Within the project “xME Diesel“ the alternative fuels dimethyl ether (DME) and methylal OME1) are investigated in a compression ignition engine. The goal of the project is to build a demonstrator vehicle for DME and OME1 as well as a heavy-duty engine for OME1. Furthermore, for DME the bivalency with Diesel is investigated. In order to achieve these goals first fundamental investigations are carried out in a high pressure chamber in order to characterize the mixture formation. Afterwards, the fuels are investigated in light-duty and heavy-duty single cylinder engines and the combustion process will be optimized.
In the present report the mixture formation investigations as well as the single cylinder results for OME1 in comparison to Diesel are presented. Here, different nozzle configurations are regarded in order to compensate the lower volumetric heating value of OME1.
The spray investigations showed a very short liquid penetration length for OME1 in comparison to Diesel. Furthermore, the liquid penetration length of OME1 using the larger nozzle was only increasing marginally. Opposed to that, the liquid penetration length of Diesel in combination with the larger nozzle was increasing strongly, which could lead to wetting of the piston’s turbulence ring. Due to the lower Cetane number (CN) of OME1 (CN = 26) a high variance of the ignition timing was observed.
The light-duty single cylinder investigations revealed a soot free combustion for OME1 for all investigated load points and nozzle configurations. However, for OME1 the combustion induced noise is increased due to the low Cetane number and the exhaust gas temperature is up to 100 °C lower compared to Diesel, due to the higher amount of injected fuel.
Due to the soot free combustion of OME1, the exhaust gas recirculation rates (EGR) were gradually increased up to stoichiometric operation. Thereby, the nitrous oxide emission could drastically be decreased throughout the whole engine load range and the use of a three-way catalyst for the exhaust gas treatment would be possible. However, due to the high EGR-rates the indicated efficiency is reduced by up to 3 % throughout the engine map and the methane emissions increase drastically. Therefore, the ERG-rates were decreased to achieve a relative air-fuel ratio of λ = 1.1. This led to a drastic reduction of nitrous oxides emissions as well which is beneficial for the SCR- or rather lean NOX trap system without having the high methane emissions and decreased in efficiency.
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Within the project “xME Diesel“ the alternative fuels dimethyl ether (DME) and methylal OME1) are investigated in a compression ignition engine. The goal of the project is to build a demonstrator vehicle for DME and OME1 as well as a heavy-duty engine for OME1. Furthermore, for DME the bivalency with Diesel is investigated. In order to achieve these goals first fundamental investigations are carried out in a high pressure chamber in order to characterize the mixture formation. Afterwards, the fu...
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