Phenomenological modeling of combustion and NOx emissions using detailed tabulated chemistry methods in diesel engines

Enhancing the predictive quality of engine models, while maintaining an affordable computational cost, is of great importance. In this study, a phenomenological combustion and a tabulated NOx model, focusing on efficient modeling and improvement of computational effort, is presented. The proposed approach employs physical and chemical sub-models for local processes such as injection, spray formation, ignition, combustion, and NOx formation, being based on detailed tabulated chemistry methods. The applied combustion model accounts for the turbulence-controlled as well as the chemistry-controlled combustion. The phenomenological combustion model is first assessed for passenger car application, especially with multiple pilot injections and high exhaust gas recirculation ratios for low-load operating points. The validation results are presented for representative operating conditions from a single-cylinder light-duty diesel engine and over the entire engine map of a heavy-duty diesel engine. In the second part of this study, a novel approach for accurate and very fast modeling of NO formation in combustion engines is proposed. The major focus of this study is on the development of a very fast-running NO mechanism for usage in the next generation of the engine control units. This approach is based on tabulation of a detailed chemical kinetic mechanism and is validated against the detailed chemical reaction mechanism at all engine-relevant conditions with the variation in pressure, temperature, and air-fuel ratio under stationary and ramp-type transient conditions in a perfectly stirred reactor. Using this approach, a very good match to the results from calculations with the detailed chemical mechanism is observed. Finally, the tabulated NOx kinetic model is implemented in the combustion model for in-cylinder NOx prediction and compared with the experimental engine measurement data. © 2015 Institution of Mechanical Engineers.