Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item:
https://hdl.handle.net/2440/112852
Citations | ||
Scopus | Web of ScienceĀ® | Altmetric |
---|---|---|
?
|
?
|
Type: | Theses |
Title: | Performance of petrodiesel and biodiesel fuelled engines: a fundamental study of physical and chemical effects |
Author: | Cai, Gary |
Issue Date: | 2016 |
School/Discipline: | School of Mechanical Engineering |
Abstract: | In this work, biodiesel and petrodiesel combustion is studied under conditions that represent those in an engine at top-dead-centre. The primary focus of this study is on improving the understanding of biodiesel feedstock properties on spray structure, understanding the effect of strain on soot formation in biodiesel and petrodiesel combustion using a kinetics-based soot model, developing a simplified soot model that can model soot formation in both biodiesel and petrodiesel combustion, and applying the model to study soot formation in sprays. The differences in feedstock properties primarily affect the liquid phase penetration. It is shown that liquid penetration is influenced by entrainment rate, vapour pressure, and the average droplet size, in decreasing order of influence. The vapour-phase penetration and mixture fraction distribution in the sprays are not significantly influenced by the changes in feedstock properties. Kinetic mechanisms for the oxidation of surrogate fuels for biodiesel and diesel and for soot formation are employed in the study. A one-dimensional flamelet code is employed to investigate the response of the soot formation to changes in scalar dissipation rate. The soot formation in biodiesel combustion is found to be more sensitive to changes in scalar dissipation rate. This suggests that increasing turbulence in a biodiesel-fuelled engine is likely to have a greater impact on soot emissions than in a petrodiesel-fuelled engine. Through a reaction pathway analysis, it is found that the differences in soot are on account of differences in the concentration of the aromatic species. Critical kinetic pathways and important species responsible for soot formation are identified for the fuels. Having identified the critical species and pathways, a semi-empirical two-equation soot model is developed to model soot in both hydrocarbon diesel and biodiesel combustion. Results from the kinetic soot formation model are employed to calibrate the constants of the semi-empirical model. To the best knowledge of the author, this is the first soot model formulated that can model soot formation in the combustion of both fuels. The semi-empirical model is implemented in an in-house Reynolds-averaged Navier Stokes (RANS) multi-dimensional spray code and employed to predict soot in biodiesel and diesel sprays. The computed spray results are compared with available measurements in the literature. Compared to the performance of another well-validated semi-empirical two-equation soot model, the soot model developed in this work is shown to better predict soot in both biodiesel and diesel sprays. |
Advisor: | Abraham, John Dally, Bassam B. Tian, Zhao Feng Motheau, Emmanuel |
Dissertation Note: | Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Mechanical Engineering, 2016. |
Keywords: | biodiesel feedstocks biodiesel combustion reacting diesel jets two-equation soot modelling |
Provenance: | This electronic version is made publicly available by the University of Adelaide in accordance with its open access policy for student theses. Copyright in this thesis remains with the author. This thesis may incorporate third party material which has been used by the author pursuant to Fair Dealing exceptions. If you are the owner of any included third party copyright material you wish to be removed from this electronic version, please complete the take down form located at: http://www.adelaide.edu.au/legals |
DOI: | 10.4225/55/5b21c73895944 |
Appears in Collections: | Research Theses |
Files in This Item:
File | Description | Size | Format | |
---|---|---|---|---|
01front.pdf | 503.96 kB | Adobe PDF | View/Open | |
02whole.pdf | 3.25 MB | Adobe PDF | View/Open | |
Permissions Restricted Access | Library staff access only | 264.99 kB | Adobe PDF | View/Open |
Restricted Restricted Access | Library staff access only | 3.44 MB | Adobe PDF | View/Open |
Items in DSpace are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.