Simulation of SI-HCCI Transition in a Two-Stroke Free Piston Engine Fuelled with Hydrogen

Abstract

>> A free piston linear engine could be operated under HCCI combustion due to its variable compression ratios. To obtain HCCI combustion, the free piston linear engine needs a high compression ratio to achieve auto-ignition of the fuel/air mixture. In this study, an idea for obtaining a high compression ratio using the transition from SI combustion to HCCI combustion was proposed. The fuel used in this study is hydrogen, which is considered to be an environmentally friendly fuel. Besides, the effects of key parameters such as equivalence ratio (ϕ), load resistance (RL) and intake temperature (Tin) on the SI-HCCI transition were numerically investigated. The simulation results show that the SI-HCCI transition is successful without any significant reduction of in-cylinder pressure as the intake temperature is increased from Tin=300K (SI mode) to Tin=450K (HCCI mode), while the load resistance and equivalence ratio are retained respectively at RL=120Ω and ϕ=0.6 in both SI mode and HCCI mode.