, an increased demand for surrogate fuels that better represent real fuels has resulted in further increases in the size of chemical mechanisms as the carbon number of surrogate fuel species and the number of fuel components considered increases. Consequently, reduced mechanisms of smaller sizes, which are able to represent their corresponding comprehensive mechanisms over a wide range of conditions are necessary. This paper presents an approach that fully automates the process of reducing comprehensive chemical mechanisms of fuels for...