A nonlinear stability analysis has been carried out for plane liquid sheets moving in a gas medium at rest by a perturbation expansion technique with the initial amplitude of the disturbance as the perturbation parameter. The first, second and third order governing equations have been derived along with appropriate initial and boundary conditions which describe the characteristics of the fundamental, and the first and second harmonics. The results indicate that for an initially sinusoidal sinuous surface disturbance, the thinning and subsequent breakup of the liquid sheet is due to nonlinear effects with the generation of higher harmonics as well as feedback into the fundamental. In particular, the first harmonic of the fundamental sinuous mode is varicose, which causes the eventual breakup of the liquid sheet at the half-wavelength interval of the fundamental wave. The breakup time (or length) of the liquid sheet is calculated, and the effect of the various flow parameters is investigated. It is found that the breakup time (or length) is reduced by an increase in the initial amplitude of disturbance, the Weber number and the gas-to-liquid density ratio, and it becomes asymptotically insensitive to the variations of the Weber number and the density ratio when their values become very large. It is also found that the breakup time (or length) is a very weak function of the wavenumber unless it is close to the cut-off wavenumbers.

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The aim of this study is to investigate in details the effects of a number of combustion parameters to optimize the reactivity controlled compression ignition operation running on natural gas and diesel fuel. In the present work, a singlecylinder heavy-duty diesel engine with a specially modified bathtub piston bowl profile for reactivity controlled compression ignition operation is studied and simulated through commercial software. A broad load range from 5.6 to 13.5 bar indicated mean effective pressure at a constant engine speed of 1300 r/min, fixed amount of diesel fuel mass, and with no exhaust gas recirculation is considered. The results from the developed model confirm that the model can accurately simulate the reactivity controlled compression ignition combustion. Also, by focusing on the time of formation of certain important radicals in combustion, the start of combustion and the time of natural gas dissociation are accurately predicted. Furthermore, the influence of some parameters such as different diesel fuel injection strategies, intake temperature, and intake pressure on the reactivity controlled compression ignition combustion is evaluated and the limitation of the engine operation at low temperature combustion is investigated.

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Engine control algorithms are among the most important factors that affect engine performance and emission. Developing control algorithms would improve engine performance, fuel consumption and emission levels. On the other hand, time and cost reduction of controller development is becoming an ever increasing demand. To meet these demands, more advanced engine models and better controller development processes are essential. Therefore, those models with good accuracy together with high calculation speed and fewest numbers of tests for calibration are most suitable. The mean value engine models are developed to meet these criteria. The governing equations for these models are simple and relatively easy to calibrate. The main purpose of this work was to simplify the equations of such a model, decrease the number of calibration tests and improve model accuracy. Simpler equations are used for the calculation of air mass flow at the throttle body and cylinder ports. To increase the accuracy of the manifold pressure calculations, two different relations are proposed and the results are compared. Also a set of equations is presented for rotational dynamics. Then the accuracy of the developed model is examined through the experimental works carried out on the engine of a locally manufactured vehicle called Samand.

Homogenous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) combustion is a promising concept to reduce engine emissions and fuel consumption. In this paper, a thermo-kinetic model is developed to study the operating characteristics of a natural gas HCCI engine. The zero-dimensional single zone model consist detail chemical kinetics of natural gas oxidation including 325 reactions with 53 chemical species, and is validated with experimental results of reference works for two different engines, Volvo TD 100 and Caterpillar 3500, in 5 operating conditions. Then, the influence of parameters such as manifold temperature/pressure and equivalence ratio on in-cylinder temperature/pressure trends and start of combustion is studied. Measurements for Volvo engine show that SOC occurs 3–5 CAD earlier with every 15K increase in initial temperature. These whole results are explained in detail to describe the engine performance thoroughly.

The aim of this study is to implement the multi-input–multi-output optimization of reactivity-controlled compression-ignition combustion in a heavy-duty diesel engine running on natural gas and diesel fuel. A single-cylinder heavy-duty diesel engine with a modified bathtub piston bowl profile is set on operation at 9.4 bar indicated mean effective pressure and running at a fixed engine speed of 1300 r/min. A certain amount of diesel fuel mass per cycle is fed into the engine at a fixed equivalence ratio without any exhaust gas recirculation. The optimization targets include reduction in engine emissions as much as possible, avoiding diesel knock occurrence, and achieving low temperature combustion concept with the least or no engine power losses. To implement the optimization, the effects of three control factors on the engine performance are assessed by the design of experiment concept—fractional factorial method. These selected control factors are intake temperature and intake pressure (both at intake valve closing) and the diesel fuel start of injection timing. Some randomized treatment combinations of chosen levels from the three selected control factors are employed to simulate reactivity-controlled compression-ignition combustion. Based on the engine’s responses derived from the simulation, reactivity-controlled compression-ignition combustion’s mathematical model is identified directly using an artificial neural network. Next, an optimization process is conducted using two different optimization algorithms, namely, genetic algorithm and particle swarm optimization algorithm. For assessing and validating the obtained optimal results, the obtained data are used to simulate reactivity-controlled compression-ignition combustion as the engine input factors. The results show that the proposed artificial neural network design is effectively capable of identifying reactivity-controlled compression-ignition combustion’s mathematical model. Also, by optimizing reactivity-controlled compression-ignition combustion through different optimization algorithms, the optimal range of the engine operation at 9.4 bar indicated mean effective pressure is well estimated and extended.