Investigation on the Impact of Fuel Properties on Partially Premixed Combustion Characteristics in a Light Duty Diesel Engine

The impact of fuel composition on the emission performance and combustion characteristics for partially premixed combustion (PPC) were examined for four fuels in the gasoline boiling range together with Swedish diesel MK1. Experiments were carried out at 8 bar IMEP_g and 1500 rpm with 53±1% EGR and λ = 1.5. This relation gave inlet mole fractions of approximately 5% CO₂ and 13% O₂. The combustion phasing was adjusted by means of start of injection (SOI), for all fuels, over the range with stable combustion and acceptable pressure rise rate combined with maintained λ, EGR ratio, inlet pressure, and load. The operating range was limited by combustion instability for the high RON fuels, while MK1 and the low RON fuels could be operated over the whole MBT plateau. The largest difference in engine-out emissions between the fuels was the filtered smoke number (FSN), as the gasoline fuels produced a much lower FSN value than MK1. Higher RON value gave higher levels of carbon monoxide (CO) and unburned hydrocarbon (HC) for the gasoline fuels, while MK1 had the lowest levels of these emissions.