Superior fuel economy, higher torque and durability have led to the diesel engine being widely used in a variety of fields of application, such as road transport, agricultural vehicles, earth moving machines and marine propulsion, as well as fixed installations for electrical power generation. However, diesel engines are plagued by high emissions of nitrogen oxides (NO_x), particulate matter (PM) and carbon dioxide when conventional fuel is used. One possible solution is to use low-carbon gaseous fuel alongside diesel fuel by operating in a dual-fuel (DF) configuration, as this system provides a low implementation cost alternative for the improvement of combustion efficiency in the conventional diesel engine. An initial step in this direction involved the replacement of diesel fuel with natural gas. However, the consequent high levels of unburned hydrocarbons produced due to non-optimized engines led to a shift to carbon-free fuels, such as hydrogen. Hydrogen can be injected into the intake manifold, where it premixes with air, then the addition of a small amount of diesel fuel, auto-igniting easily, provides multiple ignition sources for the gas. To evaluate the efficiency and pollutant emissions in dual-fuel diesel-hydrogen combustion, a numerical CFD analysis was conducted and validated with the aid of experimental measurements on a research engine acquired at the test bench. The process of ignition of diesel fuel and flame propagation through a premixed air-hydrogen charge was represented the Autoignition-Induced Flame Propagation model included ANSYS-Forte software. Because of the inefficient operating conditions associated with the combustion, the methodology was significantly improved by evaluating the laminar flame speed as a function of pressure, temperature and equivalence ratio using Chemkin-Pro software. A numerical comparison was carried out among full hydrogen, full methane and different hydrogen-methane mixtures with the same energy input in each case. The use of full hydrogen was characterized by enhanced combustion, higher thermal efficiency and lower carbon emissions. However, the higher temperatures that occurred for hydrogen combustion led to higher NO_x emissions.

Compression ignition engines will still be predominant in the naval sector: their high efficiency, high torque, and heavy weight perfectly suit the demands and architecture of ships. Nevertheless, recent emission legislations impose limitations to the pollutant emissions levels in this sector as well. In addition to post-treatment systems, it is necessary to reduce some pollutant species, and, therefore, the study of combustion strategies and new fuels can represent valid paths for limiting environmental harmful emissions such as CO₂. The use of methane in dual fuel mode has already been implemented on existent vessels, but the progressive decarbonization will lead to the utilization of carbon-neutral or carbon-free fuels such as, in the last case, hydrogen. Thanks to its high reactivity nature, it can be helpful in the reduction of exhaust CH₄. On the contrary, together with the high temperatures achieved by its oxidation, hydrogen could cause uncontrolled ignition of the premixed charge and high emissions of NO_x. As a matter of fact, a source of ignition is still necessary to have better control on the whole combustion development. To this end, an optimal and specific injection strategy can help to overcome all the before-mentioned issues. In this study, three-dimensional numerical simulations have been performed with the ANSYS Forte^® software (version 19.2) in an 8.8 L dual fuel engine cylinder supplied with methane, hydrogen, or hydrogen–methane blends with reference to experimental tests from the literature. A new kinetic mechanism has been used for the description of diesel fuel surrogate oxidation with a set of reactions specifically addressed for the low temperatures together with the GRIMECH 3.0 for CH₄ and H₂. This kinetics scheme allowed for the adequate reproduction of the ignition timing for the various mixtures used. Preliminary calculations with a one-dimensional commercial code were performed to retrieve the initial conditions of CFD calculations in the cylinder. The used approach demonstrated to be quite a reliable tool to predict the performance of a marine engine working under dual fuel mode with hydrogen-based blends at medium load. As a result, the system modelling shows that using hydrogen as fuel in the engine can achieve the same performance as diesel/natural gas, but when hydrogen totally replaces methane, CO₂ is decreased up to 54% at the expense of the increase of about 76% of NO_x emissions.

The work presents a study of a marine four-stroke medium speed engine fueled by methanol. This study arises from the current interest in developing marine engines with alternative fuels, such as methanol, verifying performance and polluting emissions, in particular CO 2 which also represents a cause of concern in the naval sector. Methanol is considered as a renewable energy source which features some better physicochemical properties compared to the traditional fossil fuels. In fact, methanol has higher laminar flame speed and wide lean-burn limitation, potentially reducing nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide and unburned hydrocarbon emissions with a higher combustion efficiency. The used approach is based initially on a zero-dimensional model developed in Matlab©-Simulink© language and subsequently on a one-dimensional model through a commercial code that allows the entire engine to be simulated. The results provide the initial conditions for an in-cylinder CFD calculation, via the ANSYS FORTE® code, to study combustion in detail using an alternative fuel such as methanol and introducing adequate kinetic mechanisms. The obtained outcomes are compared with data referring to the same engine fueled by natural gas, available in the engine project guide.

Although in the latest years the use of compression ignition engines has been a thread of discussion in the automotive field, it is possible to affirm that it still will be a fundamental producer of mechanical power in other sectors, such as naval and off-road applications. However, the necessity of reducing emissions requires to keep on studying new solutions for this kind of engine. Dual fuel combustion concept with methane has demonstrated to be effective in preserving the performance of the original engine and reducing soot, but issues related to the low flame speed forced researcher to find an alternative fuel at low impact of CO₂. Hydrogen, thanks to its chemical and physical properties, can be a perfect candidate to ensure a good level of combustion efficiency; however, this is possible only with a proper management of the in-cylinder mixture ignition by means of a pilot injection, preventing uncontrolled autoignition events as well. Moreover, an effective injection strategy can be beneficial for a further reduction of carbonous pollutants from the diesel fuel pilot. Therefore, this work is aimed to numerically analyze the sensitivity of the combustion development in a diesel engine converted to operate in dual fuel mode, where hydrogen is injected in the intake manifold and diesel pilot is directly injected in the cylinder. Starting from a test case at a constant engine speed of 2000 rpm experimentally validated, numerical simulations are carried out with the software ANSYS Forte, using a Turbulence-Kinetics interaction model and the Autoinduced Ignition Flame Propagation model for diesel and hydrogen, respectively. Lookup tables were specifically implemented for the evaluation of the laminar flame speed through H₂/air mixtures.

As part of the Bio-FiRE-for-EVer research project aiming to propose a solution for off-grid charging stations based on the adoption of a reciprocating engine, this study investigated the combustion development and pollutant emissions of an 8.7 l six-cylinder heavy-duty PFI internal combustion engine fueled by ethanol. The reference experimental case features critical issues in the formation of the air-fuel, mainly due to the slow evaporation rate of the alcohol fuel inside the intake manifold via a single point injection, providing a non-uniform and averagely rich (λ=0.89) reactant mixture inside the cylinders. For this purpose, an in-depth analysis of the in-cylinder phenomena is performed by using a CFD solver for the reacting flow. A geometry of the cylinder system complete with intake and exhaust ducts is created for calculations with the three-dimensional Ansys FORTE code. The inclusion of the inlet duct in the computational domain allows the experiencing of several setups of the mixture. Indeed, due to the uncertainties on the complete vaporization of ethanol, experimental data allowed a preliminary validation of the CFD based predictions by considering the presence of liquid fuel fraction (30%) in the inlet duct. After the model calibration, firstly, a more favorable air-fuel ratio condition of λ=1 is examined and then, two alternative solutions are proposed to optimize the engine performance via a multipoint injection upstream of the intake valves but still considering a rich mixture. Based on the results it is demonstrated that the presence of liquid represents a more realistic condition achieving outputs closer to the experimental measurements. The adjustment of air-fuel ratio to a stoichiometric value by only enhancing the amount of air leads to significant improvements in terms of mechanical outputs and CO emissions. Besides, an optimized injection setup can overcome the maldistribution of fuel among cylinders, its incomplete oxidation and reduce the percentage of fuel that remains liquid forming a film on the duct’s wall.