A system for injection of diesel fuel and water with realtime control, or real-time water injection (RTWI), was developed and applied to a heavy-duty diesel engine. The RTWI system featured electronic unit pumps that delivered metered volumes of water to electronic unit injectors (EUI) modified to incorporate the water addition passages. The water and diesel mixed in the injector tip such that the initial portion of the injection contained mostly diesel fuel, while the balance of the injection was a water and diesel mixture. With this hardware, realtime cycle-by-cycle control of water mass was used to mitigate soot formation during diesel combustion. Using RTWI alone, NOx emissions were reduced by 42%. Using high-pressure-loop exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) and conventional diesel combustion with RTWI, the NOx was reduced by 82%. Perhaps the most promising results obtained with the RTWI system were the simultaneous NOx and smoke reductions during a load step transient while realizing a faster torque rise than otherwise obtainable within smoke limits.

A system for coinjecting mixtures of diesel fuel and water into a heavy-duty diesel engine has been developed and evaluated at the Southwest Research Institute. This system features prototype Lucas electronically controlled injectors, full electronic control, and can vary the percentage of water in the mixture on a cycle-resolved basis. Tests of this system were conducted on a production Volvo D-12 engine, and have produced reduced NOx and smoke emissions over steady-state and transient conditions. Water-diesel coinjection yielded a considerable improvement in NOx-smoke and NOx-BSFC trade-offs under steady-state engine operation. In addition, control of the water percentage on a cycle-resolved basis was shown to be an effective method for mitigating NOx and smoke emissions over step-load transients. Results from this work show that a combination of aggressive EGR and diesel+water coinjection is very promising for producing very low levels of engine-out exhaust emissions, reducing the water storage requirements, and improving fuel efficiency. Further refinement of this injection technology is in progress.

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A system for co-injecting mixtures of diesel fuel and water into a heavy-duty diesel engine has been developed and evaluated at the Southwest Research Institute. This system features prototype Lucas EUI injectors, full electronic control, and can vary the percentage of water in the mixture on a cycle-resolved basis. Tests of this system were conducted on a production Volvo D-12 engine, and have produced very encouraging results. Water-diesel co-injection yielded a considerable improvement in NOx-smoke and NOx-BSFC trade-offs under steady-state engine operation. In addition, control of the water percentage on a cycle-resolved basis was shown to be an effective method for mitigating NOx and smoke emissions over step-load transients. Results from this work show that a combination of aggressive EGR and diesel+water co-injection is very promising for producing very low levels of engine-out exhaust emissions, reducing the water storage requirements, and improving fuel efficiency. Further refinement of this injection technology is in progress.

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