On the Turbulence-Chemistry Interaction of an HCCI Combustion Engine

A numerical study was carried out to evaluate the influence of engine combustion chamber geometry and operating conditions on the performance and emissions of a homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) engine. Combustion in an HCCI engine is a very complex phenomenon that is influenced by several factors that need to be controlled, such as gas temperature, heat transfer, turbulence and auto-ignition of the gas mixture. An eddy dissipation concept (EDC) combustion model was used to take into account the interaction between turbulence and chemistry. The model assumed that reactions occur in small turbulent structures called fine-scales, whose characteristic lengths and times depend mainly on the turbulence level. The model parameters were slightly modified with respect to the standard model proposed by Magnussen, to correctly simulate the characteristics of the HCCI combustion process. A reduced iso-octane chemical mechanism with 186 species and 914 chemical reactions was employed together with a sub-mechanism for NOx. The model was validated by comparing the results with available experimental data in terms of pressure and instantaneous heat release rate. Two engine chamber geometries with and without a cavity in the piston were considered, respectively. The two engines provided significant differences in terms of fluid-dynamic patterns and turbulence intensity levels in the combustion chamber. The results show that combustion started earlier and proceeded faster for the flat piston, leading to an increase in both the peak pressure and gross indicated mean effective pressure, as well as a reduction of CO and UHC emissions. An additional analysis was performed by considering a case without swirl for the flat-piston case. Such an analysis shows that the swirl motion reduces the time duration of combustion and slightly increases the gross indicated work per cycle.