The Transiency of In-Cylinder Flame

Development in an Automotive-Size Diesel

Engine

Alvin Mulianto Rusly

School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering

The University of New South Wales

A thesis submitted for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

2013
PLEASE TYPE
THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES
Thesis/Dissertation Sheet

Surname or Family name: RUSLY

First name: ALVIN Other name/s: MULIANTO

Abbreviation for degree as given in the University calendar: PhD

School: Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering Faculty: Engineering

Title: The Transiency of In-Cylinder Flame Development in an

Automotive-Size Diesel Engine

Abstract 350 words maximum: (PLEASE TYPE)

Global growth in the sales of light-duty diesel-powered vehicles is effectively driven by diesel engine’s superior fuel economy though concerns
implicating emission formations and usage of non-renewable fossil still persist. Such obstacles present a need for better understanding of the
diesel combustion, which will help improve engine efficiency and reduce pollutant emissions. To address this issue, experimental study of in-
cylinder combustion processes is conducted in a light-duty diesel engine with focus on flame development transience. A new experimental
research facility has been designed and constructed to study transient behaviour of diesel flames during combustion. The facility houses a
modified single-cylinder diesel engine that allows optical access to the combustion chamber at realistic engine environment and ambient
conditions. Two distinctly different diesel combustion regimes are investigated: one with short injection duration and the other with long injection
duration.

The first of the combustion regimes consists of short injection duration and long ignition delay ultimately resulting in a positive ignition dwell (fuel
injection completes prior to ignition). In this regime, the overall combustion is dominated by premixed burn phase whereby further improvement of
efficiency is limited by a drastic increase in in-cylinder pressure. If the problem is severe, undesirable pressure ringing follows the initial pressure
rise, which is called diesel knock. The first part of this thesis addresses this issue of knocking in a light-duty diesel engine. In the optical engine,
high-speed natural hot soot luminosity imaging was performed to visualise flame behaviour during the knocking cycles. It is found that the diesel
flame oscillates against the normal swirl direction and the oscillation frequency matches the frequency of in-cylinder pressure ringing, which is the
first observation of such correspondence in a diesel engine. Experimentation with pilot injection showed a remedial effect through elimination of
pressure ringing and dampening of flame oscillation. Such results are connected with a short ignition delay and less intense premixed combustion
as shown through a lower pressure rise rate and negative ignition dwell (i.e. mixing-controlled combustion).

The second regime investigated in this thesis presents long injection duration through a single-hole injector resulting in a negative ignition dwell
(combustion starts prior to the end of injection). This regime is dominated by mixing-controlled combustion phase corresponding to high-load
engine operating conditions. Opposed to the short-injection regime with positive ignition dwell, this long-injection regime is characterised by a lifted
flame that is under the strong influence of jet-wall interaction during and after the fuel injection. Therefore, the focus of last half of this thesis is on
the jet-wall interaction and its impact on lift-off length (i.e. distance between the nozzle to the first detectable flame base within a specified spatial
range with respect to the jet trajectory) that is known to play an important role in pollutants formation. Interaction between the reacting jet and the
wall was visualised through hot soot luminosity and hydroxyl radical (OH*) chemiluminescence imaging. An interesting finding from these imaging
diagnostics is shortening of the lift-off length against the incoming jet momentum during the fuel injection. This trend is reversed (i.e. the lift-off
length increases) only after the end of injection when the jet momentum diminishes. Detailed analysis of temporal evolution of the lift-off length and
parametric studies of injection pressure and addition of neighbouring jet suggest that a potential cause for the shortening of the flame base is the
redirection of hot combustion gases that are entrained back to the incoming jet, (i.e. re-entrainment).

The findings in this thesis help understand the current constraints in improving engine efficiency and reducing pollutant formation in light-duty
diesel engines. It is suggested that at low-load operating conditions, engine developers should limit the pressure rise rate below a certain level so
that problematic diesel knock can be avoided. By contrast, at high-load operating conditions, injection pulse width should be controlled to reduce
jet-wall interaction as otherwise the pollutants formation would increase with decreasing lift-off length.

Declaration relating to disposition of project thesis/dissertation

I hereby grant to the University of New South Wales or its agents the right to archive and to make available my thesis or dissertation in whole or in
part in the University libraries in all forms of media, now or here after known, subject to the provisions of the Copyright Act 1968. I retain all
property rights, such as patent rights. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis or dissertation.

I also authorise University Microfilms to use the 350 word abstract of my thesis in Dissertation Abstracts International (this is applicable to doctoral
theses only).

02.09.2013
…………………………………………………………… ……………………………………..……………… ……….……………………...…….…
Signature Witness Date

The University recognises that there may be exceptional circumstances requiring restrictions on copying or conditions on use. Requests for
restriction for a period of up to 2 years must be made in writing. Requests for a longer period of restriction may be considered in exceptional
circumstances and require the approval of the Dean of Graduate Research.

FOR OFFICE USE ONLY Date of completion of requirements for Award:

THIS SHEET IS TO BE GLUED TO THE INSIDE FRONT COVER OF THE THESIS

ORIGINALITY STATEMENT
`I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and to the best of my knowledge
it contains no materials previously published or written by another person, or substantial
proportions of material which have been accepted for the award of any other degree or
diploma at UNSW or any other educational institution, except where due
acknowledgment is made in the thesis. Any contribution made to the research by others,
with whom I have worked at UNSW or elsewhere, is explicitly acknowledged in the
thesis. I also declare that the intellectual content of this thesis is the product of my own
work, except to the extent that assistance from others in the project's design and
conception or in style, presentation and linguistic expression is acknowledged.'

Signed: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Date: September 2, 2013

i
COPYRIGHT STATEMENT
‘I hereby grant the University of New South Wales or its agents the right to archive and
to make available my thesis or dissertation in whole or part in the University libraries in
all forms of media, now or here after known, subject to the provisions of the Copyright
Act 1968. I retain all proprietary rights, such as patent rights. I also retain the right to
use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis or dissertation. I
also authorise University Microfilms to use the 350 word abstract of my thesis in
Dissertation Abstracts International. I have either used no substantial portions of
copyright material in my thesis or I have obtained permission to use copyright material;
where permission has not been granted I have applied/will apply for a partial restriction
of the digital copy of my thesis or dissertation.'

Signed: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Date: September 2, 2013

AUTHENTICITY STATEMENT
`I certify that the Library deposit digital copy is a direct equivalent of the final officially
approved version of my thesis. No emendation of content has occurred and if there are
any minor variations in formatting, they are the result of the conversion to digital
format.'

Signed: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Date: September 2, 2013

ii
Acknowledgements

Numerous individuals were there along the way of the completion of my thesis and no
amount of gratitude is enough to express my thanks to each and every one of them. My time as
a PhD candidate in The University of New South Wales will be cherished and never forgotten.

I would like to give first mentions to my supervisors Dr. Sanghoon Kook and Associate
Professor Evatt R. Hawkes for their continuous support and guidance throughout the entirety of
my life as a PhD research student. I am especially thankful for Dr. Kook’s strong will, fast
thinking and vast knowledge which have all aspired me to tackle problems head on and
overcome adversities. I will surely bring forward the valuable lessons I have acquired onwards
to my future career and life in general.

To name a few of my colleagues and officemates, Srinivas Padala, Renlin Zhang,

Yongming Bao, Minh Khoi Le, Kevin Szeto and Shaun Chan whom all have contributed
heavily upon my progress through sharing their wealth of knowledge, experience and patience.
To the modellers in particular Shyam and Haoyang who have given tremendous support as well
to my work through countless discussions. Conversations with other fellow candidates have
surely allowed me to gain the necessary motivation and enthusiasm I require to progress.

Last special mentions go to my parents (Sudirman Rusly and Helena Tjia), brother and
sister-in-law (William Rusly and Mimi Lai), friends (all who have constantly asked how my
PhD is going, when I will finish and when I will have a real job. I sincerely hope we can find
other topics of conversation after this) and my girlfriend (Wimelia Okviantin) for their continual
understanding, limitless supply of patience and unrelenting support while I was in times of
hardship.

iii
Abstract

Global growth in the sales of light-duty diesel-powered vehicles is effectively driven by

diesel engine’s superior fuel economy though concerns implicating emission formations and
usage of non-renewable fossil still persist. Such obstacles present a need for better
understanding of the diesel combustion, which will help improve engine efficiency and reduce
pollutant emissions. To address this issue, experimental study of in-cylinder combustion
processes is conducted in a light-duty diesel engine with focus on flame development
transience. A new experimental research facility has been designed and constructed to study
transient behaviour of diesel flames during combustion. The facility houses a modified single-
cylinder diesel engine that allows optical access to the combustion chamber at realistic engine
environment and ambient conditions. Two distinctly different diesel combustion regimes are
investigated: one with short injection duration and the other with long injection duration.

The first of the combustion regimes consists of short injection duration and long
ignition delay ultimately resulting in a positive ignition dwell (fuel injection completes prior to
ignition). In this regime, the overall combustion is dominated by premixed burn phase whereby
further improvement of efficiency is limited by a drastic increase in in-cylinder pressure. If the
problem is severe, undesirable pressure ringing follows the initial pressure rise, which is called
diesel knock. The first part of this thesis addresses this issue of knocking in a light-duty diesel
engine. In the optical engine, high-speed natural hot soot luminosity imaging was performed to
visualise flame behaviour during the knocking cycles. It is found that the diesel flame oscillates
against the normal swirl direction and the oscillation frequency matches the frequency of in-
cylinder pressure ringing, which is the first observation of such correspondence in a diesel
engine. Experimentation with pilot injection showed a remedial effect through elimination of
pressure ringing and dampening of flame oscillation. Such results are connected with a short
ignition delay and less intense premixed combustion as shown through a lower pressure rise rate
and negative ignition dwell (i.e. mixing-controlled combustion).

The second regime investigated in this thesis presents long injection duration through a
single-hole injector resulting in a negative ignition dwell (combustion starts prior to the end of
injection). This regime is dominated by mixing-controlled combustion phase corresponding to
high-load engine operating conditions. Opposed to the short-injection regime with positive

iv
ignition dwell, this long-injection regime is characterised by a lifted flame that is under the
strong influence of jet-wall interaction during and after the fuel injection. Therefore, the focus
of last half of this thesis is on the jet-wall interaction and its impact on lift-off length (i.e.
distance between the nozzle to the first detectable flame base within a specified spatial range
with respect to the jet trajectory) that is known to play an important role in pollutants formation.
Interaction between the reacting jet and the wall was visualised through hot soot luminosity and
hydroxyl radical (OH*) chemiluminescence imaging. An interesting finding from these imaging
diagnostics is shortening of the lift-off length against the incoming jet momentum during the
fuel injection. This trend is reversed (i.e. the lift-off length increases) only after the end of
injection when the jet momentum diminishes. Detailed analysis of temporal evolution of the lift-
off length and parametric studies of injection pressure and addition of neighbouring jet suggest
that a potential cause for the shortening of the flame base is the redirection of hot combustion
gases that are entrained back to the incoming jet, i.e. re-entrainment.

The findings in this thesis help understand the current constraints in improving engine
efficiency and reducing pollutant formation in light-duty diesel engines. It is suggested that at
low-load operating conditions, engine developers should limit the pressure rise rate below a
certain level so that problematic diesel knock can be avoided. By contrast, at high-load
operating conditions, injection pulse width should be controlled to reduce jet-wall interaction as
otherwise the pollutants formation would increase with decreasing lift-off length.

v
List of Publications

Conference Proceedings

Diesel Knock Visualisation in a Small-Bore Optical Engine (Chapter 4)

Alvin M. Rusly, Renlin Zhang, Sanghoon Kook and Evatt R. Hawkes.

Proceedings of the Australian Combustion Symposium
Shoal Bay, Australia, November 29-December 01, 2011.

Effect of Pilot Injection on Diesel Knock in a Small-Bore Optical Engine (Chapter 4)

Alvin M. Rusly, Renlin Zhang, Sanghoon Kook and Evatt R. Hawkes.

Proceedings of the ASME Internal Combustion Engine Division Spring Technical Conference
ICES2012
Torino, Italy, May 6-9, 2012.

The Transient Behaviour of Hot Soot Base in an Optically-Accessible Automotive-Size

Diesel Engine (Chapter 5)

Alvin M. Rusly, Minh K. Le and Sanghoon Kook.

Proceedings of the 18th Australasian Fluid Mechanics Conference
Launceston, Australia, December 3-7, 2012.

Journal Publications

Flame Visualisation and Spectral Analysis of In-cylinder Pressure Traces during

Knocking Cycles in Small-Bore Optical Diesel Engine (Chapter 4)

Alvin M. Rusly, Sanghoon Kook and Evatt R. Hawkes.

submitted to the Combustion and Flame
2013

The Transience of Flame Development through Jet-Wall Interaction in a Small-Bore

Optical Diesel Engine (Chapter 5)

Alvin M. Rusly, Minh K. Le, Sanghoon Kook and Evatt R. Hawkes.

submitted to the International Journal of Engine Research
2013

Effect of Injection Pressure on Transient Behaviour of Flame Base in an Automotive-Size

Diesel Engine (Chapter 5)

Alvin M. Rusly, Minh K. Le and Sanghoon Kook.

submitted to SAE International Journal of Fuels and Lubricants
also to be presented in SAE Powertrains, Fuels & Lubricants Meeting
Seoul, South Korea, October 21-23, 2013

vi
Co-authored Publications (not covered in this thesis).

Numerical Study of a Diesel Engine under Motored and Combustion Conditions

Shyam S. Pasunurthi, Evatt R. Hawkes, Tobias Joelsson, Alvin M. Rusly, Sanghoon Kook,
Tommaso Lucchini, Gianluca D’Errico.
Proceedings of the 9th Asia-Pacific Conference on Combustion.
Gyeongju, Korea, May 19-22, 2013.

vii
Table of Contents

Abstract ........................................................................................................................................ iv

List of Publications ...................................................................................................................... vi

List of Figures .............................................................................................................................. xi

List of Tables .............................................................................................................................. xvi

Nomenclature ............................................................................................................................ xvii

Introduction ............................................................................................................................. - 1 -

1.1 Aims and Objectives ................................................................................................. - 3 -

1.2 Thesis Approach ....................................................................................................... - 4 -

Literature Review ................................................................................................................... - 6 -

2.1 Premixed Combustion ............................................................................................... - 7 -

2.1.1 Diesel Knock: Detection and Pressure Waves .................................................. - 7 -

2.1.2 Knock Suppression ........................................................................................... - 9 -

2.2 Mixing-Controlled Combustion .............................................................................. - 10 -

2.2.1 The Quasi-Steady Jet ...................................................................................... - 11 -

2.2.2 Jet-Wall Interaction and Re-Entrainment........................................................ - 12 -

2.2.3 Jet Impingement Strength ............................................................................... - 14 -

2.2.4 Jet-Jet Interaction ............................................................................................ - 15 -

Experimental Design and Setup........................................................................................... - 16 -

3.1 General Description ................................................................................................ - 16 -

3.2 Optical Diesel Engine ............................................................................................. - 17 -

3.2.1 Optical Access Design and Function .............................................................. - 20 -

3.2.2 Piston Modifications ....................................................................................... - 24 -

3.3 Experimental Setup ................................................................................................. - 25 -

viii
 3.3.1 Control Systems .............................................................................................. - 26 -

3.3.2 Data Acquisition and Processing .................................................................... - 26 -

3.3.3 High-Speed Hot Soot Luminosity ................................................................... - 29 -

3.3.4 OH* Chemiluminescence ............................................................................... - 30 -

Premixed-Dominant Combustion Regime .......................................................................... - 33 -

4.1 Background ............................................................................................................. - 34 -

4.2 Operating Conditions .............................................................................................. - 34 -

4.3 Cycle-to-Cycle Variations....................................................................................... - 35 -

4.4 In-Cylinder Pressure Fluctuation and Spectral Analysis ........................................ - 38 -

4.5 Flame Oscillation during Knocking ........................................................................ - 42 -

4.6 Remedial Effect of Pilot Injection on Diesel Knock ............................................... - 48 -

Negative Ignition Dwell Combustion................................................................................... - 56 -

5.1 Background ............................................................................................................. - 57 -

5.2 Piston Modification and Jet Trajectory Configurations .......................................... - 58 -

5.3 Operating Conditions and Engine Specifications ................................................... - 60 -

5.3.1 Definition of Variables.................................................................................... - 61 -

5.4 In-Cylinder Pressure Traces and Apparent Heat Release Rate of Jet A and Jet B.. - 65 -

5.5 Cycle-to-Cycle Variations....................................................................................... - 66 -

5.6 The Shortening of Lift-Off Length of Wall-Jets of Jet A ....................................... - 69 -

5.7 Simultaneous Observation of Free-Jet and Wall-Jet of Jet B.................................. - 72 -

5.8 Effect of Increased Jet Momentum on Re-Entrainment .......................................... - 76 -

5.8.1 Operating Conditions ...................................................................................... - 76 -

5.8.2 In-Cylinder Pressure and Apparent Heat Release Rate................................... - 78 -

5.8.3 100 MPa: Increased post-EOI Recession due to High Jet Momentum ........... - 79 -

5.8.4 >130 MPa: No Re-entrainment Effects due to Short Injection Duration ........ - 82 -

5.8.5 Pre- and Post-EOI Behaviour of Flame Base .................................................. - 85 -

5.9 Jet-Jet Interaction Effects on Re-Entrainment ........................................................ - 86 -

5.9.1 Operating Conditions ...................................................................................... - 87 -

ix
 5.9.2 In-Cylinder Pressure Trace and Apparent Heat Release Rate......................... - 88 -

5.9.3 Re-Entrainment on Narrow Inter-Jet Angle .................................................... - 89 -

Summary and Conclusions................................................................................................... - 94 -

References .............................................................................................................................. - 98 -

x
List of Figures
Figure 2.1- Dec’s conceptual model of quasi-steady diesel combustion. ............................... - 11 -

Figure 3.1 - Optical Engine Laboratory (L211D) ................................................................... - 17 -

Figure 3.2 - Optical diesel engine assembly (left) later attached with an intake and exhaust tank
(right) .................................................................................................................. - 18 -

Figure 3.3 – Exploded view of the optical diesel engine. ....................................................... - 21 -

Figure 3.4 - Exploded part view of the window mock (left) and the optical piston assembly
(right) .................................................................................................................. - 21 -

Figure 3.5 – Detailed exploded part view of the extended piston component as attached on top
of the original piston top. A bottom view of the setup (left) identifies the field of
view given by the piston quartz along with the jet trajectories and location of
valves .................................................................................................................. - 23 -

Figure 3.6 – Visual representations of the bottom view of the combustion chamber as reflected
via the 45 degree mirror (left) and the chamber as viewed when the liner is dropped
(right). ................................................................................................................. - 23 -

Figure 3.7 –Modified piston top drawing (left) and the final product (right). ........................ - 24 -

Figure 3.8 – Schematic diagram of the experimental setup containing two optical diagnostic
techniques utilised to visualise flame development using a high-speed CMOS
camera and an intensified CCD camera. ............................................................ - 25 -

Figure 3.9 – Post-processing of hot soot luminosity from its raw monochrome image (left) to the
final image (right).Boundaries are stored in coordinates to allow centroids of the
shapes to be tracked to analyse temporal development of the flames. ............... - 30 -

Figure 3.10 - Post-processing procedures for OH* chemiluminescence images of Jet A (see
Chapter 5) including linear averaging of individual raw images and boundary
detection of the averaged image. ........................................................................ - 32 -

Figure 4.1 - Cycle-to-cycle variations as shown through a collection of individual firing cycles
(black) and ensemble-averaged trace (red) for the earliest injection case (7.7 oCA
bTDC)................................................................................................................. - 36 -

xi
Figure 4.2 - Individual cycles (black lines) of the early injection case (7.7 oCA bTDC) are
transformed into the frequency domain to show that the cycle-to-cycle variations
do not affect the major frequency mode located at 7 kHz. ................................. - 37 -

Figure 4.3 - In-cylinder pressure trace, apparent heat-release rate (aHRR) and pressure-rise rate
(PRR) over three injection timings (a)7.7 oCA bTDC, (b)2.7 oCA bTDC and (c)2.3
o
CA aTDC injection. Pressure fluctuation or "ringing" can be detected after the
peak is reached for (a) and (b) indicating knocking behaviour. The fluctuating term
disappears for (c) associating with the gentler PRR. .......................................... - 39 -

Figure 4.4 - Fourier transform of the pressure trace at the three injection timings. The spikes on
the graph indicate a fluctuating term part of the pressure in the time-domain at the
corresponding frequency. ................................................................................... - 40 -

Figure 4.5 - Band-pass filtered pressure of all three injection conditions comparing the severity
of pressure ringing. ............................................................................................. - 41 -

Figure 4.6 - Frames of the high-speed visualisation of the earliest injection case (SOI=7.7 oCA
bTDC) depicting four noticeable events including diesel knock; A) upstream soot
movement for -0.2 ~ 1.2 oCA aTDC, B) counter-clockwise oscillation resulting
from knock for 1.4 ~ 2.2 oCA aTDC, C) jet-jet and jet-wall interactions for 3.0 ~
6.2 oCA aTDC and D) the clockwise movement of swirl that dominates at the late
stage of combustion for 7.0 ~ 13.0 oCA aTDC................................................... - 43 -

Figure 4.7 - Superimposition of centroids of a selected flame structure of the earliest injection
case (SOI=7.7 oCA bTDC) between 1.0 and 2.0 oCA aTDC is performed for
multiple individual cycles to ascertain independence from cyclic variation and
spatial localisation. ............................................................................................. - 44 -

Figure 4.8 - Flame movement at the late stage of combustion (between 8.6 to 10.6 oCA aTDC)
shows swirl domination and jet-wall interaction as the flame moves back into field
of view: the earliest injection case (SOI=7.7 oCA bTDC).................................. - 46 -

Figure 4.9 - Three individual cycles of the later injection case 2.7 oCA bTDC shows less soot
luminosity but some oscillatory motion can still be detected. Earlier domination by
the swirl flow or earlier diminishing effects of knock is suspected as the centroids
move clockwise after 8.0 oCA aTDC. ................................................................ - 47 -

Figure 4.10 - The effect of pilot injection is explored by comparison between a main-only
(single 400 μs injection at SOI = 7.7 oCA bTDC) and a selected pilot case (pilot
300 μs at pSOI = 17.7 oCA bTDC and main 400 μs at mSOI = 7.7 oCA bTDC).

xii
 Cylinder pressure traces show that ringing can be eliminated using pilot injection
and is seen to correspond with aHRR and PRR. ................................................ - 50 -

Figure 4.11 - Fourier transform of the main-only pressure trace displays a peak frequency of
pressure ringing to occur at ~7-8 kHz. Similarity with previous injection case at the
same timing indicates importance of ignition delay on severity of pressure
fluctuation........................................................................................................... - 51 -

Figure 4.12 - Band-pass filtering of the main-only and pilot case shows a less severe magnitude
of ringing though significant difference is observed between the two cases with the
latter displaying no pressure ringing within the band of 4-20 kHz. ................... - 52 -

Figure 4.13 - Comparison of the flame images between the main-only (TOP) and pilot
(BOTTOM) scenarios show distinct difference in flame development. Greater soot
luminosity of the pilot case is produced due to the supporting role of the pilot
injection in advancing ignition time of the main injection. ................................ - 53 -

Figure 4.14 - Temporal evolution of the flame centroids shows a clearer picture on the flame
oscillation persisting with a main-only case (TOP) while a smoother development
free of oscillation can be seen for the pilot case (BOTTOM). ........................... - 54 -

Figure 5.1 - Soot luminosity image of a conventional 7-hole nozzle (left), Jet A and Jet B
configuration showing the single-hole nozzle arrangement with respect to the bowl-
rim cut-out (top-right), and Jet B-C and Jet B-A for two-hole nozzles with different
inter-jet spacing. Dashed boxes indicate the field of view used for data analysis. .... -
58 -

Figure 5.2 - Schematic representation of single-hole diesel jet with no bowl-rim cut-out (Jet A).
Definitions for hot soot base heights (SLw), lift-off lengths (OHw), and distance
from the nozzle baseline to the wall-reflected jet head (OHrw) are given at the
bottom. ................................................................................................................ - 62 -

Figure 5.3 - Schematic diagram of single-hole diesel jet with bowl-rim cut-out (Jet B).
Definitions for hot soot base heights, lift-off lengths, and distance from the nozzle
baseline to the wall-reflected jet head are provided for both free-jet and wall-jet. ... -
64 -

Figure 5.4 - Comparison of in-cylinder pressure, injection rate and apparent heat release rate
between Jet A (grey) and Jet B (red) configurations. ......................................... - 65 -

Figure 5.5 - Variations in individual images of OH* chemiluminescence and comparison with
its averaged image. Images are captures for Jet A and at 9oCA aTDC. ............. - 67 -

xiii
Figure 5.6 - Average value and error range of lift-off length of downswirl side of wall-
interacting jet (OHw-d) and distance from the nozzle baseline to the wall-reflected
jet head (OHrw-d) for various crank angle degree after the top dead centre (oCA
aTDC). ................................................................................................................ - 67 -

Figure 5.7 - Two soot luminosity images showing cycle-to-cycle variations and averaged image
of 20 individual cycles for Jet A. The hot soot base heights are annotated by a
horizontal bar. ..................................................................................................... - 68 -

Figure 5.8 - Average value and error range of hot soot base heights for various oCA aTDCs for
both upswirl and downswirl sides of Jet A. ........................................................ - 68 -

Figure 5.9 - Temporal development wall-interacting diesel jet illustrated by averaged flame
boundaries of hot soot luminosity (red) and OH* chemiluminescence (green) from
8°CA to 11.5oCA aTDC of Jet A........................................................................ - 70 -

Figure 5.10 - The hot soot base heights (SLw), lift-off lengths (OHw), and distance from the
nozzle baseline to the wall-reflected jet head (OHrw) for various crank angle
degrees after the end of injections (oCA aEOI). The data are from the images in
Fig. 5.9 for Jet A. ................................................................................................ - 72 -

Figure 5.11 - Temporal development of Jet B illustrated by boundaries of hot soot luminosity
(red) and OH* chemiluminescence (green) from 8oCA to 11.5oCA aTDC........ - 73 -

Figure 5.12 -Lift-off lengths of Jet A (grey) and Jet B (red) for both wall-interacting jets (OHw)
and free jet (OHf) for various oCA aEOIs. .......................................................... - 74 -

Figure 5.13 - The hot soot base height (SL), lift-off lengths (OH), and distance from the nozzle
baseline to the wall-reflected jet head (OHr) for various oCA aEOIs. The data are
from the images in Fig. 5.11 for Jet B. ............................................................... - 75 -

Figure 5.14 - Schematic diagram of one-hole diesel injection in a modified piston with bowl-rim
cut-out. This allows for simultaneous visualisation of free-jet and wall-jet during
combustion. The jet penetration stages within the cut-out volume are illustrated for
(1) liner-wall/jet interaction, (2) further jet penetration upon the wall impingement,
and (3) reappearance of the reflected jet head in the field of view..................... - 77 -

Figure 5.15 - In-cylinder pressure traces, fuel injection rates, and apparent heat release rates for
all four injection pressured tested in the present study (70~160 MPa). ............. - 78 -

Figure 5.16 - Temporal evolution of OH* chemiluminescence at 100 MPa condition. ......... - 80 -

xiv
Figure 5.17 - Lift-off lengths (OHf and OHw) and wall-reflected jet penetration (OHrf and OHrw)
at various crank angle locations for 100 MPa injection case (Fig. 5.16)............ - 81 -

Figure 5.18 -Temporal evolution of OH* chemiluminescence at 130 MPa condition. .......... - 83 -

Figure 5.19 -Lift-off lengths (OHf and OHw) and wall-reflected jet penetration (OHrf and OHrw)
at various crank angle locations for 130 MPa injection (Fig. 5.18). .................. - 83 -

Figure 5.20 - Temporal evolution of OH* chemiluminescence at 160 MPa condition. ......... - 84 -

Figure 5.21 - Lift-off lengths (OHf and OHw) and wall-reflected jet penetration (OHrf and OHrw)
at various crank angle locations of 160 MPa (Fig. 5.20). ................................... - 84 -

Figure 5.22 -Comparison of OHw and OHrw for all four injection pressures tested in the present
study (70, 100, 130 and 160 MPa) with respect to the end-of-injection time. ... - 85 -

Figure 5.23 –Schematic diagram of the two two-hole jet arrangement (Jet B-A and Jet B-C)
used to study jet-jet interaction effects on re-entrainment.................................. - 87 -

Figure 5.24 -In-cylinder pressure, injection rate, and apparent heat release rate of two-hole
nozzles for Jet B-A and Jet B-C. ........................................................................ - 88 -

Figure 5.25 -Temporal development of Jet B-A illustrated by boundaries of OH*

chemiluminescence (green) from 8oCA to 11.5oCA aTDC. Dashed lines are shown
for two jet trajectories with 102.8o inter-jet spacing........................................... - 90 -

Figure 5.26 - Comparison of lift-off lengths of free and wall jets (OHf and OHw) between jet B
and jet B-A arrangements. .................................................................................. - 91 -

Figure 5.27 - Temporal development of Jet B-C illustrated by boundaries of OH*

chemiluminescence (green) from 8oCA to 11.5oCA aTDC. Dashed lines are shown
for two jet trajectories with 51.4o inter-jet spacing. ........................................... - 92 -

Figure 5.28 - Comparison of the lift-off lengths of free and wall jets (OHf and OHw) between Jet
B and Jet B-C arrangement................................................................................. - 93 -

xv
List of Tables
Table 3.1 – Single-cylinder optical diesel engine specifications. ........................................... - 19 -

Table 4.1 – Engine operating conditions for diesel knock investigation. ............................... - 35 -

Table 4.2 – Fuel injection parameters for knock severity comparison. .................................. - 35 -

Table 4.3 – Injection conditions for testing effect of pilot injection on diesel knock. ............ - 49 -

Table 5.1 – Operating conditions for jet-wall and jet-jet studies. ........................................... - 60 -

Table 5.2 – Injection pressure sweep for re-entrainment study. ............................................. - 76 -

xvi
Nomenclature

aEOI after End of Injection

aHRR apparent Heat Release Rate
aSOI after Start of Injection
aTDC after Top Dead Centre
bTDC before Top Dead Centre
CA Crank Angle
CCD Charge Coupled Device
CI Compression Ignition
CMOS Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor
DI Direct Injection
EOI End of Injection
HCCI Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition
IMEP Indicated Mean Effective Pressure
LTC Low Temperature Combustion
NOx Nitrogen Oxides
OH Chemical species (OH radical)
PRR Pressure Rise Rate
SI Spark Ignition
SL Soot Luminosity
SOC Start of Combustion
SOI Start of Injection
TDC Top Dead Centre

xvii
Chapter 1
1

Introduction

The automobile industry is typically dominated by two types of engine technologies,

spark-ignition (SI) and compression-ignition (CI) engines that are designed to function using
two variants of fossil fuels, petrol and diesel respectively. In Australia, the statistics highlights a
substantial 60.6% overall increase of diesel-powered vehicles from the year of 2007 to 2012. As
recorded by Australian Bureau of Statistics, over the same period the number of diesel-powered
passenger and light commercial vehicles has grown by 103.1% and 65.2% respectively [ABS
2012]. The growing economic power of nations like China and India are also expected to bring
unprecedented increase of automobile production and sales in the coming decades [Huo et al.
2007]. These numbers portray awareness in the community of the acquired benefits of having a
diesel car for everyday transportation and underline diesel’s potential to be a major powerhouse
in the light-duty market. Most significantly, these predicted outlooks propose an urgent
necessity to prepare for the incoming surge of global fuel consumption.

A popular argument is often made on the long-term usability of fossil fuels as it is a

non-renewable energy source. Additionally, capabilities of our current engine technology are

-1-
restrained by the emission barriers that are becoming stricter by the year [Johnson 2006] where
a substantial trade-off between performance and emission is usually met [Pelkmans et al. 2003].
A possible solution to resolve for our fuel dependency may lie in diesel engine’s capacity to be
more efficient compared to its petrol equivalent, as 15% more greenhouse gas (GHG) are
emitted by the latter [US Department of Energy, 2000]. Eberhardt [Eberhardt 2000] discussed
how “dieselisation” can lead to cleaner air through advancement in engine technology that can
remove the emission barrier in achieving even higher engine efficiency, as summarised with a
three-pronged approach below:

x Fuel: Chemical kinetics based on fuel composition and properties and its effects on
engine performance and emissions.

x After treatment: Designing an effective exhaust after-treatment technology to deal with

tail-pipe emissions.

x In-cylinder Process: Further understanding of the in-cylinder combustion processes to

limit initial pollutant formation and prevent mechanics leading to damaging or poor
engine performance.

Development of the ultra-low sulphur diesel (ULSD) is one of the recent advancements
from the fuel improvement approach that led to reduction in diesel emission and its worldwide
implementation, while the usage of Diesel Particulate Filters (DPF) as exhaust after-treatment
have been essential in ensuring diesel cars to be in compliance with current emission regulations
[Eberhardt 2000, Johnson 2006]. Despite these advancement in each respective approach, the
mechanics of ignition, combustion and pollutants formation inside the cylinder involve a series
of complex interdependencies of fuel injection [Bergstrand & Denbratt 2001, Payri et al. 2011,
Rollbusch 2011], chamber geometry [Draper 1938, Genzale et al. 2008, Musculus et al. 2013],
fuel-air mixing [Siebers 1999, Pickett & Siebers 2004a, b, Bruneaux 2005, Kook et al. 2005,
Kook et al. 2006, Kook et al. 2007] and external interactions caused by wall and inter-jet
collisions [Abraham et al. 1999, Pickett & López 2005, Bruneaux 2008, Polonowski et al. 2011,
Solsjö et al. 2013]. Due to such complexities, attention must be placed on developing a more
detailed knowledge of the combustion process that can lead to subsequent improvements in both
fuel and after-treatment technologies to concurrently aim for a cleaner combustion system.

As diagnostic technology advances, it opens a wide variety of new ways to gain detailed
understanding of combustion mechanics that has been a subject of theoretical inferences created
through phenomenology [Venugopal & Abraham 2007] and emulated environments through the
use of constant-volume combustion vessel [Pickett & López 2005, Pickett & Siebers 2006,

-2-
Kook et al. 2009, Idicheria & Pickett 2011]. Greater understanding of the chemical kinetics of
combustion and diagnostic function of lasers pushes forward to the proliferation of optically
accessible engines with capabilities to simulate realistic engine conditions [Aronsson et al.
2008, Colban et al. 2008]. There is now a vast collection of literatures covering a great range of
these techniques and its application onto optical engines [Singh et al. 2009, Musculus 2003,
2006, Lachaux et al. 2008, Musculus et al. 2013, Solsjö et al. 2013] followed by insightful
understanding of emission formation [Tree & Svensson 2007, Dec 2009, Polonowski et al.
2011] and generation of detailed combustion models [Dec 1997, Musculus et al. 2013].
Through this and subsequent technological breakthroughs in accompanying diagnostic
techniques it is foreseeable that optical diagnostic in engine research would play an important
role in supporting future engine developments.

1.1 Aims and Objectives

The primary aim of this thesis is to investigate various aspects of in-cylinder processes
of an automotive-sized diesel engine through direct visualisation diagnostic techniques and
parametric variations. It is imperative to note that light-duty diesel engines operate and exhibit a
different combustion mechanism as compared with heavy-duty equivalents [Musculus et al.
2013]. This is in large caused by the different operational limit or maximum load each engine
type are subjected to, leading a large portion of heavy-duty diesel combustion to consist of a
quasi-steady diffusion combustion while light-duty mostly comprise of premixed phase of
combustion, which is comparatively more transient in nature. This transiency exhibited in light-
duty diesel combustion will be experimentally investigated via induction of two distinct
combustion regimes.

The first of such regime will be induced by implementing short injection durations
(<600 μs) leading to a positive ignition dwell (i.e. ignition starts after fuel injection finishes)
and establishes a more common regime existing in majority of present-day vehicles. Such
regime is often highly dominated by premixed combustion, a regime of combustion where
diesel engine knock is seen to be prominent due to drastic in-cylinder pressure rise. Studies in
this regime presented in this thesis is aimed to identify correspondence between engine knock
with in-cylinder flame characteristics as it develops with further investigation to elimination
techniques such as pilot injection.

The second regime to be detailed in this thesis involves negative ignition dwell
procured by implementing long injection duration whereby ignition and initial combustion

-3-
phasing occurs during fuel injection resulting in larger fraction of mixing-controlled combustion
leading to stronger influence of jet-wall interaction. Similar to engine knock, effects of
interaction between diesel jets and inner piston wall to succeeding combustion mechanics are
not fully understood with great capacities to determine engine performance and pollutant
formation. In particular, wall impingement in a small-bore engine is an event that has limited in-
cylinder experimental investigation and visualisation, in particular in relation to the effect of re-
entrainment [Docquier 2002, Polonowski et al. 2011].

The scope of the work will largely encompass in-cylinder measurements and direct
visualisation of combustion events in the regimes of interest. It is important to note that the
engine in focus is a four-stroke, optical small-bore naturally-aspirated engine with limitations in
implicating several systems existing in modern day engines that include exhaust gas
recirculation, turbocharger and advanced camshaft technology variants. Despite these
constraints, essential and fundamental processes associated with the in-cylinder combustion
mechanics of a small-bore diesel engine remain to be fully understood and further exploration in
this field could provide the necessary answers to existing complex relationships with pollutant
formation and engine efficiency.

1.2 Thesis Approach

The two regimes of combustion explored in this thesis is reviewed through various
relevant literatures as detailed in Chapter 2. In this chapter general concepts surrounding
premixed combustion and mixing-controlled combustion is entailed by background studies on
diesel knock and jet-wall interactions. As a vital part in the completion of this research project,
the construction and initial development stages of the necessary experimental rigs and
apparatuses are comprehensively detailed in Chapter 3. Such details on the engine rig
installation, data acquisition, post-processing techniques and relevant calculations for the
presented data can be found in this chapter. Experiment-wise, optical diagnostics used as part of
this investigation include direct high-speed visualisation of hot soot luminosity and low-speed,
intensified imaging of chemiluminescence of excited hydroxyl radicals (OH*). These are
briefed in Chapter 3 with further comprehensive description of the diagnostics and post-
processing procedures in following Chapters 4 and 5.

The first combustion regime that involves short injection duration and positive ignition
dwell is presented in Chapter 4. The resulting finding of diesel engine knock and its effect on
the temporal evolution of in-cylinder flame structures and pressure development can be found in

-4-
this chapter. In addition, the pacifying effects of pilot injection on diesel knock are also
discussed in details. The second regime of combustion implicating long injection durations and
negative ignition dwell are explored in Chapter 5. The long injection duration identifies
importance of wall and inter-jet interactions and how they affect the development of the flame
base in diesel jets. The chapter also details effect of increased jet momentum (increased
injection pressure) on the re-entrainment and its effects on transient flame base movement.
Concluding remarks and summary of findings are listed in Chapter 6.

-5-
Chapter 2
2

Literature Review

Diesel combustion is a complex phenomenon involving a long list of variables and

complex externalities that impact engine efficiency, performance and most importantly
pollutants formation. Various aspects of diesel combustion have been explored in great detail in
refs. [Heywood 1988, Dec 1997, Musculus et al. 2013] and specifics on optical engines are
covered in refs. [Larrson 1999, Musculus 2006, Leipertz & Wensing 2007, Aronsson et al.
2008, Colban et al. 2008] with further in-depth review of optical diagnostics in refs. [Dec &
Espey 1998, Higgins & Siebers 2001, Musculus 2006, Zhang & Fang 2011]. As the focus of the
current thesis, two combustion regimes will be explored with great exclusivity to maintain a
concise outlook and scope in the presented set of data. More comprehensive details on the
optical diagnostics used in this research project will be explored in Chapter 3: Experimental
Setup and Design.

-6-
2.1 Premixed Combustion

Combustion in small-bore diesel engines is often constrained by the amount of allowable

injected fuel due to the smaller loads and cylinder size. Allowable duration time for automotive-
sized diesel engines is often limited due to the operating limit that the engine parts can
withstand and also in compliance with regulation standards. In this combustion mode, high
pressure rise rate (PRR) is often associated with the long ignition delay (i.e. time between end-
of-injection and start of combustion) implicating greater amount of premixing between the
diesel fuel and ambient air prior to autoignition. With excessive pressure rise, this combustion
regime that is induced by short injection duration often generates an interesting phenomenon
known widely as engine knock. While the phenomena of engine knock (both SI and CI engines)
have been studied and explored [Withrow & Rassweiler 1936, Miller 1946, Cartlidge & Tipper
1961, Affleck & Fish 1968, Burt & Troth 1970, Rao & Prasad 1972, Hickling et al. 1979, Shiga
et al. 1988, Schaberg et al. 1990, Spicher et al. 1991, Millo & Ferraro 1998, Syrimis & Assanis
2003, Mittal et al. 2007, Kawahara & Tomita 2009, SatyanarayanaMurthy 2011], there are still
gaps relating to its fundamental creation mechanics. With the emergence of increasingly
sophisticated engine and diagnostic technologies, it is believed that visual observation to be a
key in attaining greater understanding of the mechanics relating to diesel knock.

2.1.1 Diesel Knock: Detection and Pressure Waves

Engine knocking can cause a distinct hammering sound, engine vibrations, and physical
damage to engine components. In spark-ignition (SI) engines, knock is thought to occur as a
result of autoignition of fuel-air mixture in the end-gas regions prior to the arrival of the spark-
induced propagating flame, which leads to rapidly moving ignition fronts that excite acoustic
modes of the cylinder of large amplitude [Affleck & Fish 1968, Millo & Ferraro 1998, Syrimis
& Assanis 2003, Kawahara & Tomita 2009]. Some studies on SI engines also led to significant
improvements in controlling and eliminating knocking tendencies [Salooja 1960, Cartlidge &
Tipper 1961] leading to popular usage of fuel additives to inhibit knocking properties [Rao &
Prasad 1972]. In comparison, diesel knock occurs due to a drastic premixed burn phase of
combustion when ignition delay is long. A long ignition delay effectively allows longer
premixing to occur, especially with operating conditions with a positive ignition dwell whereby
the delay is longer than the injection duration perpetuating greater mixing to occur prior to
ignition. This leads to a combustion phase that is dominantly premixed with little or no mixing-
controlled burning of fuel and air. Such conditions are commonly found in automotive-size
diesel engines and are known to cause drastic pressure rise rate and audible combustion noise

-7-
present with this abrupt volumetric ignition. The potentially damaging results of this premixed-
driven combustion scheme along with the successive transmission of engine noise and
vibrations places restrictions on further engine performance and efficiency and remain a subject
of interest for both combustion researchers and automotive engineers [Hickling et al. 1979, Ren
et al. 1999].

In-cylinder pressure measurement is a popular technique to detect and quantify the

severity of engine knock that is applicable in both SI and diesel engines [Hickling et al. 1979,
Kono et al. 1983, Millo & Ferraro 1998, Ren et al. 1999, Syrimis & Assanis 2003]. For
example, in the in-cylinder pressure trace plotted over the time domain of engine crank angle
degrees (oCA), engine knock can be detected through the existence of high frequency pressure
fluctuation (or “pressure ringing”) [Millo & Ferraro 1998, Kawahara & Tomita 2009]. This
oscillation in the pressure trace can then be extracted using a Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) and
band-pass filtering at a specified frequency range depending on the condition [Hickling et al.
1979, Kono et al. 1983, Millo & Ferraro 1998, Ren et al. 1999]. The resulting filtered data can
be utilised as an indicator of the intensity of knocking [Gerardin et al. 2009,
SatyanarayanaMurthy 2011]. In addition, understanding of the major acoustic modes at which
the oscillation occurs can provide insights into how knock behaves and how the consequential
noise and vibrations are induced.

Both diesel and SI engine knock result in a rapid in-cylinder pressure rise leading into
combustion-generated pressure waves and its transmission along the engine block causes it to
vibrate and produce acoustics [Priede 1960, Griffiths & Nimmo 1985, Schaberg et al. 1990,
Griffiths et al. 1997]. Due to the greater strength and reliability of parts, knocking in diesel
engines might not be as destructive as in SI engines, particularly in large-bore, heavy-duty
engines. However, there is an increasing need to study details of diesel knock considering
increasing numbers of diesel-powered passenger cars and light-duty trucks. Possibility of diesel
knock in a small-bore diesel engine is higher because the fuel-injection duration is shorter than a
heavy-duty engine. At low to mid load conditions, positive ignition dwell (i.e. a positive time
between the end of fuel injection and the start of combustion) can be measured and therefore the
premixed burn phase dominates the overall combustion while mixing-controlled combustion
phase is suppressed. This increases a chance of drastic initial pressure rise rate and thereby
subsequent pressure ringing.

The generation of pressure waves due to knock in SI engines are largely caused by
spontaneous combustion of near-wall gas mixture that lead to rapid increase of local pressure
along the chamber [Griffiths & Nimmo 1985, Bradley & Kalghatgi 2009]. In diesel knock,

-8-
similar post-combustion events take place as the transmission of combustion-generated energy-
carrying wave can either be absorbed or reflected by the chamber walls. With the waves being
reflected back and forth in the chamber, some dissipate as heat (dampened) and the other vibrate
and produce knocking noise. While the physics of knock generation in both SI and diesel
engines might differ, much can be related between how the generated pressure waves affect
both engine performance and overall flame structures.

In SI engines, high-speed imaging of combustion has helped clarify the mechanism of

knocking by visualising existence of pressure waves when autoignition occurs in the end-gas
region [Kawahara & Tomita 2009]. Afterwards, the strong pressure waves spread throughout
the chamber and overtake propagating flame fronts. Using high-speed photography, Male [Male
1949] reported two types of supersonic motions associated with knock, namely the wave of
autoignition and waves induced by individual detonations occurring in multiple separate zones.
Draper [Draper 1938] found that these pressure waves (or shock waves as in [Male 1949]) cause
cavity resonances resulting in audible noise output during the knocking event. As such, visual
inspection of combustion during knocking events has helped getting insights into the
fundamental mechanism of knock in SI engines [Kawahara & Tomita 20092, Withrow &
Rassweiler 1936, Draper 1938, Male 1949, Spicher & Velji 1985, Rusly et al. 2012] and
probable engine deterioration.

While numerous studies of diesel knock exist [Priede 1960, Hickling et al. 1979, Shiga
et al. 1988, Schaberg et al. 1990, Ren et al. 1999], there have been virtually no visualisations of
the combustion behaviour during knocking in diesel engines. In a heavy-duty diesel engine,
Martin et al. [Martin et al. 2008] reported evidence of strong fluctuation of in-cylinder pressure
that possibly corresponds with unexpected changes in the level and pattern of natural
combustion luminosity. However, variations in the combustion luminosity and in-cylinder
pressure were suspected to be caused by abnormality in jet structures between each injector
nozzles and their potential association with diesel knock was not discussed.

2.1.2 Knock Suppression

Since its emergence as a serious problem for the smooth running of diesel engines in the
early 1940s, studies into the phenomenon known as knock has allowed development of vast
range of detection and elimination techniques today. Use of exhaust gas recirculation (EGR)
[Shiga et al. 1988] and pilot injection [Zhang 1999, Carlucci et al. 2003, Rusly et al. 2012] are
two of the most commonplace technology implemented in current diesel passenger vehicles to
tackle and minimise occurrence of engine knock.

-9-
 Multiple injection strategies surfaced along with the introduction of high-pressure
common rail injectors for diesel engines. The need for better mixing and combustion control is
met with solenoid and piezoelectric valves that allow precise electronic control on fuel injection
timing and duration [Gmbh 2006]. Another benefit of utilising common-rail injectors is their
multi-injection (per cycle) capability. For example, pilot injection reduces the ignition delay for
the main injection resulting in decreased peak heat release rate (HRR) [Park et al. 2004]. The
reduction of peak HRR is known to decrease oxides of nitrogen (NOx) emissions and
combustion noise, at the expense of increased soot level [Badami et al. 2001].

In specific, it has been found that optimal pilot injection timing exists to gain the
minimum of NOx emissions. A greater separation between the start of pilot injection to the
main injection causes lower peak HRR and hence less NOx emissions; however, further
separation between pilot and main injection beyond a certain limit may incur a higher peak
HRR instead [Chen 2000, Badami et al. 2001, Lee et al. 2009]. The pilot injection is also useful
to reduce combustion noise and vibration [Zhang 1999] because of the smoothing of the
pressure rise rate [Nehmer & Reitz 1994, Chen 2000].

2.2 Mixing-Controlled Combustion

In contrast to premixed-dominant combustions, a long injection duration that induces

negative ignition dwell (i.e. negative time between end-of-injection to start of combustion) is
capable of extending the combustion phase to include a regime of combustion that contain a
mixing-driven burning of fuel [Heywood 1988]. This mode of combustion usually operates
during high-load conditions of automotive-size engine cycles. As explored and investigated in
multiple literature of heavy-duty engines, long injection duration and occurrence of mixing-
controlled combustion implicates a unique phenomenon that has been found to directly
implicate engine performance [Dec & Tree 2001] and more prominently detrimentally
influencing pollutant formation such as soot [Pickett & López 2005]. By sustaining injection
duration to a certain extent, jet-wall and inter-jet interactions becomes more prominent and its
effects were found to be transported to the development of the flame base which later affected
downstream formation of pollutants. In particular longer injection duration conditions have
more complex mixing process interrelated with multiple stages of air entrainment and change in
its rate, depending upon impingement location and jet momentum. Because of such
complexities, negative ignition dwell combustion mode induced by long injection duration need
to be investigated.

- 10 -
2.2.1 The Quasi-Steady Jet

In mixing-controlled combustion the spray-driven process prior and during jet-wall and
jet-jet interaction is also important in analysing the cases investigated in this thesis. A quasi-
steady diesel jet combustion model was conceptualised by Dec depicted as Fig. 2.1 [Dec 1997].
A more recent work by Musculus et al. [Musculus et al. 2013] has improved upon this model to
encapsulate conditions in both heavy-duty and light-duty operating under low-temperature
combustion modes. These models provide excellent imagery upon how diesel jets interact with
the ambient environment at varying combustion stages with detailed depictions of reaction
zones and emission formation.

Figure 2.1- Dec’s conceptual model of quasi-steady diesel combustion.

It is found that from these works and others [Dec 1997, Pickett & Siebers 2004b,
Pickett et al. 2005, Musculus & Kattke 2009, Musculus et al. 2013] that the entrainment process
during fuel injection plays a major role in determining the richness of the mixture, autoignition
location and subsequently governs the formation and production of various pollutants such as
NOx and soot at downstream locations. Equivalence ratio greater than 2, indicating excessive
ratio of fuel-to-air beyond the ratio required for stoichiometric operation, will generally result in
soot to form [Pickett & Siebers 2006]. An equation to describe this ratio is presented in Eq. 2.1.
It will be later discussed that entrainment may not only play a role during initial spray-driven

- 11 -
process but also during end-of-injection through the creation of entrainment waves [Musculus &
Kattke 2009] and potentially affected by combustion products at post-autoignition period
through re-entrainment [Musculus 2003, Polonowski et al. 2011].

ሺ‫݈݁ݑܨ‬ൗ‫ݎ݅ܣ‬ሻ஺௖௧௨௔௟
ᢥ ൌ ሺʹǤͳሻ
ሺ‫݈݁ݑܨ‬ൗ‫ݎ݅ܣ‬ሻௌ௧௢௜௖௛௜௢௠௘௧௥௜௖

Lift-off length is a term used to describe the distance between the nozzle to the position
where high heat release reactions first occur and from there stabilise in quasi-steady jets
[Higgins & Siebers 2001, Siebers & Higgins 2001]. The lift-off length is an important variable
correlated with soot production where shorter measured lift-off point out autoignition of a rich
mixture that will result in greater production of soot due to incomplete combustion. Complex
relations between lift-off length and other parameters such as ambient air composition, injection
parameters and geometrical differences make it difficult to accomplish simultaneous
improvement in both performance and emissions [Siebers et al. 2002, Pickett et al. 2005,
Venugopal & Abraham 2007, Wu et al. 2010]. As it has become known to be a parameter of
interest for the combustion research community [Venugopal & Abraham 2007, Pickett et al.
2009a, Polonowski et al. 2011] it is designated as the primary variable of interest to compare
results of the second part of the thesis involving mixing-controlled combustion. It is noted that
quasi-steady jets are not common for operating conditions in light-duty engines as the nature of
jet development are more likely to be transient, though the knowledge of spray processes in
such case can be applied to the cases presented here.

2.2.2 Jet-Wall Interaction and Re-Entrainment

The interaction between a reacting diesel jet and bowl (or cylinder liner) wall has been
of great interest due to its influences on mixing and pollutants formation [Cossali et al. 1993,
Tomita et al. 1995, Song & Abraham 2003, Andreassi et al. 2007, Bruneaux 2008]. It is
understood that limited mixing and hence locally rich mixture in the near-wall central region
can increase soot formation [Dec & Tree 2001, Bruneaux 2005, Genzale et al. 2008]. On the
other hand, planar laser-induced exciplex fluorescence (LIEF) measurements of high-pressure
diesel jet suggest that the wall-impinged jet has higher overall fuel-air mixing rate than the free
jet [Bruneaux 2005]. This is because a turbulent vortex is formed at the jet head as the reacting

- 12 -
jet impinges on the wall and propagates along the wall [Dec & Tree 2001, Bruneaux 2005,
Bruneaux 2008]. The increased mixing in the jet head region is believed to outperform the
limited mixing near the impingement point. The enhanced overall mixing has potential benefits
of pollutants reduction such as decreased unburned hydrocarbons [Genzale et al. 2008];
however, increased soot due to very high soot formation near the impingement point cannot be
fully resolved [Pickett & López 2005]. In addition, soot deposition on the wall and valve
surface is originated from the jet-wall impingement [Suhre & Foster 1992, Dec & Tree 2001,
Tree & Dec 2001]. Deposited soot on the wall can then make its way to the exhaust or
deteriorate the quality of engine oil.

In addition to these direct influences of jet-wall interaction on pollutants formation, it is

recognised to have significant influence on the flame lift-off length, which in turn impacts
downstream combustion and pollutants formation. In a constant-volume combustion chamber,
Pickett and Lopez [Pickett & López 2005] attempted to simulate jet-wall and jet-jet interactions
by confining a jet to a box structure. The results of this experiment showed continual shortening
of the lift-off length caused by wall-redirected combustion gases and in turn increased soot
luminosity. In later work focused on free-jets [Pickett et al. 2009a], a conceptual picture was
drawn to depict the existence of a high-temperature product reservoir, which is suggested to
play a role in stabilisation of diesel flame base. This high-temperature, low-density product
reservoir, located on the edge of the vapour boundary, may explain and further emphasise
importance of jet-wall interaction. This is because the existence of the bowl-wall would
potentially enable hot combustion products at the periphery of fuel-air mixture to be redirected
back towards the nozzle and possibly entrained into the incoming diesel jet. This hot
combustion products entrainment would cause the shortening of lift-off length and thereby
increasing soot formation. This phenomenon, named as re-entrainment, was also found in
heavy-duty diesel engines [Persson et al. 2011, Polonowski et al. 2011] under the influence of
more realistic jet-wall and jet-jet interactions.

The impact of re-entrainment on small-bore diesel engine combustion would be more

significant than heavy-duty diesel engines. This is due to enhanced jet-wall interaction [Dec &
Tree 2001, Zhang et al. 2012] associated with the shorter distance between the injector and the
bowl wall [Genzale et al. 2008]. However, the details of the re-entrainment and its effects on the
lift-off length in small-bore diesel engines are not well understood. Moreover, the small-bore
design causes increased jet-jet interaction as neighbouring jets and their combustion products
interact with each other at closer distance from the nozzle. It is well known that narrower inter-
jet spacing causes decreased lift-off length [Musculus 2003, Solsjö et al. 2013]; however,

- 13 -
correspondence between the jet-jet interaction and the re-entrainment has not been discussed in
details, particularly in small-bore diesel engines.

2.2.3 Jet Impingement Strength

The jet-wall interaction is strongly influenced by injection pressure because the jet
impingement on the wall becomes stronger as the jet momentum increases [Zhang et al. 2008].
Previous studies [Genzale et al. 2008, Wang et al. 2011] suggested that stronger jet
impingement on the wall can lead to decreased soot formation and increased soot oxidation as
the high sooting region near the impingement point can be avoided. On the other hand,
increased jet momentum would cause higher penetration of the wall-reflected jet head, which
might increase the re-entrainment and thereby increasing soot formation. However, it was found
that the re-entrainment would not cause increased soot at realistic engine conditions
[Polonowski et al. 2011]. This was because the results of higher injection pressure are not only
the increased jet momentum but also shorter injection duration for a delivery of fixed amount of
fuel. That is, the re-entrainment would be reduced because the duration of hot combustion
products recirculation would be shortened.

In addition, fuel injection pressure undoubtedly plays an important role in air-fuel

mixing, flame development and soot formation in direct-injection diesel engines. For instance,
increased injection pressure causes enhanced air entrainment [Rajalingam & Farrell 1999,
Bruneaux 2005] and increased distance between the nozzle and lifted flame base (i.e. lift-off
length) [Siebers & Higgins 2001, Pickett & Siebers 2004b, Pickett & Siebers 2006], which can
be used to reduce soot formation in conjunction with small nozzle-hole diameter [Pickett &
Siebers 2004a, Pickett & Siebers 2006]. Soot formation is suppressed because increased
injection pressure leads to decreased equivalence ratio at the flame base for equivalent mass of
injected fuel [Pickett & Siebers 2004b, Polonowski et al. 2011] as well as reduced soot
residence time [Pickett & Siebers 2004b], both of which are a direct result of high injection
velocity. It is understood that increased injection pressure causes increased pre-combustion air-
fuel mixing [Siebers & Higgins 2001] and hence enhanced premixed burn phase of diesel
combustion [Polonowski et al. 2011, Rollbusch 2011], which also reduces soot emissions
[Pickett & Siebers 2006].

- 14 -
2.2.4 Jet-Jet Interaction

While effects of jet-wall interaction have often been simplified in an attempt to isolate
the wall influences on the succeeding combustion results, realistic combustions in an engine
would also be compromised by inter-jet interactions for a multi-hole injection condition. Jet-jet
interaction is a process where neighbouring jets and its combustion products interact with each
other upon wall impingement where re-entrainment is theorised to shorten lift-off length. The
spacing between jets has shown a decreasing trend given that smaller nozzle sizes and higher
achievable injection pressure allow increase in number of injection holes. In regards to its
impact to re-entrainment, smaller inter-jet spacing has been found to cause lift-off length to
shorten as higher amount of hot burned gases between the jets increase [Chartier 2010, Soljö et
al. 2012]. Such observation was also discussed in [Musculus 2003] where 3-hole injectors are
tested with 6-hole and 8-hole injectors. Findings implicate air entrainment rates to influence
variance in the measured lift-off location between each type of injectors with slower
entrainment rate on the 3-hole case to result in longer lift-off length. These observations propose
further evidences that re-entrainment and movement of hot burned gases post auto-ignition to be
an important mechanic in diesel combustion that needs to be experimentally investigated in
realistic engine conditions. It was also notified that studies performed on single-jets on
combustion vessels might be prone to miss important mechanics associated by the effect of jet-
jet interaction [Solsjö et al. 2013].

- 15 -
Chapter 3
3

Experimental Design and Setup

This chapter discusses the facility, apparatuses and experimental setup along with the
procedures used to conduct visual investigations on diesel combustion using a single cylinder
automotive-sized optical diesel engine.

3.1 General Description

The optical engine has been allocated a space in a partitioned area (L211D) of the
Engine Research Laboratory in the Willis Annexe building of the School of Mechanical and
Manufacturing Engineering in The University of New South Wales, Australia. A completed
installation of the engine is pictured on the left side of a panoramic view of the laboratory in
Fig. 3.1, inclusive of an optical table in the middle supporting an operational laser system for
future works. The laboratory has access to pressurised air, filtered supply of water and three air-
conditioning units for maintaining a cool and dry fully-enclosed environment. Emergency
shutdown switches, interlock system and 20 mm thick polycarbonate plating placed in between
the control area and the engine are some of the safety measures implemented to facilitate a safe

- 16 -
 airAirconditioners
conditioners
Optical diesel engine

Optical table and laser system

Figure 3.1 - Optical Engine Laboratory (L211D)

working location. Aluminium frames are self-designed and constructed for support of the engine
and its components and to enable a compact and stable structure for additional attachments of
sensors and interface boxes.

3.2 Optical Diesel Engine

Combustion in an engine occurs within a constrained small volume that expands and
compresses in a reciprocating manner. Severe and drastic fluctuation in temperature, pressure
and ambient conditions within the chamber require engine design to incorporate tight sealing,
accurate measurements and minute tolerances. The optical diesel engine has been designed and
constructed from a base conventional 2.0 Litre, 4-cylinders (inline) diesel engine to allow visual
observation to the chamber via modification on the piston assembly. Similar heavy-duty
versions of optical engines have been used in refs. [Docquier 2002, Musculus 2006, Chartier
2010, Polonowski et al. 2011] with comparisons with its metal engine counterparts also
performed to ensure validity and applicability of results found in optical engines [Aronsson et
al. 2008, Colban et al. 2008].

- 17 -
 Engine Air Heater
Head
Exhaust Intake

AC Motor

Engine
Head

Figure 3.2 - Optical diesel engine assembly (left) later attached with an intake and exhaust
tank (right)

A 75 kW AC electric motor is attached onto the crankshaft of the engine as seen in Fig.
3.2 (left) to function as a starter motor as well as to sustain constant engine speed during firing
tests. The single-cylinder displaces a volume of 497.5 cc at every stroke with original bore and
stroke dimensions of 83 mm and 92 mm respectively and a compression ratio of 17.7.
Compression ratio is modifiable by swapping out the piston with a different design. The ratio
used for the presented studies ranged between 15.2 and 17.7. The ratio for engine swirl is set as
1.4 with original fuel injection systems comprising of a second generation Bosch high-pressure
(max of 160 MPa) common-rail system. A Bosch conventional diesel injector is also utilised.
The intake and exhaust manifolds of the engine have been replaced with a 60-litre aluminium
intake and exhaust tanks that act as a control volume that regulate and maintain consistent air
flow during intake and exhaust strokes (Fig. 3.2, right). The roof of the intake tank is equipped
with a 4.5 kW heat exchanger capable of heating intake air up to 393 K with a centrally-located
thermocouple attached to a digital readout for monitoring and recording. An additional
thermocouple is also attached to the intake passage within proximity to the chamber valve to
observe and record a more accurate intake air temperature. As combustion behaviour is known

- 18 -
to be highly sensitive to temperature changes, a temperature control unit (ThermalCare
Aquatherm RS092) has been installed to set, control and maintain engine temperature during
warm-up and engine operation. Water is being used to act as a coolant as it is pumped through
the engine head, engine block and cylinder liner before passing through a thermostat that
determines whether the recirculated water needs to be heated or cooled. This fast-response
system allows a consistent thermodynamics to take place in maintenance of experimental
repeatability while also presenting a more realistic operating condition. Details on engine
specifications are summarised on Table 3.1.

Engine vibrations are dampened by installation of six vibration mounts in between the
base frame of the engine and the concrete floor. In addition the foundations of surrounding
aluminium frames have been secured to the concrete floor by means of a bracket and bolt
system. Insulating tape has also been generously applied on joints where vibrations are most
easily transmitted to its surrounding structure. A low pressure pump is connected between the
fuel tank and the engine’s Bosch high pressure fuel pump to accommodate intermediate fuel
delivery. The engine was operated using a conventional ultra-low sulphur diesel (ULSD) fuel,
with cetane number of 51, commonly available in Australia in compliance with the Fuel Quality
Standards Act 2000.

Table 3.1 – Single-cylinder optical diesel engine specifications.

Displacement
497.5 cc
(single-cylinder)
Bore 83 mm
Stroke 92 mm
Compression ratio 15.2 - 17.7
Swirl ratio 1.4
Second-generation
Injector type
Bosch common-rail
Nozzle type Hydro-grounded, K1.5/0.86
Nozzle diameter 134 μm
Included angle 150°
Wall (coolant) temperature 303 - 363 K
Intake air temperature 303 - 393 K

- 19 -
3.2.1 Optical Access Design and Function

An exploded view of the single-cylinder optical diesel engine is shown in Figure 3.3
with appropriate labels in place to identify its major components. Apart from the removal of
three out of four of its operational cylinders and disabling corresponding valves and injectors,
the major modification that led to endowing optical accessibility to the engine is related to the
extension of the cylinder liner assembly between the engine head and the engine block.

The expansion of this particular section of the engine is composed of several

components with each of its own function:

x Window block: this topmost section acts as an envelope to the modified combustion
chamber which also houses 4 side windows for direct side-view of the chamber from 4
angles. A sealant product between the top of the mock to the engine head ensures
minimal leakage of combustion products. (see Fig. 3.4, left)

x Extended piston: an aluminium extended piston is designed to be attached to the top of

the original piston by means of 6 bolts and a clamping system. The slit in the middle of
this component allows placement of a mirror situated at 45 o from the horizontal directly
below the combustion chamber to give optical access. The piston bowl is
interchangeable though flat piston quartz usually occupies this space for experiments
requiring optical access. (see Fig. 3.4, right)

x Drop-down cylinder liner: the modified liner can be rotated and dropped down to
expose the combustion chamber and parts of the extended piston. The drop-down
mechanism allows cleaning of the chamber during experimental runs to avoid build-up
of soot particles and maintain comparable starting conditions between each runs.

x Hydraulic ramp: the ramp mechanism sits below the cylinder liner allowing it to
provide rigidity and structural stability during engine tests and eliminate vibrational
fatigue to surrounding parts. The ramp is operated using a feed of engine oil with
compressed nitrogen supply to maintain a constant upward pressure of ~ 10 bars.

x Mirror holder: a component fixed with a slider allows placement of a mirror in the void
of the piston extension. During operation the mirror does not make contact with the
reciprocating piston with no obstruction to its field of view relative to the camera
position.

- 20 -
 Window block

Extended
Piston Cylinder Liner
Assembly
Engine
Head To AC
Motor

Engine
Encoder
Block

Figure 3.3 – Exploded view of the optical diesel engine.

zlhsG~pukv~G
|wwly

x|hy{G
wpz{vu wpz{vuGvw{
WINDOW
MOCK zlhsG~pukv~

QUARTZ u|{Gx|hy{G
~pukv~
SIDE

l{lu{pvuG
wpz{vu

jshtwG
hkhw{ly

hkhw{ly

wpz{vu
e

Figure 3.4 - Exploded part view of the window mock (left) and the optical piston assembly
(right)

- 21 -
 This design has limitations brought by the capacity of the quartz pieces to withstand
high pressure loads. A preliminary calculation conducted following Equation 3.1
[ispoptics.com, Rudnitzki 2005] provided an operational safety limit that should not be
breached to prevent catastrophic and propagative failures of engine components, in particular
the optical pieces. A considerably large safety factor of 10 is used for this calculation to account
for high frequency temperature and pressure cyclic load that the quartz experience and also to
account for the presence of artefacts and imperfections made during manufacturing of these
pieces.

ሺ૜Ǥ ૝ૡ ‫࢚ כ‬૛ ‫ࡹ כ‬ሻ

ࡼࢇ࢒࢒࢕࢝ ൌ ሺ͵Ǥͳሻ
࡭ ‫ࡲࡿ כ‬

Where Pallow = Allowable Pressure

t = Thickness of the Quartz
A = Unsupported Area
SF = Safety Factor
M = Modulus of Rupture of Quartz

Another design limitation of the optical diesel engine is related with the attainable field
of view of the chamber from the bottom. As schematically portrayed in Fig. 3.5, the optical
window made by the piston quartz piece are only able to provide field of view of 43 mm in
diameter leaving 20 mm off each side of the bore to anonymity. Larger field of views with
small-bore optical engines would present a worrying scenario of increased instability of the
extended piston component and may result in less-than-optimal performances and further
constraints on allowable operating ranges due to increase in unsupported area following
Equation 3.1. Such limitation do prevent a more complete outlook of the spatial distribution of
flames though it is believed that the current field of view would suffice the scope of the research
that is aimed to study near-injection and near-inner-wall regions of the combustion chamber.
Realistic portrayal of the combustion chambers is shown in Fig. 3.6 for clarification on the
acquired bottom-view image of the chamber (left) and user accessibility to the chamber during
cleaning (right).

- 22 -
 Bore
(Ø83mm)
Intake
Optical Valves
Window 1
(Ø43mm) 7
2
6
3
Exhaust 5 4
Valves
Pressure
Sensor

Figure 3.5 – Detailed exploded part view of the extended piston component as attached on top
of the original piston top. A bottom view of the setup (left) identifies the field of view given by
the piston quartz along with the jet trajectories and location of valves

Figure 3.6 – Visual representations of the bottom view of the combustion chamber as reflected
via the 45 degree mirror (left) and the chamber as viewed when the liner is dropped (right).

- 23 -
3.2.2 Piston Modifications

Further self-designed modifications of the piston were performed to accomplish several

agendas. Those related to this thesis are to:

1. Allow longer injection duration to be implemented by as geometrical compression ratio

is reduced resulting in reduced peak motored in-cylinder pressure and increases load
limit. This function is managed through coupling with a single-hole injector.

2. Allow simultaneous observation the effects of varying degree of wall interactions. (See
Chapter 5) through bisection of the diesel jet.

Displayed in Figure 3.7 are the modified piston used to investigate the second
combustion regime explored in this research thesis involving long injection duration and jet-
wall interactions (Chapter 5). The sloped cut-out volume on the piston rim permits bisection of
a jet (through change of jet trajectory) where half goes into the cut-out while the other half
impinges upon the inner piston bowl wall. Further details on how the modification relate to the
experimental setup will be discussed in greater detail in Chapter 5.

Figure 3.7 –Modified piston top drawing (left) and the final product (right).

- 24 -
3.3 Experimental Setup

A schematic of the experimental setup is shown in Fig. 3.8 depicting a sectioned side
view of the cylinder liner and engine head assembly. Arrangements of the fuel injection system,
locations of pressure sensor and quartz pieces are annotated accordingly. Several items are
interchangeable and modifiable such as the injector and the piston design. For the current study
two camera system and setup are implemented as highlighted in Fig. 3.8.

Common-rail
Fuel injection
system Injector

Pressure sensor
Intake air
Cylinder head heater
Quartz
pieces

Wall temperature
control unit
Cylinder
liner
For
High-Speed Extended
45° angled
Soot Luminosity mirror
piston
For
Nikon Micro 105mm OH Chemiluminescence
Prime lens @f/11
JENOPTIK CoastalOpt
Vision Research 105mm UV-VIS @f/4.5
Phantom v7.3 250nm – 650nm range
CMOS Sensor + 310 nm bandpass filter
256x256 pixels
@36 000 fps LaVision Nanostar
Intensified CCD Sensor
416x416 pixels

Figure 3.8 – Schematic diagram of the experimental setup containing two optical diagnostic
techniques utilised to visualise flame development using a high-speed CMOS camera and an
intensified CCD camera.

- 25 -
3.3.1 Control Systems

The operating conditions of the engine are set and controlled via a universal engine
controller unit (Zenobalti Engine Controller) allowing user to define injection duration, timing
and pressure and implement multiple injection strategies. The signal created by the controller is
sent to a universal injector driver (Zenobalti 5100) that sends a subsequent current to the
injector’s solenoid valve to contract and allow pressurised fuel to exit from the nozzle. The
duration at which this occurs is usually not within exact measure of the set injection duration.
While this varies in between studies, the current engine and injector has shown that actual
injection duration is roughly ~20-50% longer than set duration. The injected fuel mass, injection
rate and its profile were measured in a separate study using an injection rate meter (courtesy of
Changhwan “Bryan” Woo).

3.3.2 Data Acquisition and Processing

In-cylinder pressure is acquired through a piezoelectric transducer (Kistler type 6056A)

installed as a replacement to the glow plug unit in the engine head compartment. The face of the
sensor is exposed at an angle near the centrally-located injector nozzle as indicated earlier in
Figure 3.5. Data were recorded using a data acquisition system (MCC USB-1616HS-BNC). The
in-cylinder pressure was ensemble-averaged over 30 firing cycles and was used to calculate
apparent heat-release rate, pressure rise rate (dP/dθ), and ignition delay for the main injection.
The averaging process allows minimisation of signal noise generated during the data acquisition
process and also cycle-to-cycle variation. More cycles could have been used (>30) for this
process, however this could place greater stress upon the optical engine that is less robust in
comparison to metal engines. To obtain a greater statistical accuracy in data it is recommended
to use more than 30 cycles where possible. Apparent heat release rate was calculated using
Equation 3.2 derived from ref. [Heywood 1988] which does not take into account of heat losses
during the combustion cycle. The exclusion of heat losses could change the actual heat release
rate values and therefore should be used as an approximate. In further simplification of the
calculation of heat release the specific heat ratio was also kept constant at 1.35 for all operating
conditions. Gamma (γ) is the ratio of specific heats of air inside the combustion chamber that
would in actuality change as pressure and volume change as they do during an engine cycle. In
addition, gamma also changes accordingly to equivalence ratio (the ratio between actual fuel-to-
air mass ratio against fuel-to-air mass ratio in stoichiometric conditions). Neglecting this term
can place a 1.5% error in actual gamma values, where an approximate value less than actual will
result in heat release values that is too high and an over-prediction can result in heat release rate

- 26 -
that is negative at the end of combustion [Brunt et al. 1998]. A temperature-dependent gamma
function would be best to implement in these studies as it adjusts to different engine operations.
This was not performed for the current studies as numerical accuracy was not prioritised.
Subsequent future works is recommended to install a fast-response temperature reader inside the
combustion chamber to obtain a temporal view of how gamma changes during an engine cycle.

݀ܳ ߛ ܸ݀ ܸ ݀ܲ
ൌ ήܲή ൅ ή ሺ͵Ǥʹሻ
݀ߠ ߛെͳ ݀ߠ ߛ െ ͳ ݀ߠ

Where dQ = apparent Heat Release Rate.

θ = Crank angle degree.
γ = Specific heat ratio of air (cp/cv), gamma.
P = In-cylinder pressure.
V = Chamber volume.

As the sensor is a glow-plug type, its location was previously occupied by the original
glow plug used to heat up the chamber in cold start conditions. Referring to Figure 3.5, the jets
have been labelled from #1 to #7 for convenience in discussion. It is noticed that the glow-plug-
type adaptor protrudes out and at times interferes with oncoming jet sprays (between jet #3 and
jet #4) producing an area containing many small pockets of hot soot. The benefit of having this
external casing includes a low thermal shock error and high stability. Furthermore it prolongs
the sensor’s lifespan and accuracy. This obstructing effect is considered to have no adverse
effects for the purpose of the studies of this thesis.

Indicated Mean Effective Pressure (IMEP) was also calculated from the in-cylinder
pressure trace following Equation 3.3. This variable determines the amount of work the engine
೚
೚ ܲ ή ܸ݀ሻaccomplished with respect to the engine displacement (†).
ଷ଺଴
(‫ି׬‬ଷ଺଴

ଷ଺଴೚
‫׬‬ ೚ ܲ ή ܸ݀
‫ ݁ݎݑݏݏ݁ݎܲ݁ݒ݅ݐ݂݂ܿ݁ܧ݊ܽ݁ܯ݀݁ݐܽܿ݅݀݊ܫ‬ൌ  ିଷ଺଴ ሺ͵Ǥ͵ሻ
ܸௗ

- 27 -
 Furthermore, the measurement of ignition delay (τid) used in this thesis has been defined
as the time interval between SOI to the start of combustion (SOC). The method of detection of
the SOC was adapted from [Kook et al. 2007] where SOC can be identified by the point of
departure of the fired in-cylinder pressure trace from the motored pressure trace, following the
evaporative cooling period.

A technique used to extract high-frequency pressure fluctuations from in-cylinder

pressure traces involved a simplified version of Fourier analysis. This was processed via
Matlab’s inbuilt fast-fourier transform code that essentially transforms a time-based signal (e.g.
in-cylinder pressure vs. time/crank angle degrees) to its frequency-domain [Duhamel & Vetterli
1990, Frigo & Johnson 1998, Oppenheim & Schafer 2009]. In this frequency-domain the user
would be able to identify the major frequencies that fluctuations in the pressure trace operate.
Such technique have been used extensively to detect knock and determine its severity, which
has also been found to be more reliable than techniques involving vibration analysis [Millo &
Ferraro 1998].

For the studies involving premixed-dominant combustion (Chapter 4), spectral analysis
was used comprehensively to give quantitative means of comparison of conditions at varying
degree of knocking. Hence to accomplish this, spectral analysis of the in-cylinder pressure was
performed using Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) technique. Matlab was the chosen software to
accomplish this task and the built-in guide documentation on codeword “fft” have been
followed meticulously alongside previous literature discussing gas resonance modes in
combustion chambers [Draper 1938, Hickling et al. 1979, Ren et al. 1999]. The procedure for
this conduct is as follows:

1. Convert the time-domain in-cylinder pressure trace to its frequency-domain by FFT

[Oppenheim & Schafer 2009].

2. Identify frequency range of interest [Draper 1938, Millo & Ferraro 1998]. The range
used for this study was chosen to be 4 to 20 kHz from identification of major harmonic
modes produced in step 1, close to values used in previous literature [Millo & Ferraro
1998].

3. Inverse FFT using the range of interest, which will generate the pressure trace that falls
within the set frequency [Oppenheim & Schafer 2009]. This in effect isolates the
remaining high-frequency pressure fluctuation from the original in-cylinder pressure
trace and quantifies the severity of the pressure ringing.

- 28 -
3.3.3 High-Speed Hot Soot Luminosity

Hot soot luminosity is a dominant emissive product of combustion resulting from

incandescence of hot soot particles and also partially mixed with chemiluminescence of
chemically excited gas radicals such as OH*, CH* and C2 [Dec & Espey 1998]. Without
requirement of any external light sources and specialised filters and lenses, imaging of soot
luminosity is rather simple and intuitive. As direct consequences the amount of information
relating to combustion details are limited but it remains as a useful diagnostic tool in
investigating the progression of high soot regions. Subsequently its temporal evolution may
allow preliminary aspects of flame development to be inferred for initiating more advanced
diagnostics to be conducted. For the current studies, hot soot luminosity have also helped being
a correspondent to images of OH* chemiluminescence.

For findings presented in this study, a high-speed monochrome CMOS camera (Vision
Research Phantom v7.3) was used to capture natural luminosity of combustion. The frame rate
was set at 36,000 frames-per-second (fps) with an exposure time of 10 μs. The image resolution
was generally set at 256 x 256 pixels and the maximum image count was 16384 (from 0 to
16383 for a 14-bit image). The lens attached to the camera was a Nikon Prime Micro 105-mm
lens with f/11 that allowed a sufficient depth-of-field and image sharpness. Post-processing of
the images utilised Otsu’s method of image binarisation (i.e. conversion to black and white)
[Otsu 1979] to detect the flame boundaries in each individual frames to develop a chronological
view of its progression. The use of Otsu’s method has its drawbacks, especially with usage on
high-speed events such as one involving engine combustions. Each stage of combustion would
produce light emission of varying intensity, causing Otsu’s threshold to vary in these cases. The
threshold value acquired through Otsu’s method is flexible such that it changes accordingly to
the distribution and values of the pixels in individual images. Some discrepancies are to be
expected especially when taking into account of the reflective background of the combustion
chamber. Regardless of such drawbacks in the method, the post-processed images display good
correspondence with the raw images. A sample raw frame of the monochrome image is shown
in Figure 3.9 (left) and its equivalent post-processed frame (right). Red outlines on the flame
structures indicate the measured boundaries. Some instances of reflection from the background
valves and pressure sensor are inevitable though care has been taken to ensure that it does not
interfere with the qualitative analysis of the flame development.

- 29 -
 Raw Processed

Distance from nozzle [mm]

Distance from nozzle [mm]

Figure 3.9 – Post-processing of hot soot luminosity from its raw monochrome image (left) to
the final image (right).Boundaries are stored in coordinates to allow centroids of the shapes to
be tracked to analyse temporal development of the flames.

3.3.4 OH* Chemiluminescence

The exothermic reaction of hydrocarbons during high temperature, stoichiometric

combustion conditions can be written as such:

‫ ܪܥ‬൅  ܱଶ  ՜ ‫ ܱܥ‬൅  ‫כ‬

This reaction identifies OH radicals (OH*) to be chemically excited during initial

ignition process of diesel combustion [Dec & Espey 1998]. The emergence of OH* radicals are
identified to occur in near-stoichiometric regions of high heat release and therefore act as an
excellent indicator of lift-off position [Peters 2000, Higgins & Siebers 2001, Musculus 2006,
Polonowski et al. 2011]. OH* chemiluminescence diagnostic essentially captures the emission
of excited OH* as they return back to its ground state through the use of intensified charged-
couple cameras (ICCD) with the use of a 310 nm wavelength bandpass filter [Higgins & Siebers
2001, Musculus 2006]. The filter is necessary to screen the broad spectrum of light emitted by
OH* and while although the range of UV at 306~310 nm range also contains CH emissions and
luminosity of soot, the signal from OH* has been found to dominate [Dec & Espey 1998,
Higgins & Siebers 2001]. The use of this diagnostic technique has been implemented in many

- 30 -
past literatures with great success [Musculus 2006, Pauls et al. 2007, Polonowski et al. 2011,
Zhang & Fang 2011, Zhang et al. 2012].

For this diagnostic an ICCD camera equipped with CoastalOpt UV 105mm f/4.5
(transmission rate of 85%) and a band-pass filter (310 nm, 10 nm FWHW) were used to isolate
the strongest signal of excited hydroxyl radicals (OH*) chemiluminescence and record an image
at every fired engine cycle with resolution of 416-by-416 pixel. The intensifier gain was fixed at
45% throughout the experiments where the quantum efficiency of the camera was above 13%
between the ranges of 300-400 nm. Acquisition of OH* chemiluminescence images are taken
such that 30 individual images are obtained at every crank angle degree of interest.

Similarly to hot soot luminosity, OH* images are subjected to boundary detection via
Otsu’s method as processed via an in-house designed Matlab code. Figure 3.10 shows an
example of the post-processing of OH* chemiluminescence images performed for results
presented in Chapter 5. Two top images are raw OH* images from two different cycles (cycle
#10 and cycle #21) taken at 9oCA aTDC. The white dot at the centre illustrates the position of
nozzle tip and a circle outlines the piston bowl wall. The OH* chemiluminescence signals
appear as white clouds at upper half of the piston bowl and near the bowl wall. It is clear that
two different cycles exhibit measurable differences in intensity and structure of OH*
chemiluminescence. Different to the case of hot soot luminosity where only the boundaries were
measured using Otsu’s method, the acquisition of OH* chemiluminescence was performed to
locate where the flame stabilises or otherwise known as the lift-off position or lift-off length
[Higgins & Siebers 2001]. As the numerical value of this variable is important, an averaging
process is performed between 30 individual images taken at a specific crank angle degree. This
averaging process is believed to allow the elimination of doubts arising from variation in images
due to cycle-to-cycle variations. The averaged image of 30 individual cycles is shown below the
raw images in Figure 3.10. A simple linear averaging was used in this study i.e. the summation
of each pixel intensity value and division with number of image samples. The averaged image
then was used to detect the OH* chemiluminescence boundary and lift-off lengths. One might
notice that grey-coloured triangle is used to illustrate liquid and vapour fuel upstream of the
OH* chemiluminescence boundary. This is to denote whether the image was taken during the
injection or after the end of injection and is not a realistic depiction of the actual liquid/vapour
fuel. As the images are sampled from studies into negative ignition dwell (covered in Chapter 5)
the annotated variables of OHw-d, OHw-u and OHrw-d will be explained in great detail there.

- 31 -
 99°aTDC
°aTDC Cycle #10 99 °aTDC
°aTDC Cycle #21

Jet A Jet A

99 °aTDC
°aTDC Averaged

Jet A

9 °aTDC 16 ⁰ aSOI
Jet
Jet AA
OHrw-u
OHw
w-u
-u
u OH
O Hw-d
Averaged

Figure 3.10 - Post-processing procedures for OH* chemiluminescence images of Jet A (see
Chapter 5) including linear averaging of individual raw images and boundary detection of the
averaged image.

- 32 -
Chapter 4
4

Premixed-Dominant Combustion Regime

The first regime to be detailed involves short injection duration leading to positive
ignition dwell (i.e. positive time between end-of-injection to start of combustion) and
subsequently a premixed-dominant combustion where no mixing-controlled combustion can be
observed from the heat release rate. In this regime it was found that knock has a propensity to
grow in severity as pressure rise exceeds certain values. Three selected injection timings
(7.7oCA bTDC, 2.7oCA bTDC and 2.3oCA aTDC) with short injection duration (<600 μs) using
a 7-hole injector were chosen to allow best comparison between three levels of knock severity
where its flame development was visually captured. The conditions listed here and as follows at
which knock is studied are not common of practical modern light-duty diesel engines today
where EGR and multiple injection strategies are implemented to minimise effects of knock and
improve engine performance and emissions. As such the chosen conditions are selected
primarily to induce knock in its most severe case so that it can be visualised and studied in
realistic engine environments.

- 33 -
4.1 Background

The visual capture of diesel knock has yet to be performed in recent years despite its
emerging importance in studies involving HCCI mode of combustion [Dec et al. 2011, Yang et
al. 2011]. The present observations and findings bridge this gap by showing high-speed movies
of the natural combustion luminosity during the knocking event in a small-bore optical diesel
engine. Initial investigation in a premixed short-injection combustion regime identifies
occurrence of an unorthodox movement of flame structures during engine knocking cycles, the
latter identifiable by high-frequency fluctuation in the in-cylinder pressure trace also known as
“pressure ringing” [Hickling et al. 1979, Millo & Ferraro 1998, Ren et al. 1999, Eng 2002].
Concurrently with the flame visualisation, a spectral analysis of in-cylinder pressure ringing was
conducted to find its correspondence with the visual information. Impact of cycle-to-cycle
fluctuations and fuel injection timing variations on knocking trends is discussed in great details.
The remedial effect of pilot injection on diesel knock is also experimentally investigated and
visualised to validate the observed flame behaviour in a knocking cycle. Primary to its goal, the
pilot injection also allow a better visualisation of a non-knocking condition, whereby soot
luminosity amounts are unattainable with a non-knocking main-only condition.

4.2 Operating Conditions

The engine operating conditions are listed in Table 4.1. The optical engine was run by
an AC motor (“motored”) at a fixed speed of 1200 revolutions per minute (rpm) and “skip-
fired” at every 10th cycle out of a total of 300 cycles, resulting in a total of 30 fired cycles. This
skip-firing minimised the cyclic thermal stresses in optical parts and reduced residual gases
from the previous firing cycle, resulting in decreased cycle-to-cycle variations. The wall
temperature was kept at a constant 363 K by delivering heated water to the engine head,
cylinder liner and the engine block. The intake air temperature was intentionally kept at 303 K
to attain a long ignition delay and thus occurrence of knocking. The swirl ratio was set at 1.4
which is relatively low compared to other studies (at and above 2, e.g.[Park et al. 2004]).

Details of the fuel injection system and settings are listed in Table 4.2. The fuel
injection system was composed of a Bosch second-generation common-rail and a 7-hole
solenoid injector controlled by a universal driver (Zenobalti 5100). Other details on the control
and data acquisition systems can be found in Chapter 3 (Section 3.3). To induce knock, the
injection timing was advanced up to 7.7 oCA bTDC (Crank Angle Degree before Top Dead
Centre) at a set operating condition. For the investigation the effect of pilot injection on the

- 34 -
 Table 4.1 – Engine operating conditions for diesel knock investigation.

Engine speed 1200 rpm

Compression ratio 17.7
Swirl ratio 1.4
Wall (coolant) temperature 363 K
Intake air temperature 303 K

Table 4.2 – Fuel injection parameters for knock severity comparison.

Rail pressure 70 MPa

Injection duration (mass) 600 μs (9 mg)
7.7 ‚CA bTDC
Injection timings 2.7‚CA bTDC
2.3 ‚CA aTDC
Indicated mean effective
219 ~ 298 kPa
pressure (IMEP)

knock reduction, the duration of the main-only case (single main injection) was reduced from
600 μs (9 mg) to 400 μs (2.43 mg) in anticipation for increased total fuel mass contributed by
the pilot injection leading to potentially higher peak in-cylinder pressure. The higher pressure
may inflict greater load on the optical pieces and therefore presented a concern from an
experimental perspective and also reliability of engine components. For this study only high-
speed hot soot luminosity imaging was performed as detailed in Fig. 3.8 (Chapter 3, Section
3.3)

4.3 Cycle-to-Cycle Variations

With the usage of a motored optical engine and skip-firing, variations between engine
cycles can be suppressed; however, some variations are unavoidable and only can be minimised
to a certain extent. To address this issue, cyclic variations during operation of the engine and
their impact on knocking were analysed before the high-speed flame imaging was performed.
The limitation imposed on the analysis of the high-speed movie is that only a selected case was

- 35 -
Figure 4.1 - Cycle-to-cycle variations as shown through a collection of individual firing cycles
(black) and ensemble-averaged trace (red) for the earliest injection case (7.7 oCA bTDC).

studied while the corresponding pressure and heat release rate used is an ensemble-average of
30 fired cycles. However, this does not appear to be an issue in this study. For example, the
pressure traces of the 30 individual fired cycles (black lines) of the earliest injection case (7.7
o
CA bTDC) are plotted with the ensemble-average trace (red line) in Fig. 4.1. This case was
chosen for its higher pressure ringing and cyclic variations than other tested conditions. Figure
4.1 shows that a measurable degree of fluctuations in the intensity of pressure ringing. However,
no variations are observed in the overall combustion phasing such that ignition delay, initial
pressure rise, peak pressure and following pressure decrease occur nearly at the same timing.
Most importantly, it is observed that the pressure ringing frequency matches quite well in-
between cycles.

- 36 -
 A Fourier transform analysis was also repeated on these individual cycles to provide
better insight into the observed cycle-to-cycle variations in the frequency domain. The
technique to accomplish this was introduced earlier in Chapter 3, Section 3.3.2. Figure 4.2
(bottom) shows how individual cycles compare with the ensemble-averaged cycle when
transformed to its frequency-domain. While a significant variation between peak values exists,
the frequencies remain identical in value for all individual cycles. To demonstrate this effect
clearer, three individual in-cylinder pressure plots of three individual fired cycles are presented
in Fig. 4.2 (top) corresponding to cycle #1, #4 and #10. These are chosen based on their
variance in “ringing” severity which can be seen to result in different spectrum coefficient as
annotated in Fig. 4.2 (bottom). In this figure the major frequency mode of the ensemble-
averaged cycle falls at the vicinity of 7 kHz and it can be seen that all the individual cycles
exhibit the same frequency mode, similar with results in Fig. 4.1. For the purpose of this study
the frequency of the oscillation is the main variable in focus for comparing in-cylinder pressure
ringing and its corresponding flame oscillation. With little variation between the in-cylinder
pressure traces for the set conditions it confirms the viability of using the ensemble-averaged
trace to eliminate noise while comparing it with selected high-speed frames of an individual
knocking cycle.

#4 #1 #10
spectrum coefficient []

#10
Cylinder pressure

#1
#4

Frequency (kHz)

Figure 4.2 - Individual cycles (black lines) of the early injection case (7.7 oCA bTDC) are
transformed into the frequency domain to show that the cycle-to-cycle variations do not affect
the major frequency mode located at 7 kHz.

- 37 -
 There is a lack of feasibility in linear-averaging of the frames acquired from individual
cycles since soot incandescence reflect situations where the flames break-up during both
formation and dissipation. This causes elimination or dismissal of soot luminosity boundaries
that may be important in illustrating certain movements along the chamber. With this in mind
one may question the effect of cycle-to-cycle variation on the resulting visualisation process of
soot luminosity and whether the perceived motions are statistically significant. To accommodate
for this concern, image analysis has been extended to include multiple cycles’ worth of high-
speed video and its corresponding frames will be studied to give confidence on the results
presented and discussed in the following segments.

4.4 In-Cylinder Pressure Fluctuation and Spectral Analysis

Figure 4.3 shows the cycle-averaged in-cylinder pressure traces and corresponding
aHRR and PRR for three sets of injection timings (7.7oCA bTDC, 2.7oCA bTDC, 2.3oCA
aTDC). The annotated rectangular boxes on the bottom left illustratively indicate the fuel
injection duration (scaled to 600 μs) and timing, namely the period between the start of injection
(SOI) and end of injection (EOI). The alphabets “a”, “b” and “c” is to associate the injection
timing with the pressure trace on the same viewgraph. From the in-cylinder pressure trace, the
start of combustion (SOC) can be identified by the point of departure of the fired in-cylinder
pressure trace from the motored pressure trace, following the evaporative cooling period. It is
noticeable that all three cases exhibit a long ignition delay (i.e. a long time between SOI and
SOC) resulting in positive ignition dwell where the start of combustion (SOC) occurs well after
the EOI. This ensured that most of the injected fuel mixes with ambient air prior to the start of
combustion and thus the premixed burn phase dominates the overall diesel combustion. This is
evidenced by a single dominant peak in aHRR for all three injection studies (Fig. 4, middle).

The steep increase of pressure during the premixed burn caused an undesirable
“ringing” of pressure that is seen for the earliest (7.7oCA bTDC) and later (2.3oCA bTDC)
injection timing in Fig. 4.3 (top). This ringing phenomenon is associated with a steep PRR (Fig.
4.3, bottom) that occurs when the premixed burn is phased near TDC. The high PRR has been
suggested to be the main cause of knocking in diesel engines by refs. [Priede 1960, Hickling et
al. 1979, Schaberg et al. 1990, Ren et al. 1999]. Figure 4.3 shows consistent result in which the
pressure ringing diminishes as injection timing is retarded and thus the premixed burn occurs
after TDC. It is noticeable that decreasing peak PRR is more evident than decreasing peak
aHRR.

- 38 -
 a
b
c
Fuel Injection

2800

2200

1800

1200

600

- 600

Figure 4.3 - In-cylinder pressure trace, apparent heat-release rate (aHRR) and pressure-rise
rate (PRR) over three injection timings (a)7.7 oCA bTDC, (b)2.7 oCA bTDC and (c)2.3 oCA
aTDC injection. Pressure fluctuation or "ringing" can be detected after the peak is reached for
(a) and (b) indicating knocking behaviour. The fluctuating term disappears for (c) associating
with the gentler PRR.

- 39 -
 To quantify the observed pressure ringing in Fig. 4.3 (top), a spectral analysis was
performed. The method chosen was an Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) of the in-cylinder pressure
trace to transform it from the time-domain to the frequency-domain as further elaborated in refs.
[Hickling et al. 1979, Kono et al. 1983, Ren et al. 1999] and also previously introduced in
Chapter 3, Section 3.3.2. Figure 4.4 compares the three operating conditions in the frequency-
domain to observe how each case corresponds with the pressure ringing frequencies. For the
most severe ringing that is exhibited by the earliest injection case (7.7 oCA bTDC), a single
drastic peak can be seen in 6~8 kHz. Several minor peaks are also observed at 10, 13 and 17
kHz though their amplitudes are relatively small. In contrast, the later injection (2.7 oCA bTDC)
shows a larger distribution and lower peak of amplitudes. The highest peak is attained at 14 kHz
which means the pressure ringing for this later injection was dominated by a higher frequency
component compared to more severe ringing case (7.7 oCA bTDC). For comparison purposes,
the frequency domain of the latest injection case (2.3 oCA aTDC) is also plotted in Fig. 4.4.

(a) 7.7 °CA bTDC

spectrum coefficient []
Cylinder pressure

(b) 2.7 °CA bTDC

(c) c)2.3°CA aTDC Frequency (kHz)

Figure 4.4 - Fourier transform of the pressure trace at the three injection timings. The spikes
on the graph indicate a fluctuating term part of the pressure in the time-domain at the
corresponding frequency.

- 40 -
 This condition does not show any distinguishable peaks and thus confirming that the
condition was knock-free. It is noted that the variation in the dominant knocking frequency
between the three sets of operating condition is caused by the resulting combustion events. The
different in-cylinder peak pressure and its temporal location (oCA aTDC) caused by the variance
in injection timing and of its combustion are known to change the frequency of the gas cavity
resonance due to its sensitivity with in-cylinder temperature and chamber shape [Draper 1938].
More substantially, the effect of pressure rise rate has been explored in ref [Schaberg et al.
1990] to play a significant role in determining knock severity in compression-ignition engine
combustions. This was particularly directed to the increase in premixed combustion associated
with the drastic increase of pressure rise further evident in Fig. 4.3 (bottom). Such can explain
the change in the increasing severity of pressure ringing observed in Fig. 4.3 (top) when
injection timing is advanced and subsequently the frequency difference portrayed in Fig. 4.4.

Figure 4.5 compares band-pass filtered data of all three conditions. From the inspection
of the pressure in frequency domain in Fig. 4.4, we judged that a band pass filter in between 6
and 20 kHz would be sufficient to collect all knocking frequencies with reasonable signal-to-

(a) 7.7 °CA bTDC

(b) 2.7 °CA bTDC

(c) 2.3°CA aTDC

Figure 4.5 - Band-pass filtered pressure of all three injection conditions comparing the
severity of pressure ringing.

- 41 -
noise ratio. Transforming the band-pass filtered pressure trace back to the time-domain yields
the intensity of ringing as measured by the peak-to-peak pressure difference (PPmax) [Millo &
Ferraro 1998] and depicted in Fig. 4.5. The variable PPmax has been used as an indicator of
knocking intensity and hence a higher value indicate occurrence of a comparatively stronger
knock. As expected, the earliest injection case (7.7 oCA bTDC) has the greatest PPmax (230 kPa)
occurring at earlier timing (~0.5oCA aTDC) compared to the later injection (2.7 oCA bTDC)
that occurred at ~7oCA aTDC. The intensity of the ringing for the later injection case is reduced
to almost half of the early case (140 kPa).

4.5 Flame Oscillation during Knocking

Figure 4.6 displays a series of frames extracted from the high-speed movie of the
earliest injection case (7.7oCA bTDC), where the most severe pressure ringing was observed.
On the top-left and bottom-left of each frame are the time stamps for oCA aTDC and oCA aSOI,
respectively. In addition, seven fuel jet trajectories are labelled on the first frame for jet #1 ~ #7
as it was shown in Chapter 3, Section 3.2, Fig. 3.5. Flame boundaries are displayed by a red
outline of the soot luminous regions except the top row for the purpose of presentation of the
raw images. The frames displayed are selected at various timings to best illustrate four different
events (A ~ D) during the combustion.

The visualised flames show expected movements that are consistent with previous
findings [Pickett & López 2005, Bobba et al. 2009]. In the frames shown in Fig. 4.6A, the
“flashback” of soot luminosity is observed where jet #1 shows an upstream movement of soot
luminosity. This has been suggested by Bobba et al. [Bobba et al. 2009] to be caused by the
leaning-out of the fuel-air mixture sometime after the EOI and associated with the ramping
down of fuel injection rate during the EOI transient. Throughout the frames in Fig. 4.6B and
4.6C, there are hints of jet-jet and jet-wall interactions, similar to refs. [Pickett & López 2005,
Polonowski et al. 2011]. For example, the soot luminosity associated with jet #7 goes out of the
field of view during event B but later reappears as two structures during the frames in Fig. 4.6C,
one to the left and the other to the right of the original jet trajectory. Jet #1 and jet #6
(neighbouring jets of jet #7) show similar behaviour suggesting the amalgamation of the
neighbouring jet soot luminosity (jet-jet interaction) after bouncing back off the bowl wall (jet-
wall interaction). In the frames shown in Fig. 4.6D, the reappearance of soot luminosity shows
upstream movement towards the nozzle that is much slower than the one seen in event A. Also
effect of clockwise swirl flow on soot luminosity movement is confirmed. This clockwise
movement is exhibited by all flames, and becomes dominant at the late combustion stage

- 42 -
depicted in Fig. 4.6D. Comparison between the flames initial positions (left-most frame in Fig.
4.6D) and their subsequent positions (frames towards the right in Fig. 4.6D) may be made to
infer the movement.

1
A) 7
2

6
3

5
4

B)

C)

D)

Figure 4.6 - Frames of the high-speed visualisation of the earliest injection case (SOI=7.7 oCA
bTDC) depicting four noticeable events including diesel knock; A) upstream soot movement for -
0.2 ~ 1.2 oCA aTDC, B) counter-clockwise oscillation resulting from knock for 1.4 ~ 2.2 oCA
aTDC, C) jet-jet and jet-wall interactions for 3.0 ~ 6.2 oCA aTDC and D) the clockwise
movement of swirl that dominates at the late stage of combustion for 7.0 ~ 13.0 oCA aTDC.

- 43 -
 An interesting finding from Fig. 4.6 is that an unorthodox behaviour of flames is
depicted in Fig. 4.6B where the soot luminous regions show counter-clockwise movement,
against the swirl-flow direction. Since this movement is not clear on paper as in the movie, the
soot pocket (or sooting flame) at 10 mm from the nozzle tip along the trajectory line of jet #1 is
selected and the centroids of its area as defined by the boundaries between 1.0 to 2.0 oCA aTDC
are plotted in Fig 4.7 (cycle #1, bottom). It is noted that from close visual observation of the
corresponding high-speed movie that the oscillation frequency of the selected soot pocket are
the same for all soot luminous regions within the field of view as seen in Fig. 4.7.

cycle #1 cycle #2 cycle #3

Jet Trajectory

2.0 1.8

1.6
1.0
1.4
1.4
1.2 1.4
(⁰CA aTDC)

Figure 4.7 - Superimposition of centroids of a selected flame structure of the earliest injection
case (SOI=7.7 oCA bTDC) between 1.0 and 2.0 oCA aTDC is performed for multiple individual
cycles to ascertain independence from cyclic variation and spatial localisation.

- 44 -
 The centroids corresponding to the cycle discussed and shown in Fig. 4.7 (bottom, cycle
#1) along with the boundary of the flame for the case of 1.0oCA aTDC as an example.
Subsequent boundaries are not shown to direct focus into the movement of the centroids. The
temporal progression of the centroids is annotated by the corresponding timing in oCA aTDC.
The frequency of oscillation is measured with relation to the time it takes the centroid of flame
bodies to return to its initial radial location with respect to its corresponding jet trajectory. This
definition is made to accommodate the diminishing luminosity of soot in retarded injection
timing condition (2.7oCA bTDC) as well as to provide a clearer reference point for
measurement considering the flame moves downstream (from the nozzle) and follows the swirl
flow. Figure 4.7 (bottom, cycle #1) show that the flame moves in a counter-clockwise direction
where it takes 5 frames to return to its initial radial trajectory. Due to its oscillatory nature, this
phenomenon may be called “flame oscillation”. At 36,000 frames per second of recording, each
frame is separated by 27 μs in real time. Hence 5 frames constitute to an instantaneous
frequency of 7.4 kHz given that there is an error margin of 1 frame duration.

Figure 4.7 also shows two different frames taken from two other individual cycles
comparing a total of 3 individual cycles and its video frame extracted at 1oCA aTDC. The
selection of soot pocket for comparison in its centroidal motion is denoted with an orange box
in each frame (Fig. 4.7, top). Furthermore the position of these selected soot pockets reside at
multiple locations along the chamber with its derived centroids and its temporal residence
plotted at the bottom of each frame. The previous identification of swirl-opposing motion is
seen to be exhibited in cycle #2 and cycle #3, in agreement to the previously perceived
oscillatory movement of the centroids at ~7-8 kHz.

It is notable that this frequency is very similar to the peak frequency of pressure ringing
measured at ~7 kHz (see Fig. 4.4) and also shown in Fig. 4.2 for all the individual cycles.
Therefore, this result suggests a direct correspondence between the pressure ringing and the
flame oscillation, where both are most likely to be result of diesel knock. While only three sets
of optical data corresponding to three individual knocking cycles are used to drive this finding,
the cyclic variation in Fig. 4.1 shows minimal variation in in-cylinder pressure traces and heat
release rate. With such negligible discrepancies in sensitive variables and the displayed
similarity between the centroidal movements of three individual cycles in Fig 4.7 (bottom),
there is great confidence that oscillations are by-products of real physical phenomenon rather
than of cycle-to-cycle variations.

A similar centroid measurement technique is used to illustrate flame movements for

Fig. 4.6D where the centroids of flames during the late-stage combustion are plotted over a

- 45 -
temporal timeframe between 8.6 to 10.6oCA aTDC. A soot pocket near the bowl wall and
between jet #2 and #3 was selected for this analysis. The results are shown in Fig. 4.8. It is clear
that this soot pocket does not show counter-clockwise movement as in Fig. 8 but follows the
swirl direction. After 9.4 oCA aTDC, the aforementioned jet-wall interaction is observed by the
upstream movement of the centroids towards the nozzle.

For purposes of comparison, the flame images of the later injection (2.7oCA bTDC)
over a temporal timeframe between 7.6 and 8.6oCA aTDC are shown in Fig. 4.9 (top) for three
individual cycles similar to Fig. 4.7 (top). The soot luminosity in this operating condition is
noticeably reduced in size, consistent with lower peak in-cylinder pressure (i.e. lower
temperature) and variation in piston position during combustion. Furthermore soot luminosity
are also observable at shorter duration, as shown in cycle #2 and cycle #3 flame evolutions (Fig.
4.9, bottom) where the discernible flame structures, symbolised by the centroids, dissipate much
faster at 8.4 and 8.2 oCA aTDC compared to earlier injection case (SOI=-7.7 oCA bTDC, Fig.
4.6 and Fig. 4.7). Due to variance in timing, the volumetric shape of the chamber during initial

Swirl Flow

8.6
9.4 9.0
9.8
10.2
10.6
(⁰CA aTDC)

Figure 4.8 - Flame movement at the late stage of combustion (between 8.6 to 10.6 oCA aTDC)
shows swirl domination and jet-wall interaction as the flame moves back into field of view: the
earliest injection case (SOI=7.7 oCA bTDC).

- 46 -
premixed combustion phase would also differ by a substantial degree. As the piston continues
its power stroke, jet trajectories and fuel-air mixture at retarded injection timings could enter
regions where the piston rims were located and thus view of the ensuing combustion and its
products of hot gases and soot could take place well outside the field of view. The change in
chamber shape associated with variations in a crank angle position is known to affect acoustic
frequencies [Draper 1938].

However, it is believed that pressure rise rate is an important parameter in determining

knock severity in the current investigation, as in this case it is seen from Fig 4.3 (bottom) and
Fig. 4.5 that a gentler rise dampens the severity of knock. Subsequently it also provides a
possible explanation (excessive pressure rise rate) to why the oscillation of the flame bodies

cycle #1 cycle #2 cycle #3

Jet Trajectory
Jet Trajectory

7.6 8.4 7.6

8.2 8.4 8.6 7.8
8.0 8.2 7.8 8.2
7.8 7.6 8.0 8.0

(⁰CA aTDC)

Figure 4.9 - Three individual cycles of the later injection case 2.7 oCA bTDC shows less soot
luminosity but some oscillatory motion can still be detected. Earlier domination by the swirl
flow or earlier diminishing effects of knock is suspected as the centroids move clockwise after
8.0 oCA aTDC.

- 47 -
portrayed in Fig. 4.7 (7.7oCA bTDC) and Fig. 4.9 (2.7oCA bTDC) varies significantly (between
7 and 14 kHz) despite the small difference in excitation modes [Draper 1938] given that there is
only 5oCA difference in ignition location of the two conditions (Fig. 4.3 (top)). This suggests
pressure rise rate to play a significant role in determining the frequency of both ringing and
flame oscillation.

The flames of this case, which features less severe knock, still show noticeable
oscillation during which the direction of movement opposes swirl flow, consistent with the
earliest injection case (Fig. 4.7). The oscillations are shown in Fig. 4.9 (bottom) as temporal
evolution of the centroid of a selected soot pocket (orange boxes, Fig. 4.9, top). The flame for
this test condition similarly presents an initial swirl-opposing motion though completion of the
rotation is faster compared to the flames depicted in Fig. 4.9 (bottom) indicative of a swifter but
weaker oscillatory motion. An intriguing finding from these viewgraphs is that a rough
estimation of the flame oscillation frequency between 7.6 and 8.2 oCA aTDC (for all presented
cycles) is ~14-15 kHz (i.e. 3 frames for the centroid to return back to its initial radial position),
which is very similar to the frequency of the peak pressure ringing measured at 14 kHz in Fig.
4.4. This further supports the correspondence of the flame oscillation to the pressure ringing
induced by diesel knock.

Flame images of the late injection case (SOI=2.3oCA aTDC) are not presented here due
to lacking amount of detectable hot soot luminosity. A trend of diminishing soot luminosity can
be observed through comparison of Fig. 4.7 and 4.9 caused by a number of factors such as
lower combustion temperature and soot formation resulting in lesser visible radiation of hot soot
incandescence. As depicted by the in-cylinder pressure trace in Fig. 4.3, it is likely that this
latest injection condition derives a non-knocking condition. The deficiency of optical data of a
non-knocking condition will be engaged by utilising pilot condition which is subject to
exploration in the following section.

4.6 Remedial Effect of Pilot Injection on Diesel Knock

Pilot injection has been known to help minimise the noise and diesel knock. The
introduction of a small amount of fuel prior to the main injection reduces the pressure rise
leading to lesser combustion noise as well as reduced pressure ringing associated with knock.
Other benefits of multiple injection strategy are outlined in previous works such as ref. [Park et
al. 2004, Chryssakis et al. 2005, Lee et al. 2009] in relation with soot emission and engine
performance. To evaluate the potential of pilot injection in resolving the diesel knock problem,

- 48 -
experiments were performed for a pilot injection case as listed in Table 4.3. The pilot injection
also provides an opportunity to confirm the correspondence between flame oscillation and
pressure ringing because the non-knocking pilot injection case would present high amount of
soot luminosity. Previously, the image analysis was not possible for the knock-free late injection
(2.3oCA aTDC) due to the lack of soot luminosity signals. Since high soot luminosity is
expected for the pilot-main injection, the post-processed images would be more informative for
flame oscillation discussion.

For the pilot injection study, the main injection was reduced to 400 μs (2.43 mg) from
the original 600 μs (8.79 mg) due to aforementioned operational limitations restrained by the
piston quartz window and the expected increase of injected fuel mass due to the pilot injection.
The main injection timing was fixed at 7.7oCA bTDC that exhibited measurable pressure
ringing associated with diesel knock (see Figs. 4.1 and 4.4). Figure 4.10 shows the ensemble-
averaged in-cylinder pressure traces, aHRR and PRR for the main-only and pilot cases. Initial
observation suggests that even if the injected mass was reduced, the main-only injection at
7.7oCA bTDC has pressure ringing. Its magnitude of fluctuation is not as severe as the case with
higher injected mass case of 8.79 mg; however, the pressure ringing is still evident in Figure
4.10. An interesting finding from Figure 4.10 is that the pilot injection has a significant impact
on the pressure rise rate. For a given condition, the pilot injection timing and duration set at
17.7oCA bTDC and 300 μs (1.22 mg) respectively were enough to suppress the pressure rise
rate below the diesel knock threshold level. The correspondence between aHRR and PRR to the
ringing severity is also evident in this set of data such that the pilot case has lesser peak values
for both calculated variables.

Table 4.3 – Injection conditions for testing effect of pilot injection on diesel knock.

Rail pressure 70 MPa

Main: 400 μs (2.43 mg)
Injection duration (mass)
Pilot: 300 μs (1.22 mg)
Main: -7.7 ‚CA bTDC
Injection timing
Pilot: -17.7 ‚CA bTDC
Indicated mean effective
74~137 kPa
pressure (IMEP)

- 49 -
 pilot main
Fuel Injection

Figure 4.10 - The effect of pilot injection is explored by comparison between a main-only
(single 400 μs injection at SOI = 7.7 oCA bTDC) and a selected pilot case (pilot 300 μs at pSOI
= 17.7 oCA bTDC and main 400 μs at mSOI = 7.7 oCA bTDC). Cylinder pressure traces show
that ringing can be eliminated using pilot injection and is seen to correspond with aHRR and
PRR.

- 50 -
 The spectral analysis of the in-cylinder pressure traces was also repeated for the pilot
injection study as shown in Fig. 4.11. A display of the pressure traces in the frequency domain
indicates a major fluctuating frequency at about 7 kHz for the main-only case, consistent with
the previous case with the same injection timing (Fig. 4.4). In comparison the pilot case has no
noticeable peak between the ranges of 4 to 20 kHz, in agreement to the pressure trace the
exhibits no pressure fluctuation at this condition. Patterned after Fig. 4.5, the band-pass filtered
pressure traces are plotted in Fig. 4.12 where significant difference in the peak-to-peak values
between the main-only and pilot case are observed. It is noted that the pilot case depicts a flat
line similar to the late injection case (SOI = 2.3 oCA aTDC in Fig. 4.5) as expected due to the
absence of ringing in the pressure trace. Since the engine efficiency is lower for more retarded
injection (if implemented after TDC), the combination of advanced main injection and
additional pilot injection would be a more effective approach than the retarded single-main
injection to avoid the diesel knock.
spectrum coefficient []
Cylinder pressure

Main-only

Frequency (kHz)

Figure 4.11 - Fourier transform of the main-only pressure trace displays a peak frequency of
pressure ringing to occur at ~7-8 kHz. Similarity with previous injection case at the same timing
indicates importance of ignition delay on severity of pressure fluctuation.

- 51 -
 Main-only

Figure 4.12 - Band-pass filtering of the main-only and pilot case shows a less severe magnitude
of ringing though significant difference is observed between the two cases with the latter
displaying no pressure ringing within the band of 4-20 kHz.

Soot luminosity images of both cases displayed in Fig. 4.13 depict a distinct difference
in spatial and temporal development of sooting flames. The shorter injection duration and lower
fuel mass causes the main-only case to produce minimal soot luminous regions. By contrast, the
pilot case displays the trajectories of all 7 jets in the form of bright hot soot incandescence. It is
believed that the combustion of the pilot injection causes ambient temperature to rise and act in
support of the combustion of the ensuing main injection, causing the earlier start of combustion
and longer combustion duration as similarly discussed in ref. [Chryssakis et al. 2005]. As noted
from Fig. 4.11, the advance in heat release and the gradient of pressure rise rate in the pilot case
agrees with these soot luminosity trends.

The substantiation of the correspondence between flame oscillation and pressure ringing
from this pilot injection study is indicated by the assessment of centroidal movement of soot
luminosity between the main-only and pilot cases as shown in Fig. 4.14. In the main-only case
the centroids shows a frequency of about 7 kHz (5 frames) in oscillation countering that of the
swirl direction. Such flame oscillation is not observed for the pilot case as the flame move along
with swirl at a more advanced crank angle degree (1.6 - 0.6 oCA bTDC).

- 52 -
 Main-only
1
7
2

6
Jet Trajectory
3

5
8.7 4 8.9 9.1 9.3

With pilot

Figure 4.13 - Comparison of the flame images between the main-only (TOP) and pilot
(BOTTOM) scenarios show distinct difference in flame development. Greater soot luminosity of
the pilot case is produced due to the supporting role of the pilot injection in advancing ignition
time of the main injection.

- 53 -
 Main-only

1.0
1.2 2.0
1.4 1.8
1.6
(⁰CA aTDC)
Jet Trajectory

Jet Trajectory
-0.6
-0.8 -1.0
-1.2
-1.4
-1.6
(⁰CA aTDC)

With pilot

Figure 4.14 - Temporal evolution of the flame centroids shows a clearer picture on the flame
oscillation persisting with a main-only case (TOP) while a smoother development free of
oscillation can be seen for the pilot case (BOTTOM).

- 54 -
 There are well known relationship between pressure rise rate with diesel knock intensity
(e.g. [Shiga et al. 1988]) and with combustion noise (e.g. [Schaberg et al. 1990]). The creation
of the pressure waves is caused by the excessive increase of pressure rise when the clearance
volume is minimum (near TDC) and sudden ignition of premixed charge occurs. The pressure
waves are transmitted to the engine block resulting in engine vibration and acoustic energy, also
known as combustion noise [Eng 2002]. The transport of the flames, in essence portrayed as hot
soot incandescence in this study, and its oscillatory motion are likely triggered by the
transmission of the pressure wave and its reverberation across the combustion chamber which
becomes a determinately stronger force than swirl. While combustion process leading to
generate pressure oscillations are different between SI and CI engines, the post-combustion
effects of pressure waves are similar and the movement of the flames observed in this study are
in close agreement to the movement observed in pressure wave effects of hydrogen-fuelled
engine explored in ref. [Kawahara & Tomita 2009]. In such study it was shown that the knock
was induced via autoignition in the end-gas region leading to the formation of pressure waves.
These waves are reflected on the cylinder wall and affect the in-cylinder pressure trace, similar
to the current study using a diesel engine. The difference is that the pressure waves and their
resonance in the diesel combustion chamber cause solid-body motion of the in-cylinder flow
that appears as the flame oscillation, opposed to local development of pressure waves in SI
engines. Therefore, it is suggested that the cause of pressure ringing and flame oscillation is one
of the same, i.e. the oscillatory movement of the flames are to be caused by the formation of
pressure waves during the highly premixed combustion attained by advanced injection timing.

- 55 -
Chapter 5
5

Negative Ignition Dwell Combustion

As previously shown, propensity for knock to occur in a premixed-dominant

combustion could prove to be a limiting agent in engine design and performance control. As
thermal efficiency of combustion and injection mechanics are linked to pollutant increase (e.g.
unburned hydrocarbons from incomplete combustions or excessive wall-wetting and soot
depositions from wall impingement), importance in expanding our scope in combustion regimes
become more apparent. For this reason, expansion of investigation on variants of combustion
regimes is necessary, especially in the less focused area of automotive-size engine research
compared to its heavy-duty counterpart. In response, injector nozzle hole number reduction was
performed to allow for single long injection duration to induce negative ignition dwell
combustion. Additionally the piston design was changed via removal of a section of its rim to
confirm effects of varying degree of wall interaction could be studied simultaneously.

- 56 -
5.1 Background

In contrast to the premixed-dominant combustion regime induced by short-injection

duration, a long injection duration was used to prompt negative ignition dwell, which in effect
extends the combustion duration to allow for jet to wall interaction to be investigated,
highlighting the phenomenon known as re-entrainment and its effect on flame base
development. Influence of re-entrainment on the lift-off length and wall-interacting jet
development was investigated to extend existing knowledge developed on free jet and heavy-
duty diesel jet to small-bore engine conditions. OH* chemiluminescence and hot soot
luminosity imaging were performed in an automotive-size optical diesel engine using a single-
hole nozzle and long injection duration (i.e. negative ignition dwell). The importance of re-
entrainment and its impact on transient behaviour of the flame base were discussed in details by
comparing diesel jets with a different level of jet-wall interaction.

For this study the maximum injection duration matching the maximum allowable fuel
mass of 10 mg is attained at 2.36 ms (actual) duration from the single-hole injector. This was
also achievable by utilising the modified piston previously introduced in Chapter 3 (Section
3.2.2). Two different jet targeting were tested: one aiming at the bowl wall to create a near-
axisymmetric wall-interacting jet (Jet A) and the other travelling towards the edge of the bowl-
rim cut-out so that a half of the jet impinges on the bowl wall while the other half penetrates
further into the bowl-rim cut-out region (Jet B). The latter arrangement was for simultaneous
visualisation of a liner-wall-interacting jet (“free-jet”) and bowl-wall-interacting jet (“wall-jet”)
enabling a direct comparison which will be further explained in the following section.

Jet-wall impingement strength was also investigated by varying injection pressure at

fixed injected fuel mass ranging from 70 MPa to 160 MPa with Jet B configuration. Moreover,
two two-hole nozzles of different inter-jet spacing (51.4o and 102.8o) were used to investigate
the effect of jet-jet interaction and its influence on re-entrainment and in turn lift-off length.
Imaging of OH* chemiluminescence was performed for various conditions mentioned above as
well as for various time after the start of injections so that transient behaviour of the flame base
can be captured during and after the injection event. High-speed imaging of hot soot luminosity
was also performed to ensure that the OH* chemiluminescence signal is not interfered by the
soot incandescence signal as well as to read a trend in downstream soot concentration. This was
only performed for Jet A and Jet B studies as hot soot luminosity dissipated much faster and
earlier at other tested conditions (injection pressure effects and two-hole jet studies).

- 57 -
5.2 Piston Modification and Jet Trajectory Configurations

A hot soot luminosity sample image of a conventional 7-hole combustion is shown in

Figure 5.1 (left) to identify the three jets (Jet A, B and C) used in this study (adapted from ref.
[Rusly et al. 2012] and introduced in Chapter 4, Section 4.6). Jet A, B and C are equivalent to
jet #7, #1 and #2 initially introduced in Chapter 3, Section 3.2, Fig. 3.5. Shown on the right side
of Figure 5.1 are four different bottom-view schematics of the piston and various jet trajectories.
The dashed boxes indicate the post-processed display view used in the following sections. The
two single-jet trajectories (Jet A and Jet B) were used to investigate the effects of jet-wall
interaction (Figure 5.1, top-right) with different jet targeting with respect to the bowl-rim cut-
out region. For instance, Jet A impinges only on bowl wall (the combustion event occurs near
top dead centre and therefore a majority of jet penetrate into the bowl) and therefore an
axisymmetric jet was expected. By contrast, a half of Jet B is directed to the bowl-rim cut-out
region resulting in an asymmetric jet. There may be concerns on whether the interaction

Jet A Jet B
Distance from nozzle [mm]

Jet C
Jet B Jet A

Jet B-C Jet B-A

Jet B Jet C Jet B

Jet A
Distance from nozzle [mm]

Figure 5.1 - Soot luminosity image of a conventional 7-hole nozzle (left), Jet A and Jet B
configuration showing the single-hole nozzle arrangement with respect to the bowl-rim cut-out
(top-right), and Jet B-C and Jet B-A for two-hole nozzles with different inter-jet spacing.
Dashed boxes indicate the field of view used for data analysis.

- 58 -
between the jet and its resultant combustion products to the piston quartz can interfere with the
detection of the flame base due to the line-of-sight technique used to visualising the combustion.
It is very unlikely that this occurs as observed from previous studies utilising similar diagnostics
[Musculus 2003, Polonowski et al. 2011] presented here and also from viewing the high-speed
soot luminosity. The short combustion duration and chamber flow are likely to prevent this
piston-bowl interacted products to move close to the near-injection regime. Future works using
laser sheets can investigate this issue further.

As mentioned previously, a portion of the bowl rim was removed to simultaneously

visualise a jet interacting with cylinder-liner wall (“free-jet”) and another jet interacting with
bowl wall (“wall-jet”). Jet B shows that a half of the jet impinges on the piston bowl wall while
the other half of the jet enters the cut-out region and interacts with the cylinder-liner wall, free
from the bowl-wall/jet interaction. In addition to these two single-hole nozzles, two two-hole
nozzles (Jet B-C and Jet B-A) were tested to further investigate the lift-off length of the primary
jet (Jet B) for different jet-jet spacing. For Jet B-C and Jet B-A configurations, two holes were
left open while the rest were laser-welded. From Figure 5.1, it may be noticed that the same
modified piston was used for all the hole configurations. The implementation of a bowl-cut out
in this particular way is unique and has not been performed previously. While this method
allows simultaneous observation of free and wall-jet for the investigation of jet-wall interaction,
there is a potential drawback in how the cut-out change the flow of the diesel spray during
initial stages of injection, which later will affect the resulting combustion. As velocity fields
were not taken for this current study it is only from viewing the high-speed soot luminosity
study can one determine on how the flow may present itself prior to combustion. Regardless no
notice of drastic flow change inside the piston quartz dimension are detected to cause significant
change to the temporal evolution of both hot soot and OH* chemiluminescence. It is expected
that dramatic changes to the flow occur within the cut-out volume which is outside of the
obtainable field of view.

It was necessary to use the same piston for all jet arrangements to maintain the same in-
cylinder pressure and temperature conditions. Since conventional seven-hole nozzles were laser-
welded in the present study, there was possibility that hole-to-hole and nozzle-to-nozzle
variations caused uncertainty. These variations, however, are dependent upon the
manufacturing precision and hence unavoidable. Indeed, a soot luminosity image in Fig. 5.1
shows noticeable hole-to-hole variations. Throughout the experiments, however, observed
trends and differences due to changes in operating conditions appeared to exceed this error.
Also, errors due to injection-to-injection variations, which presumably were comparable to hole-

- 59 -
to-hole and nozzle-to-nozzle variations, were less than the differences caused by variations in
operating conditions.

5.3 Operating Conditions and Engine Specifications

Similarly to the previous studies in premixed combustion regime and short injection
duration, the single-cylinder optical engine was run by an AC motor at a fixed engine speed of
1200 rpm and was skip-fired at every 10th cycle. As previously mentioned, a portion of bowl
rim was removed resulting in a lower compression ratio of 15.2. The swirl ratio was fixed at 1.4.
Wall temperatures were maintained at 363 K along the engine head, engine block and cylinder
liner to simulate stable thermal conditions during engine operation. The temperature of naturally
aspirated intake air was measured at 303 K during the engine operation. The experimental setup
is depicted in Chapter 3 (Section 3.3: Experimental Setup, Fig. 3.8).

The original nozzle has 7 holes had even inter-jet spacing (51.4o) where laser-welding
was outsourced to block unused holes in fulfilment of the jet trajectories presented in Fig. 5.1
For initial jet-wall studies a single-hole nozzle was used to isolate the target jet from
interactions with adjacent jets as well as to allow for long injection duration within the safety
limit of optical parts. In addition to the single-hole nozzle, two two-hole nozzles were tested for
a jet-jet interaction study. The spacing between neighbouring jets of the two-hole injectors was
set to 51.4o and 102.8o. Long injection durations were attained to extend the jet-wall interaction
event and re-entrainment period to obtain a full history of the flame base behaviour during the

Table 5.1 – Operating conditions for jet-wall and jet-jet studies.

Engine speed 1200 rpm

Compression ratio 15.2
Swirl ratio 1.4
Wall (coolant) temperature 363 K
Intake air temperature 303 K
Number of holes 1 and 2
Inter-jet angle for 2-hole
51.4o and 102.8o
nozzles
2.36 ms for 1-hole nozzle
Injection duration
1.53 ms for 2-hole nozzle
Injected fuel mass 10 mg
Rail pressure 70 MPa
Injection timing 7°CA bTDC

- 60 -
injection and after the end of injection. This actual injection rate was measured (separately from
this study) using a Bosch-type injection rate meter. Due to the long injection, the engine was
operated at negative ignition dwell conditions, i.e. the combustion starts before the end of
injection, representing upper-mid to high-load conditions. When two-hole nozzles were used,
the injection duration was reduced to 1.53 ms to fix the injected fuel mass (10 mg per cycle).
The common-rail pressure was held constant at 70 MPa and the injection timing of 7oCA bTDC
(crank angle degree before top dead centre) was fixed throughout the study. Sweep of injection
pressure variation will utilise a range between 100 and 160 MPa with varying injection duration
that will be detailed later in the corresponding section (Chapter 5, Section 5.8). Summary of the
operating conditions are listed on Table 5.1.

5.3.1 Definition of Variables

A schematic diagram of Jet A is shown in Fig. 5.2 with multiple variables listed for
discussion purposes. The sketch depicts a cropped section of the piston as previously annotated
in Fig. 5.1 by a dashed rectangular box. The trajectory of Jet A is symmetric along the vertical
axis drawn as a dotted line through the middle of the piston, which is also used to define
separation point between the upstream swirl (upswirl) and downstream swirl (downswirl) side
of the jet. It is noted that both sides of the jet are wall-jets by definition of this study. The
resulting combustion zone is depicted with the red and green coloured fills representing hot soot
luminosity and OH* chemiluminescence regions respectively. The notation of “w” on the
variables detailed at the bottom of Fig 5.2 symbolises the contact between the jet to the inner
bowl wall (wall-jet) while the subsequent notation after a hyphen of “u” and “d” is used to
distinguish whether the jet is in the upswirl side or downswirl side respectively.

The base heights of hot soot luminosity (SL) are defined as the point nearest to the
nozzle baseline within a horizontal band of 0 to 5 mm, where 0 mm is the position of the
injector. Similarly, the lift-off lengths notated with a prefix of OH are defined as the distance
between the flame base and the nozzle baseline. A red and green bars are used to illustrate the
hot soot base height and lift-off length respectively, with solid and stripe used to distinguish
upswirl and downswirl for Jet A. The selection of the 5-mm range is adapted from ref.
[Polonowski et al. 2011] where 2-mm distance from the jet axis was used in a multi-hole
injection arrangement. The wider band is to accommodate the wider spray angle associated with
the larger nominal hole injector used in the current study (134 μm vs 110 μm) and also the
lower injection pressure used for this small-bore engine (70 compared to 140 ~ 240 MPa).

- 61 -
 The near-flame-base region filled with OH radicals is illustrated in the magnified image
in Fig. 5.2. From the tip of OH that is used to determine the lift-off length, rich partially-
premixed reaction zone presents on the left, which draws an inverted-cone-shaped boundary in
the jet core. On the right, diffusion flame is formed at the stoichiometric location at the jet edge
[Pickett & Siebers 2006]. The OH* chemiluminescence images in this study is line-of-sight

Jet A Centreline
SL

OH

SLw-u SLw-d
Nozzle Baseline OH OHw-u OHw-d OHrw-d
rw-u
Injector
SLw-u – Hot soot base height of wall-jet on upswirl side
SLw-d – Hot soot base height of wall-jet on downswirl side
OHw-u – Lift-off length of wall-jet on upswirl side
OHw-d – Lift-off length of wall-jet on downswirl side
OHrw-u – Vertical distance of wall-reflected jet head from nozzle baseline (upswirl)
OHrw-d – Vertical distance of wall-reflected jet head from nozzle baseline (downswirl)

Figure 5.2 - Schematic representation of single-hole diesel jet with no bowl-rim cut-out (Jet A).
Definitions for hot soot base heights (SLw), lift-off lengths (OHw), and distance from the nozzle
baseline to the wall-reflected jet head (OHrw) are given at the bottom.

- 62 -
integrated and therefore cannot provide a cross-sectional view as in ref. [Pickett & Siebers
2006]; however, early works conducted by Higgins and Siebers [Higgins & Siebers 2001]
showed a similar structure in the line-of-sight-integrated OH* chemiluminescence images with
lower brightness in the core and a thick layer at the jet edge. The vertical distance from the
nozzle baseline to the head of the wall-reflected combustion gases is similarly defined within a
range of 15 to 20 mm away from the middle axis to measure the penetration extent of reacting
jet after the wall impingement. A hyphen of “r” is used for this distance between the nozzle
baseline and the wall-reflected jet head. For example, decreasing OHrw-d means the wall-
reflected down-swirl side of the jet penetrates further along the curvature of the bowl wall.

Figure 5.3 shows the schematic of Jet B configuration. The most noticeable change that
Jet B has in comparison with Jet A is the introduction of a cut-out volume on the left hand side
of the piston bowl rim. The same notations are used for Jet B except the omission of the “-d”
and “-u”. Instead, “f” is used to denote a “free” side of the jet or more accurately, a half of the
jet penetrating into the cut-out volume with delayed liner-wall/jet interaction compared to the
bowl-wall/jet interaction. Analysis of jet-jet interaction of Jet B-C and Jet B-A was conducted
using identical field of view of Jet B with the presence of a neighbouring jet.

- 63 -
 Jet B Centreline
SL

OH

Cut-Out
Volume

SLf SLw
Nozzle Baseline OHrf OHf OHw OHrw
Injector
SLf – Hot soot base height of free-jet
SLw – Hot soot base height of wall-jet
OHf – Lift-off length of free-jet
OHw – Lift-off length of wall-jet
OHrf – Vertical distance of liner-reflected free-jet head from nozzle baseline
OHrw – Vertical distance of wall-reflected jet head from nozzle baseline

Figure 5.3 - Schematic diagram of single-hole diesel jet with bowl-rim cut-out (Jet B).
Definitions for hot soot base heights, lift-off lengths, and distance from the nozzle baseline to
the wall-reflected jet head are provided for both free-jet and wall-jet.

- 64 -
5.4 In-Cylinder Pressure Traces and Apparent Heat Release Rate of
Jet A and Jet B

Figure 5.4 shows a 30-cycle ensemble-averaged in-cylinder pressure traces of Jet A

(grey) and Jet B (red) along with its corresponding motored cycle (black), measured injection
rate and apparent heat release rate (aHRR). This direct comparison shows great similarity in the
in-cylinder pressure and aHRR traces indicating that the two jet arrangements experience
similar in-cylinder conditions during combustion. The measured injection rate also shows near
identical profiles although different nozzle holes were used. The injection rate profile shows that
ignition (i.e. crank angle degree location at which the fired pressure exceeds the motored
pressure) occurs prior to the end-of-injection (EOI) at 10oCA aTDC (after top dead centre). This
confirms a negative ignition dwell condition where the fuel injection continues during the
combustion.

Jet A

Jet B

5 mm3/s
Injection Rate

End of Injection

Figure 5.4 - Comparison of in-cylinder pressure, injection rate and apparent heat release rate
between Jet A (grey) and Jet B (red) configurations.

- 65 -
5.5 Cycle-to-Cycle Variations

During the imaging diagnostics, cycle-to-cycle variations of flame structures were

measured, which were not due to an experimental error but realistic engine environment. To
ensure that the acquired results are statistically significant, both pressure traces and flame
images were ensemble averaged for 30 different fired cycles and an error range was calculated.
Obtained OH* chemiluminescence boundaries were used to estimate the lift-off length and
distance from the nozzle baseline to the wall-reflected jet head. Post-processing of these images
has been detailed in Chapter 3 (Section 3.3.4, Fig. 3.11).

Figure 5.5 displays OH* boundaries for three different individual cycles and the
averaged image together with the lift-off length (OHw-d) and distance from the nozzle baseline to
the wall-reflected jet head (OHrw-d). The OHw-d and OHrw-d from the averaged images are drawn
across the individual cycle images for comparison purpose. The cycle-to-cycle variations are
evident for both OHw-d and OHrw-d. A quick visual inspection suggested that the lift-off length
variations were up to ±3 mm (~30% of 11 mm lift-off length), close to the error range found in
literature [Musculus 2003, Polonowski et al. 2011, Solsjö et al. 2013].

To provide further clarity on cyclic variations, average OHw-d and OHrw-d are plotted at
various oCA aTDC together with error ranges (95% confidence) in Fig. 5.6. It is shown that
errors are in a range of 1~3 mm depending on combustion stages. Compared to a constant lift-
off length of quasi-steady free jet (without wall interaction), OHw-d shows a decreasing trend
before the end of injection at 10oCA aTDC until it settles down and then slowly increases after
the end of injection. This transient behaviour of the flame base well exceeds the cycle-to-cycle
variations. Penetration of the wall-reflected jet head back towards the nozzle (OHrw-d) is
successfully captured, which also exceeds the cycle-to-cycle variations.

- 66 -
Figure 5.5 - Variations in individual images of OH* chemiluminescence and comparison with
its averaged image. Images are captures for Jet A and at 9oCA aTDC.

Jet A

OHw-d

OHrw-d

Figure 5.6 - Average value and error range of lift-off length of downswirl side of wall-
interacting jet (OHw-d) and distance from the nozzle baseline to the wall-reflected jet head
(OHrw-d) for various crank angle degree after the top dead centre (oCA aTDC).

A similar image processing procedure (Chapter 3, Section 3.3.3) was also applied to hot
soot luminosity images. Figure 5.7 shows two individual greyscale hot soot incandescence and
the averaged image. The hot soot base heights (defined as SLw-d and SLw-u in Fig. 3) of this
averaged image are drawn across the individual cycle images for comparison purpose. It is
observed that cycle-to-cycle variation of soot luminosity images is higher than that of OH*
chemiluminescence images, which is expected considering complex nature of soot formation
process. The hot soot base heights together with an error range are plotted for various oCA

- 67 -
aTDCs in Fig. 5.8. It is notable that the hot soot base heights are mostly higher than the lift-off
lengths (Fig. 5.6) at a fixed oCA aTDC even if the cycle-to-cycle variation is considered. This is
consistent with the current understanding of the diesel jet structure for the presence of soot pre-
cursor formation region prior to the soot formation region [Pickett & Siebers 2006]. Although
hot soot luminosity signal cannot represent soot distribution within the reacting diesel jet, these
hot soot base heights will provide complementary information to the lift-off length trends in the
following discussions.

2 individual cycles (Hot Soot Luminosity) Average of 20 cycles

10 °aTDC 10 °aTDC 10 °aTDC Jet A

SLw-u

SSLw-d
#2 #9 Average of 20 cycles

Figure 5.7 - Two soot luminosity images showing cycle-to-cycle variations and averaged
image of 20 individual cycles for Jet A. The hot soot base heights are annotated by a
horizontal bar.

Jet A

SLw-u

SLw-d

Figure 5.8 - Average value and error range of hot soot base heights for various oCA aTDCs
for both upswirl and downswirl sides of Jet A.

- 68 -
5.6 The Shortening of Lift-Off Length of Wall-Jets of Jet A

Figure 5.9 shows cycle-averaged OH* chemiluminescence (green) and hot soot
luminosity (red) boundaries for Jet A. A blue horizontal line shown at the bottom of each image
corresponds to the nozzle baseline and a half circle illustrates the bowl wall, which equals to a
field of view through the quartz piston window. Horizontal bars annotate the flame base or wall-
reflected jet head for an up-swirl side of the jet on the left as well as down-swirl side of the jet
on the right. The swirl flow is clockwise direction for a given field of view. Three time-stamps
are shown at the image top-left and top-right with respect to oCA aTDC, after the end of
injection (aEOI), and after the start of injection (aSOI). Postulated liquid/vapour fuel
distribution is also illustrated to denote whether the imaging timing is before EOI or after EOI.
The images are presented for every 0.5oCA so that temporal development of diesel flame can be
understood. It is notable that early OH* chemiluminescence signals are detected at 8 oCA aTDC,
which corresponds to the peak aHRR location (see Fig. 5.4). It was expected since OH* radicals
are representative of high-temperature reaction. The images were taken from this early OH*
chemiluminescence detection to the end of main heat release at 11.5oCA aTDC, beyond the end
of injection at 10oCA aTDC.

The first noticeable trend from Fig. 5.9 is that OH* chemiluminescence is visible at
ranges outside of hot soot luminosity, consistent with previous findings [Dec & Tree 2001]. As
a result, the measured lift-off length is shorter than the hot soot base height indicating that the
first-stage auto-ignition occurs upstream of hot soot location. OH* chemiluminescence is also
detectable in earlier crank angle location compared to hot soot suggesting a residence time for
soot inception. A separation between OH* chemiluminescence and hot soot luminosity signals
confirm that the measured lift-off lengths using OH* chemiluminescence were not interfered by
strong soot luminosity. As mentioned previously, a clockwise swirl flow presents inside the
cylinder, which caused asymmetry between upswirl and downswirl jets. Similar asymmetry was
reported by previous studies [Musculus 2003, Solsjö et al. 2013] suggesting a shorter lift-off
length of downswirl jet. However, the swirl flow does not appear to impact the flame bases
(OHw-u and OHw-d) strongly in our results. Although the asymmetric jet structure is obvious for
all images presented in Fig. 5.9, the flame bases are detected at nearly the same location. This
was possibly due to high jet momentum that outperformed the swirl flow as the flame bases
were found only about 10 mm from the nozzle in the tested conditions. Also, the swirl flow of
this study (1.4 swirl ratio) is relatively weaker than other small-bore engines [Kook et al. 2006],
which should have contributed to the observed trend. Another interesting finding from Fig. 5.9
is missing OH* signals near the bowl wall. It should be noted again that these images were

- 69 -
ensemble-averaged for 30 individual images from 30 engine runs and the cleaning of quartz
window was conducted between all engine runs. Therefore, the disappearance of OH* signal
was not due to cycle-to-cycle variations or soot deposition on the quartz surface. The missing
OH* signals near the bowl wall should be due to the flame quenching caused by jet-wall
interaction as reported in refs. [Dec & Tree 2001, Zhang et al. 2012]. By contrast, hot soot
luminosity is clearly seen near the bowl wall suggesting potential soot deposition on the wall via
thermophoresis [Suhre & Foster 1992, Tree & Dec 2001].

8 ⁰ aTDC Jet A 15 ⁰ aSOI 10 °aTDC 17 ⁰ aSOI

-2 ⁰ aEOI
EOI
OHw-d
O
swirl OHrw-d

8.5 ⁰ aTDC 15.5 ⁰ aSOI 10.5 °aTDC 17.5 ⁰ aSOI

-1.5 ⁰ aEOI 0.5 °aEOI

OHw-u
-u
u

9 °aTDC 16 ⁰ aSOI 11 °aTDC 18 ⁰ aSOI

-1 °aEOI 1 °aEOI
SLw-u
SLw-d
OHrw-u

9.5 °aTDC 16.5 ⁰ aSOI 11.5 °aTDC 18.5 °aSOI

-0.5 °aEOI 1.5 °aEOI

Figure 5.9 - Temporal development wall-interacting diesel jet illustrated by averaged flame
boundaries of hot soot luminosity (red) and OH* chemiluminescence (green) from 8°CA to
11.5oCA aTDC of Jet A.

- 70 -
 An interesting and unexpected finding from Fig. 5.9 is the upstream movement of flame
bases (or shortening of OHw-u and OHw-d) between 8 and 10.5oCA aTDC. To highlight this
behaviour, OHw-u and OHw-d together with a distance from the nozzle baseline to the wall-
reflected jet head (OHrw-u and OHrw-d) are plotted in Fig. 5.10. The hot soot base heights (SLw-u
and SLw-d) are also shown, which are mostly higher than the lift-off lengths. This confirms that
the shortening of OHw-u and OHw-d is not a result of signal interference. One might notice that
the data are plotted over oCA aEOI because the decrease of OHw-u and OHw-d are found to slow
down as the injection ends at 10oCA aTDC. This trend was surprising since the hot reaction
zone appeared to expand against the incoming jet with high injection momentum. Also it should
be noted that the piston moves down while OHw-u and OHw-d penetrates back towards the nozzle.
If the existing knowledge of the quasi-steady jet is used, the lift-off length should increase (not
decrease as in Figs. 5.9 and 5.10) with decreasing ambient pressure and temperature.

The upstream movement or the progressive shortening of the lift-off length was
previously reported by various researchers [Tree & Dec 2001, Pickett & López 2005, Genzale et
al. 2008, Polonowski et al. 2011] from their jet-wall interaction studies. It was suggested that
hot combustion products reflected off the back wall could be entrained into the incoming jet and
thereby increasing the temperature and equivalence ratio of fuel-air mixture at the flame base.
The result would be upstream movement of the flame base. This phenomenon, named as re-
entrainment, is a likely cause for the shortening of OHw-u and OHw-d in this study. Although no
direct measurement (or visualisation) of re-entrainment flow was attempted in this study, there
are many evidences that support the re-entrainment theory. For instance, figures 11 and 12 show
that the shortening occurs only during the injection. To induce the re-entrainment of hot
combustion products, high jet momentum should present upstream of the flame base. After the
end of injection, the decrease of OHw-u and OHw-d stops and the flame base slowly moves
downstream likely due to the lack of re-entrainment. Furthermore, penetration of wall-reflected
jet head (decrease of OHrw-u and OHrw-d) shows correspondence with the lift-off length. The
imaging setup used in this study did not allow visualisation of hot combustion products
movement outside the hot reaction zone, however, a drastic decrease of OH rw-u and OHrw-d
corresponds well with the shortening of the lift-off length. As noted before, the swirl flow
caused lower OHrw-d than OHrw-u due to its strong impact near the wall. However, a high
penetration rate of the wall-reflected jet before the end of injection is observed for both upswirl
and downswirl sides of the jet. Since the penetration of wall-reflected jet head is a good
indicator of how the hot combustion products would travel along the wall contour and penetrate
back towards the flame base, this correspondence further supports the re-entrainment.

- 71 -
 Jet A
SLw-u
SLw-d
OHw -u

OHw-d
OHrw-u
OHrw-d

Figure 5.10 - The hot soot base heights (SLw), lift-off lengths (OHw), and distance from the
nozzle baseline to the wall-reflected jet head (OHrw) for various crank angle degrees after the
end of injections (oCA aEOI). The data are from the images in Fig. 5.9 for Jet A.

5.7 Simultaneous Observation of Free-Jet and Wall-Jet of Jet B

As discussed previously in Chapter 5 section 5.2, a portion of the piston bowl-rim was
removed to allow a half of the jet penetrates further without the jet-wall interaction while the
other half impinges on the bowl wall. This approach allows simultaneous visualisation of free-
jet (i.e. free from the jet/bowl-wall interaction resulting in delayed jet interaction with the
cylinder-liner wall) and wall-jet (as Fig. 5.9), which provides opportunity to directly compare
jets with earlier and later jet-wall interactions and thereby further investigation of the re-
entrainment. Figure 5.11 shows the results. The presentation format of images is identical to
Fig. 5.9, with additional illustration of the cut-out volume as a white outline and white-filled
section. Once again, images are shown from the early detection of OH* chemiluminescence that
corresponds to the peak aHRR location at 8oCA aTDC to the end of main heat release at
11.5oCA aTDC.

It is observed that the wall-jet shows similar movement of the flame base and wall-
reflected jet head as the downswirl jet in Fig. 5.9. In other words, the shortening of the lift-off
length and a high penetration of wall-reflected jet head during the fuel injection are repeated.

- 72 -
However, marked differences are found in the free-jet compared to the wall-jet. Firstly, the free-
jet lift-off length (OHf) is consistently higher than the wall-jet lift-off length (OHw) throughout
the jet development. The swirl effects cannot explain this difference because upswirl (OHw-u)
and downswirl (OHw-d) wall-jets showed the same lift-off lengths in Figs. 5.9 and 5.10. During
the experiments, the consistency between Jet A and Jet B was carefully considered. For
example, Fig. 5.12 shows that not only OHw-d and OHw-u of Jet A are near identical but also they
are the same with OHw of Jet B. Therefore, the lift-off length of the free-jet (OHf) is longer than
the lift-off length of any wall-jets tested in this study at fixed in-cylinder conditions.

Cut-out volume
8 °aTDC Jet B 15 °aSOI 10 °aTDC 17 ° aSOI
B -2 °aEOI EOI
OHf
OHw
O
swirl OHrw

8.5 °aTDC 15.5 °aSOI 10.5 °aTDC

aTDC 17.5 °aSOI
-1.5 °aEOI 0.5 °aEOI
SLw

9 °aTDC 16 °aSOI 11 °aTDC

aTDC 18 °aSOI
-1 °aEOI 1 °aEOI

9.5 °aTDC 16.5 °aSOI 11.5 °aTDC

° aTDC
TDC 18.5 °aSOI
-0.5 °aEOI 1.5 °aEOI

OHrf

Figure 5.11 - Temporal development of Jet B illustrated by boundaries of hot soot luminosity
(red) and OH* chemiluminescence (green) from 8oCA to 11.5oCA aTDC.

- 73 -
 Jet A OHw-u Jet B OHf

Jet A OHw-d
Jet B OHw

Figure 5.12 -Lift-off lengths of Jet A (grey) and Jet B (red) for both wall-interacting jets (OHw)
and free jet (OHf) for various oCA aEOIs.

Secondly, Fig. 5.11 does not show the wall-reflected jet penetration for the free-jet
during the injection event. It is only 11.5oCA aTDC at which OH* chemiluminescence signal is
detected, long time after the end of injection. While the flame development within the cut-out
volume was not visualised, it was presumable that the bisected jet travelled along the contour of
the cut-out volume and cylinder liner, which eventually was redirected back towards the nozzle
in an anti-clockwise manner. Finally, the soot luminosity signal is much weaker in the free-jet
side than that in the wall-jet side. In fact, there is no soot luminosity signal detected before the
end of injection, which shows good correspondence with the lift-off length. These trends, i.e.
longer lift-off length, higher distance between the nozzle baseline and wall-reflected jet head,
and lower soot luminosity for the free-jet, suggested that the re-entrainment played a significant
role in the wall-interacting diesel jet development. During the fuel injection when the jet
momentum was high, the free-jet had less chance to entrain hot combustion products that were
re-directed back towards the flame base due to the jet-wall interaction. It happened only long
time after the end of injection that the cylinder-liner wall-reflected jet travelled towards the
flame base, which could not cause the re-entrainment at the time because the injection
momentum diminished. As the free-jet was not strongly influenced by the re-entrainment and
therefore the lift-off length was longer, downstream soot formation was reduced.

- 74 -
 To further discuss the re-entrainment effects on the free-jet and wall-jet, the lift-off
lengths (OHf and OHw), distances between the nozzle baseline and the wall-reflected jet head
(OHrf and OHrw), and hot soot base heights (SLf and SLw) are plotted altogether in Fig. 5.13. As
discussed previously in the cycle-to-cycle variations section, the differences in all parameters
well exceeded the error range. While the same trends in Fig. 5.11 are clearly seen in the plot, it
is noticeable that the variations in lift-off length show a close correlation with the soot
luminosity. Lower SL (higher soot luminosity) is pretty evident for the wall-jet compared to
free-jet, which is consistent with lower OHw than OHf (richer mixture at the flame base). While
this gap between SLw and SLf is maintained, decreasing OHw and OHf appear to induce
decreasing SLw and SLf during the injection event. It is also observed that SLw and SLf slowly
increase long time after the end of injection. This well-known correspondence between the lift-
off length and downstream soot formation is confirmed again for the wall-interacting diesel jet.

Jet B
SLf
OHf

OHw SLw
OHrf

OHrw

Figure 5.13 - The hot soot base height (SL), lift-off lengths (OH), and distance from the nozzle
baseline to the wall-reflected jet head (OHr) for various oCA aEOIs. The data are from the
images in Fig. 5.11 for Jet B.

- 75 -
5.8 Effect of Increased Jet Momentum on Re-Entrainment

5.8.1 Operating Conditions

To investigate the effects of increased jet momentum on re-entrainment, injection

pressure was increased to a range of 100 to 160 MPa with varying injection durations that
produces equivalent amount of injected fuel mass into the chamber. Comparison was made on
previous findings of Jet B’s lift-off lengths which was initially studied at the base injection
pressure of 70 MPa. Subsequently the injection duration was reduced from 2.36 ms to 2.08, 1.66
and 1.53 for 100, 130 and 160 MPa respectively. Table 5.2 summarises the tested conditions,
variables not mentioned here were kept constant as per Table 5.1.Based on findings of Chapter
5.7, a new figure detailing the spatial progression of the flame structures are presented in Fig.
5.14 as an update to previous Figure 5.3.

In Fig. 5.14, spatial flame development of the hidden area of the cut-out volume via the
free-jet is included, as represented by 3 stages colour-coded (1) green, (2) dark brown and (3)
orange colour-filled areas. It was believed that the free-jet impinged on the cylinder liner wall at
stage (1), continued to penetrate along the cylinder-liner wall at stage (2), and eventually
redirected back into the field of view at stage (3) enabling the detection of OHrf at some images.

Table 5.2 – Injection pressure sweep for re-entrainment study.

Rail pressure (MPa) 70 100 130 160

Injection duration (ms) 2.36 2.08 1.66 1.53
Injected fuel mass 10 mg
Injection timing 7°CA bTDC

- 76 -
 *
(1)

Swirl
(2)
(3)
Nozzle OHrf OHf OHw OHrw Field of view
baseline
Injector
OHw – Lift-off length of wall-jet
OHrw – Vertical distance of wall-reflected jet head from nozzle baseline
OHf – Lift-off length of free-jet
OHrf – Vertical distance of liner-reflected free-jet head from nozzle baseline

Figure 5.14 - Schematic diagram of one-hole diesel injection in a modified piston with bowl-rim
cut-out. This allows for simultaneous visualisation of free-jet and wall-jet during combustion.
The jet penetration stages within the cut-out volume are illustrated for (1) liner-wall/jet
interaction, (2) further jet penetration upon the wall impingement, and (3) reappearance of the
reflected jet head in the field of view.

- 77 -
5.8.2 In-Cylinder Pressure and Apparent Heat Release Rate

Figure 5.15 shows the traces of in-cylinder pressure and apparent heat release rate for
all injection pressures tested in this study. The fuel injection rate is drawn using data obtained
by a Bosch-type fuel injection rate meter. The in-cylinder pressure traces show an expected
trend of shorter ignition delay (i.e. earlier rise of the pressure) with increasing injection
pressure. Enhanced air entrainment should be a cause for the observed trend. The difference,
however, is very minor because only one hole was used in the experiment and a small mass of
10 mg was injected per cycle. It was expected that the difference would be more measurable if
all seven holes were used. The peak in-cylinder pressure also increases with increasing in-

160 MPa

10 mm3/s
5 mm3/s

End of injection

Figure 5.15 - In-cylinder pressure traces, fuel injection rates, and apparent heat release rates
for all four injection pressured tested in the present study (70~160 MPa).

- 78 -
cylinder pressure. This is somewhat conflict to decreased ignition delay at higher injection
pressure. However, more advanced combustion leading to the heat release occurring closer to
TDC (higher ambient gas temperature and pressure) explains the trend. The apparent heat
release rate shows a similar trend of earlier rise at higher injection pressure. However, the peak
value does not show any measurable difference due to a trade-off between increasing pre-
combustion mixing that tends to increase the peak heat release rate and decreasing ambient
temperature (and pressure) that suppresses the heat release rate.

One noticeable finding in Fig. 5.15 is that the fuel injection rate increases with
increasing injection pressure while the injection duration shortens. It was simply because a fixed
mass of 10 mg per cycle was injected and therefore the injection duration was decreased to
compensate for the higher injection flow rate associated with higher injection pressure. Since
the start of injection (SOI) was held constant at 7oCA bTDC throughout the experiments, the
end-of-injection (EOI) occurred earlier at higher injection pressure. For example, the EOI was
measured at 10, 8, 5, and 4oCA aTDC for 70, 100, 130, 160 MPa injection pressure,
respectively. The shorter injection duration (or earlier EOI) at higher injection pressure results
in positive ignition dwell compared to negative ignition dwell of lower injection pressure. For
instance, in-cylinder pressure trace of 160 MPa shows the start of combustion at 7oCA aTDC (a
crank angle location where the fired pressure exceeds the motored pressure), 3oCA after the end
of injection. By contrast, the start of combustion occurs at 7.5oCA aTDC, 2.5oCA before the end
of injection at 10oCA aTDC for 70 MPa injection case. How this change affects the wall-
interacting jet development and re-entrainment would be a point of discussion in the following
sections.

5.8.3 100 MPa: Increased post-EOI Recession due to High Jet Momentum

The observed shortening of lift-off length associated with the re-entrainment previously
discussed is still hypothetical although re-entrainment theory could explain the findings
adequately. Direct visualisation of flow field demonstrating hot combustion gas re-entrainment
would answer this question clearly; however, such data or measurement technique is not
currently available in our laboratory. Alternatively, we increased the injection pressure to
investigate how the flame base behaves at higher jet momentum that potentially induces higher
re-entrainment.

- 79 -
 Figure 5.16 shows OH* images obtained at 100 MPa injection pressure. The images are
presented in the same format of Figures 5.9 and 5.11 with the free-jet on the left and wall-jet on
the right. Quick visual inspection of images in Figure 5.16 suggests there are no shortening of
lift-off length but recession (or downstream movement) of the flame base towards the bowl
wall. This means even if the jet momentum was higher, re-entrainment was not enhanced
against initial expectation. However, the observed trend was not surprising because previously
in Figures 5.9 and 5.11, 70 MPa injection case showed the shortening of lift-off length occurred
most drastically as it progressed closer to the EOI. For 100 MPa injection case, the EOI
occurred at 8oCA aTDC (see Fig. 5.15), and therefore the most of the flame development was
observed after the EOI when the jet momentum continued to diminish. With the lack of jet
momentum to entrain recirculated hot combustion products, the re-entrainment could not take
place.

Cut-out volume

swirl

100 MPa

Figure 5.16 - Temporal evolution of OH* chemiluminescence at 100 MPa condition.

- 80 -
 In contrast to the re-entrainment, the effect of increased jet momentum was evident in
other parameters. For instance, OHrf appeared much earlier at 100 MPa injection compared to
70 MPa injection case, which happened because the higher jet momentum accelerated the
redirection of the wall-reflected jet penetration. The OHrw shows the same effect of the
increased jet momentum as it is found very close to the nozzle baseline. However, the rapidly
decreasing OHrf or OHrw did not cause increased re-entrainment due to the loss of jet
momentum after the EOI.

Figure 5.17 shows OHf, OHw, OHrw, and OHrf for 100 MPa injection case to present
above-mentioned trends clearer. It is observed that a slight decrease of OHw does happen but
only between 7.5 and 8oCA aTDC right before the end of injection (8oCA aTDC). The OHrf and
OHrw show a decreasing trend or stays very close to the nozzle baseline but none of these show
correspondence with OHf and OHw. Notably, OHw displays an immediate downstream
movement after EOI and this post-EOI recession of the flame base for 100 MPa injection
appears to be much more rapid than that for 70 MPa injection. Also, the OHf shows higher value
than OHw at any crank angle location, consistent with 70 MPa injection case (Fig. 5.13) but
more importantly it increases at a similar rate of OHw. It was likely that this post-EOI recession
was governed by the strength of jet momentum such that 70 MPa injection could not cause a
fast recession of the flame base as 100 MPa injection could.

100 MPa
OHf

OHw
OHrw

OHrf

Figure 5.17 - Lift-off lengths (OHf and OHw) and wall-reflected jet penetration (OHrf and OHrw)
at various crank angle locations for 100 MPa injection case (Fig. 5.16).

- 81 -
 Therefore, findings in Figs. 5.16 and 5.17 suggest that a possible increase of re-
entrainment at higher injection pressure cannot make an impact on the wall-interacting jet
development because the injection duration is reduced to match the injected fuel mass. For a
tested condition of this study, the reduced injection duration caused the jet development to occur
after the end of injection, which resulted in no effect of re-entrainment on the lift-off length. It
should be noted that benefits of shorter injection duration in suppressing the re-entrainment are
consistent with previous findings in refs. [Pickett & López 2005, Genzale et al. 2008,
Polonowski et al. 2011].

5.8.4 >130 MPa: No Re-entrainment Effects due to Short Injection Duration

Further increase of injection pressure to 130 MPa showed expected trends that are an
extension of a transition between 70 and 100 MPa. For instance, OH* images for 130 MPa
injection (Fig 5.18) present the flame base development that is absent of the shortening of lift-
off length. The first appearance of OH* signals was observed at 7 oCA aTDC, which was well
after the EOI at 5oCA aTDC and therefore no re-entrainment would occur.

Also, it should be noted that 130 MPa injection presents 2oCA positive ignition dwell
(see Fig 5.15) allowing increased time for pre-combustion mixing. During the premixed
combustion, it is understood that the thermal dilation of the high-temperature reaction zone is
observed [Kook & Pickett 2009, Pickett et al. 2009a, Pickett et al. 2009b]. Figure 5.18 suggests
that this thermal expansion due to premixed combustion was not a cause for the observed
shortening at 70 MPa injection case. This was because positive ignition dwell condition with
enhanced premixed combustion of 130 MPa injection case should have shown the shortening of
lift-off length if the thermal dilation made a significant impact.

Additional evidence of no re-entrainment condition is displayed by the absence of

correspondence between OHw and OHrw as shown in Fig. 5.19. Higher jet momentum is evident
in rapidly decreasing OHrw and OHrf; however, the lack of jet momentum could not cause the re-
entrainment to decrease OHw and OHf in accordance with decreasing OHrw and OHrf. Earlier
appearance of OHrf is also supportive of the increased jet momentum but no further influence on
the flame base can be observed

- 82 -
 Cut-out volume

swirl

130 MPa
130 MPa

Figure 5.18 -Temporal evolution of OH* chemiluminescence at 130 MPa condition.

OHf
OHw

OHrw

OHrf
130 MPa

Figure 5.19 -Lift-off lengths (OHf and OHw) and wall-reflected jet penetration (OHrf and
OHrw) at various crank angle locations for 130 MPa injection (Fig. 5.18).

- 83 -
 The highest injection pressure of 160 MPa was also tested with further reduction of
injection duration. The results are shown in Fig. 5.20 for OH* images and in Fig. 5.21 for OHf,
OHw, OHrw, and OHrf. It is observed there is no clear jet structure with the lifted flame base
because the reaction occurs a long time after the end of injection. Therefore, Fig. 5.21 shows

Cut-out volume
7.5 ⁰ aTDC
aTDC 14.5 ⁰ aSOI 8.5 ⁰ aTDC
aTDC 15.5 ⁰ aSOI
3.5 ⁰ aaEOI
EOI 4.5 ⁰ aaEOI
EOI

OHf OH
w

swirl
160 MPa
OHrf OHrw
8 ⁰ aaTDC
TDC 15 ⁰ aSOI 9 ⁰ aTDC
aTDC 16 ⁰ aSOI
4 ⁰ aaEOI
EOI 5 ⁰ aEOI
aEOI

Figure 5.20 - Temporal evolution of OH* chemiluminescence at 160 MPa condition.

160
160MPa
MPa
OHf
OHw
OHrw

OHrf

Figure 5.21 - Lift-off lengths (OHf and OHw) and wall-reflected jet penetration (OHrf and OHrw)
at various crank angle locations of 160 MPa (Fig. 5.20).

- 84 -
only singular data points for OHw and OHf that are nearly identical. Due to very high jet
momentum, however, the cylinder-liner-reflected jet head (or OHrf) appears very early from the
first measurable OH* image at 7.5oCA aTDC. Very short OHrf and OHrw are also measured due
to high-pressure injection despite the jet penetration occurring at long time after the end of
injection.

5.8.5 Pre- and Post-EOI Behaviour of Flame Base

To discuss further details of the effect of injection pressure on flame base development,
wall-jet lift-off lengths (OHw) of all tested conditions are compared in Fig. 5.22. The distance
between the wall-reflected jet head and nozzle baseline (OHrw) are also plotted. The data are
shown against oCA aEOI considering great influence of EOI on the re-entrainment.

From Figure 5.22, it is clearly observed that OHw decreases only before the end of
injection (or during the injection event) regardless of the injection pressure. After the end of
injection, OHw shows an increasing trend i.e. recession of the flame base towards the bowl wall.

160 MPa
130 MPa
70 MPa
100 MPa
OHw

OHrw

Figure 5.22 -Comparison of OHw and OHrw for all four injection pressures tested in the present
study (70, 100, 130 and 160 MPa) with respect to the end-of-injection time.

- 85 -
Similarly, OHrw shows correspondence with OHw only before the end of injection such that
OHw decreases with decreasing OHrw (i.e. increasing penetration of wall-reflected jet head).
Distinctly different behaviours of the flame base depending on whether it is before or after the
end of injection suggests that the shortening indeed occurs with the presence of strong jet
momentum for re-entrainment. Since both high penetration of wall-reflected jet and high jet
momentum for entrainment of hot combustion products are needed for strong re-entrainment,
increased injection pressure with decreased injection duration at fixed injection mass results in
no shortening of the lift-off length for wall-interacting jet.

An interesting finding from Fig. 5.22 is that the flame base recession (or increase of
OHw) shows a non-linear correlation with injection pressure. For instance, the rate of recession
appears to be similar between 70 and 130 MPa injection cases. By contrast, this post-EOI
recession rate is very high for 100 MPa injection. This trend suggests two parameters playing an
important role in the post-EOI recession of the flame base: one is jet momentum and the other is
location where the recession begins. For 70 MPa injection, the recession rate is very low
because of low post-EOI jet momentum. As the jet momentum increases due to increased
injection pressure to 100 MPa, the recession rate is increased resulting in a quick increase of
OHw from 7 to 14 mm from the nozzle. However, if the injection pressure is further increased to
130 MPa (or higher), the original flame base is found at 13 mm from the nozzle, closer to the
bowl wall (at 20 mm from the nozzle), which limits the increase of OHw. As a result, the post-
EOI recession rate for 130 MPa injection appears to be as low as 70 MPa injection case.

5.9 Jet-Jet Interaction Effects on Re-Entrainment

Previous discussions suggest that the re-entrainment can be used to explain transient
behaviour of the flame base when the diesel jet interacts with the wall. However, in more
realistic engine environment with a multi-hole nozzle, the jet-wall interaction is not the only
agent to cause such transience because the jet-jet interaction also impacts the jet penetration
upon the wall impingement. The jet head impingement to the neighbouring jet head results in
agglomeration of hot reaction zone where fuel-rich hot products merge together [Mueller et al.
2003, Genzale et al. 2008, Polonowski et al. 2011, Solsjö et al. 2013]. This effect of jet-jet
interaction can potentially cause enhanced re-entrainment and thereby negative impacts on
downstream soot formation.

- 86 -
 Jet B-A

Jet B
Cut-out Jet A
Volume

Nozzle Baseline OHw

[Jet B]

Jet B-C
Jet B
Cut-out
Volume

Nozzle Baseline OHw Jet C

[Jet B]

Figure 5.23 –Schematic diagram of the two two-hole jet arrangement (Jet B-A and Jet B-C)
used to study jet-jet interaction effects on re-entrainment.

5.9.1 Operating Conditions

Two two-hole injectors of varying inter-jet angle have been prepared to study the effect
of inter-jet angle on re-entrainment. In maintaining the injected fuel mass of 10 mg as used
throughout this study into long injection duration, the duration of the injection has been reduced
to 1.53 ms from 2.36 ms of single-hole injection. Other operating conditions follow the settings
displayed in Table 5.1. Schematics of the two two-hole jet arrangements are displayed in Fig.
5.23 as a visual guide on how the images were post-processed for the two-jet arrangement
comparisons.

- 87 -
5.9.2 In-Cylinder Pressure Trace and Apparent Heat Release Rate

Figure 5.24 shows in-cylinder pressure trace, injection rate, and apparent heat release
rate of both Jet B-A (102.8o spacing) and Jet B-C (51.4o spacing). While great similarity
between Jet B-A and Jet B-C for all data is found, it should be noted that the injection rate
shows a measurable difference compared to a single-hole Jet B (see Fig. 5.4). For example, the
peak injection rate is doubled for two-hole nozzles simply because additional hole with the
same nominal diameter is used for Jet B-A and Jet B-C. Also, the rate shape is changed from a
near-square to a triangular shape that is because the injection duration is reduced from 2.36 to
1.53 ms to match the injected mass.

Jet B-A

Jet B-C

Injection Rate
10 mm3/s
5 mm3/s
End of Injection

Figure 5.24 -In-cylinder pressure, injection rate, and apparent heat release rate of two-hole
nozzles for Jet B-A and Jet B-C.

- 88 -
 It should be noted that shorter injection duration with increasing number of holes is
realistic control of injection parameters and hence this comparison provides some practical
information. In the injection rate profile, the actual start of fuel injection was measured at the
same -7oCA aTDC for both single-hole and two-hole injectors but the end of injection occurred
at 10oCA aTDC for a single-hole nozzle (Fig. 5.4) and 4oCA aTDC for a two-hole nozzle (Fig.
5.24). One might notice that very low injection rate is still detected after 4oCA aTDC for the
two-hole nozzle. The source of this low injection rate is unclear but presumably it is due to the
increased resistance to the needle closing associated with changed internal nozzle flow. A quick
spray visualisation experiment using light scattering confirmed no or insignificant fuel injection
during this closing period. Therefore, 4oCA aTDC is used as the actual end of injection in the
following discussions.

5.9.3 Re-Entrainment on Narrow Inter-Jet Angle

Shorter injection duration of two-hole injectors change the combustion regime

significantly. For instance, the start of combustion is observed at 7.5oCA aTDC, some positive
time after the end of injection, resulting in positive ignition dwell as opposed to negative
ignition dwell of a single-hole nozzle. Since the combustion occurs long time after the end of
injection, diminished jet momentum would suppress the re-entrainment and therefore the
shortening of lift-off length might not be present. OH* chemiluminescence images shown in
Fig. 5.25 (top) agrees with this.

Compared to Fig. 5.11, two jet trajectories are noticeable for Jet B and Jet A with
102.8o spacing. The images in Fig. 5.25 show that OHf and OHw do not vary much between 8
and 9.5oCA aTDC (images at the left column). This was because the diesel jet developed after
the end of injection and therefore OHf and OHw followed similar trends of post-EOI OHf and
OHw of a single-hole Jet B (Figs. 5.11 and 5.13). However, this trend was changed at 10oCA
aTDC (image at top-right). Figure 5.25 shows that the jet volume expands and grows further
until 11.5oCA aTDC and OHw moves closer to the nozzle baseline. This shortening, however,
should be differentiated with the re-entrainment-driven shortening of OHw of Jet B. This is
because the influence of the neighbouring jet (Jet A) was a likely cause, not the re-entrainment.
That is, the neighbouring jet A head after the impingement on the wall travelled along the bowl
wall and agglomerated with Jet B head resulting in growth of OH* chemiluminescence
boundaries, in a location where the OHw was measured. Another interesting finding from Fig.
5.25 is that OHf is consistently higher than OHw. In Fig. 5.13, the impact of re-entrainment

- 89 -
 8 °aTDC
aTDC Jet B 15 °aSOI 10 °°aTDC
aTDC 17 ° aSOI
4 °aEOI 6 °aEOI
OHf
OHw

Jet B-A
Jet A
8 5 °aTDC
8.5 aTDC 10 5 °aTDC
15.5 °aSOI 10.5 aTDC 17.5 °aSOI
4.5 °aEOI 6.5 °aEOI

9 °aTDC
aTDC 16 °aSOI 11 °aTDC
aTDC 18 °aSOI
5 °aEOI 7 °aEOI

9 5 °aTDC
9.5 aTDC 16.5 °aSOI 11.5
11 5 ° aTDC 18.5 °aSOI
5.5 °aEOI 7.5
7 .5 °aEOI

Figure 5.25 -Temporal development of Jet B-A illustrated by boundaries of OH*

chemiluminescence (green) from 8oCA to 11.5oCA aTDC. Dashed lines are shown for two jet
trajectories with 102.8o inter-jet spacing.

explained this gap; however, for Jet B-A case, this was due to lack of jet-jet interaction in this
free side of the jet.

The OHf and OHw of Jet B-A together with those of Jet B are plotted in Fig. 5.26 for
further discussion. The plot shows that OHf and OHw are measured at two distinct oCA aEOI
depending on the jet arrangement, i.e. the Jet B data are shown at -2 to 3oCA aEOI while Jet B-
A results are found after 4oCA aEOI. Therefore, Jet B flame develops under the strong influence
of jet-wall interaction and re-entrainment but no jet-jet interaction. By contrast, Jet B-A flame is

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 Jet B-A OHf
Jet B OHf

Jet B OHw Jet B-A OHw

Figure 5.26 - Comparison of lift-off lengths of free and wall jets (OHf and OHw) between jet B
and jet B-A arrangements.

not affected by the re-entrainment but jet-jet interaction. Since the flames are detected at a
distinctively different oCA aEOI range, direct comparison between Jet B and Jet B-A is not
possible. However, close inspection of Figs. 5.15 and 5.24 suggest that the flame development
occurred at very similar in-cylinder pressure and apparent heat release rate conditions. Also, one
can predict how OHf and OHw of Jet B would further develop at later oCA aEOIs considering a
slow increase after the end of injection. Therefore, higher OHf and OHw of Jet B-A than those of
Jet B might suggest that the effect of re-entrainment on the lift-off length shortening was
stronger than the influence of the neighbouring jet.

However, the significance of jet-jet interaction found by previous researchers [Abraham

et al. 1999, Genzale et al. 2008, Polonowski et al. 2011, Solsjö et al. 2013] should not be
underestimated. In Fig. 5.27, results are shown for Jet B-C, the same two-hole nozzle with short
injection duration of 1.53 ms but narrower spacing of 51.4o. OH* chemiluminescence images at
the top show marked difference compared to Jet B-A flame in Fig. 5.25. The OH* signals
occupy a large area between the trajectory lines of Jet B and C. The OHw is found very close to
the nozzle at about 5 mm and OHf also appears to be shorter than that in Figs. 5.11 or 5.25.
Since the images are shown for 4 to 7.5oCA aEOI at which the injection-induced jet momentum

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 8 °aTDC Jet B 15 °aSOI 10 °°aTDC
aTDC 17 ° aSOI
4 °aEOI 6 °aEOI
Jet C
OHw
OHf
Jet B-C

8.5 °aTDC 15.5 °aSOI 10.5

10 5 °aTDC
aTDC 17.5 °aSOI
4.5 ° aEOI 6.5 °aEOI

aTDC
9 °aTDC 16 °aSOI 11 °aTDC
aTDC 18 °aSOI
5 °aEOI 7 ° aEOI

9.5
9 5 °aTDC
aTDC 16.5 °aSOII 11.5
11 5 ° aTDC 18.5 °aSOI
5.5 °aEOI 7. °aEOI
7.5

Figure 5.27 - Temporal development of Jet B-C illustrated by boundaries of OH*

chemiluminescence (green) from 8oCA to 11.5oCA aTDC. Dashed lines are shown for two jet
trajectories with 51.4o inter-jet spacing.

should be very weak, low re-entrainment was expected. However, the narrower spacing of the
holes of Jet B-C caused stronger jet-jet interaction than Jet B-A that outperformed the reduced
re-entrainment due to shorter injection duration than Jet B. Also, penetration of the jet C head is
clearly seen from the growth of OH* boundary on the left half of Jet B axis between 8 oCA and
9.5oCA aTDC (images at the left column), which results in shorter OHf than that of Jet B or B-A
flame.

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 The viewgraph of OHf and OHw in Fig. 5.28 for Jet B-C case agrees with images in Fig.
5.27. The lowest OHf and OHw in this study are shown for Jet B-C although they are measured
long time after the end of injection with limited re-entrainment. Therefore, the results suggest
that narrow inter-jet spacing can cause significant issues as the lift-off length becomes very
short due to jet-jet interaction even if the injection duration is short enough to suppress jet-wall
interaction-driven re-entrainment.

Jet B OHf

Jet B-C OHf

Jet B OHw
Jet B-C OHw

Figure 5.28 - Comparison of the lift-off lengths of free and wall jets (OHf and OHw) between Jet
B and Jet B-C arrangement.

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Chapter 6
6

Summary and Conclusions

In accomplishment of this thesis, optical investigations on two distinct combustion

regimes have been conducted using a single-cylinder automotive-sized optical diesel engine.
High-speed soot luminosity and instantaneous capture of OH* chemiluminescence have
revealed important visual data on diesel combustion that bridges existing knowledge gaps.
Effects of injection pressure, timing and other mechanisms of the transient flame development
of in-cylinder flame structures were also investigated.

Investigation in diesel knock phenomenon was conducted where images display

oscillatory motion in the flames corresponding to the distinct ringing in the in-cylinder pressure
traces. From the premixed-dominant regime, short-injection duration conditions led to induction
of engine knock as identified by high-frequency pressure fluctuations. This limiting factor on
engine performance was found to correspond with oscillatory motions that the in-cylinder
flames exhibit. The correspondence suggests the close relationship between diesel combustion
with the geometry of its surroundings. Acoustics are likely to be causal for the noise creation

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and also transmission of its wave energy in creating the observed movements. Main discoveries
are listed as follows:

x Short injection duration condition with a 7-hole injector induced in-cylinder pressure
ringing as it was detected for the earliest injection (7.7 oCA bTDC) and later injection
(2.7 oCA bTDC) while the latest injection case (2.3 oCA aTDC) exhibited no pressure
ringing. Intensity of knock was quantified through band-pass filtering at 6~20 kHz and
the filtered peak-to-peak pressure difference were found to be 230 kPa for the earliest
injection case. From the spectral analysis, the major frequency was measured at~7 kHz
for the injection timing of 7.7 oCA bTDC and ~14 kHz for the injection timing of (2.7
o
CA bTDC). As the injection timing is retarded, the knock intensity and pressure-rise
rate both decreased.

x From the high-speed imaging, flame oscillations were observed for the earliest injection
case and found to move against the swirl flow. Most notably for the earliest injection
case, the flames were shown to oscillate at a frequency of ~7 kHz, suggesting that the
flame oscillation has a correspondence with the frequency of the pressure ringing.
Similar correspondence was also acquired for a later injection case that exhibits less
severe knocking. Additional evidence is portrayed by the reduction of knock in cases
that utilises pilot injection as a knock deterrent. Elimination of pressure ringing is
observed to take place with reduction in pressure rise rate caused by initial combustion
of pilot fuel-air mixture assisting in the main combustion. In concurrence the flame
images of pilot case does not display flame oscillation. These correspondences confirm
that there exist pressure waves inside the combustion chamber during the knocking
event. These waves are produced by the sudden pressure build-up during the premixed
burn phase of diesel combustion and cause soot luminous regions to move against the
swirl direction and oscillate. The pressure waves also affect the pressure gradient across
the chamber hence causing the ringing of in-cylinder pressure.

x Pilot injection is an effective tool to suppress diesel knock by shortening ignition delay
and the pressure rise rate. Less pressure ringing is measured and no flame oscillation is
seen when the pilot injection is applied to a knocking single main injection condition.
Long pilot injection was correlated with a decrease in ignition delay resulting in a
reduced peak heat release rate. The combustion starts prior to the end of injection for
this case and this resulted in reduced diesel knock as evidenced by the smoothing of the
in-cylinder pressure trace. In effect there was no distinguishable oscillation of flame in a
high-speed movie, indicating absence of diesel knock.

- 95 -
 In the second regime involving long injection duration and negative ignition dwell
comprising a larger mixing-controlled combustion phase, direct influences of wall and inter-jet
interactions to the flame base development have been examined in great detail. Multiple
evidences exist to suggest that re-entrainment phenomena are real and could have a real impact
to ensuing combustion characteristics and flame development. Inter-jet angle must also be
carefully taken into account when dealing in injector design as re-entrainment may be stronger
in such cases. Effect of the injection pressure or increased jet momentum was also surveyed
with results indicative of its negative relation with re-entrainment as faster fuel delivery allowed
injection duration to be shortened and hence reducing potential period of re-entrainment to take
place. Major findings relating to this regime can be summarised as follows:

x The flame base was found to move back towards the nozzle for a wall-interacting jet
before the end of injection. This raises an issue because downstream soot formation
increases with decreasing lift-off length. The existing theory of re-entrainment is used
to explain this trend based on the findings that (1) the lift-off length shortening occurs
only during the injection when the jet momentum is strong and (2) penetration of wall-
reflected jet head corresponds well with the upstream movement of the flame base.

x Further evidence supporting the presence of re-entrainment is provided by bisecting a

single jet using a cut-out on the piston bowl rim. This approach enables simultaneous
visualisation of a half of the jet with strong bowl-wall/jet interaction (“wall-jet”) and the
other half of the jet with delayed liner-wall/jet interaction (“free-jet”). It is found that
the lift-off length is consistently longer for the free-jet because liner-wall-reflected jet
head is redirected back towards the flame base only after the end of injection, resulting
in low re-entrainment.

x The re-entrainment is a phenomenon strongly related to the injection event. When the
injection pressure is low, the injection duration can be extended beyond the start of
combustion (i.e. negative ignition dwell) causing the lift-off length shortening due to the
re-entrainment. If the injection pressure is increased and the injection duration is
reduced to maintain the injected mass per cycle, the end of injection occurs earlier than
the start of combustion (i.e. positive ignition dwell) and therefore the flame
development takes place after the end of injection. Due to the absence of a strong jet
momentum for redirected hot combustion products to be entrained after the end of
injection, the re-entrainment effect is suppressed despite high penetration of wall-
reflected jet head at high injection pressure condition.

- 96 -
x The post-EOI recession of the flame base shows an interesting non-linear correlation
with injection pressure due to variations in jet momentum and starting location of the
recession. If the injection pressure is low (e.g. 70 MPa), the recession rate is low due to
low jet momentum. When the injection pressure is increased to 100 MPa, high recession
rate is observed due to increased jet momentum. However, further increase of injection
pressure results in low recession rate again because the original flame base appears
closer to the wall, which constraints further increase of the lift-off length.

x Utilising two-hole nozzles in conjunction with short injection duration can decrease the
re-entrainment and in turn soot formation because the end of injection occurs earlier.
However, jet-jet interaction is well known to increase soot formation due to rich
mixture formed in-between the jets. OH* chemiluminescence images show that indeed
the impact of jet-jet interaction on the shortening of lift-off length is more significant
than that of the re-entrainment if narrow inter-jet spacing is selected. On the other hand,
the lift-off length shows the highest value among all tested conditions of this study
when short injection duration and wide inter-jet spacing is used because both re-
entrainment and jet-jet interaction are suppressed.

x To avoid increased soot formation due to the lift-off length shortening during the
injection, larger bowl diameter and split main injection are suggested as a means of
suppressing re-entrainment. At the same time, large inter-jet spacing is preferred as
otherwise the impact of jet-jet interaction on lift-off length and soot formation can cause
significant issues.

- 97 -
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