Study of diesel-fuelled homogeneous charge compression ignition combustion by in-cylinder early fuel injection and negative valve overlap

Abstract

This paper presents a scheme to achieve diesel-fuelled homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) combustion, which is to inject diesel fuel directly into the cylinder at near intake top dead centre and adjust the valve overlap to obtain a higher internal exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) in the cylinder. The effects of the engine load, speed, inlet temperature, external EGR, and internal EGR on HCCI combustion and emission were studied. The combustion stability of HCCI combustion was also studied by statistics analysis. The results show the following: when the engine load or inlet temperature increases, which results in a higher in-cylinder temperature, the start of combustion (SOC) is advanced; the ignition time of HCCI relative to the engine crank angle is retarded when the engine speed increases; inert gases contained in the EGR can slow the chemical reaction rate, which can delay the auto ignition time; for the diesel-fuelled HCCI, increasing the negative valve overlap (NVO) makes the SOC advanced and makes the combustion stability better at low loads and worse at high loads. The emission results show that the nitrogen oxides (NOx) and smoke emissions are very low, and a large NVO can decrease the smoke emission but not benefit the NOx emission at high loads for diesel-fuelled HCCI combustion.