Experiments and modeling of fuel composition effects on diesel engine performance and emissions

The focus of this work is to evaluate the effects of oxygenated fuel blends on diesel engine performance and emissions. Experimental and computational studies on the effects of oxygenated fuel blends with #2 diesel fuel in conjunction with various high pressure injection schemes were conducted at both high and low load engine operating. The oxygenates used in this study were a long chained ester and ether. For the experiments, a large matrix of experiments were performed on a Caterpillar 3401 and a SCOTE DI Diesel engine. The matrix included a baseline certified #2 diesel fuel (DF) for reference, and ether and ester blends that were produced by blending the oxygenates in the certified DF in nearly equivalent oxygen mass quantities. The computational study was performed to provide insight into the factors controlling the formation of NO_x and soot. The KIVA-II engine code was used to model the experimental engine cases. In the computations, significant fuel parameters were addressed and modified to match the experimental fuels.