Fuel 140 (2015) 192200

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Fuel
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/fuel

Effects of diesel injection pressure on the performance and emissions

of a HD common-rail diesel engine fueled with diesel/methanol dual
fuel
Junheng Liu a, Anren Yao b, Chunde Yao a,
a
State Key Laboratory of Engines, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China
b
School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China

h i g h l i g h t s

 The common-rail diesel engine was fueled with diesel/methanol dual fuel.
 Increasing injection pressure would improve fuel economy of DMDF engine.
 Effect of injection pressure on DMDF combustion characteristic was analyzed.
 Effect of injection pressure on emissions of DMDF engine was investigated.

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The diesel/methanol dual fuel (DMDF) combustion mode was conducted on a turbo-charged, inter-
Received 29 May 2014 cooling diesel engine with 6-cylinder for the heavy duty (HD) vehicle. In DMDF mode, methanol is
Received in revised form 15 August 2014 injected into the intake port to form lean air/methanol premixed mixture, and then ignited by the
Accepted 28 September 2014
direct-injected diesel fuel in cylinder. This study is aimed to investigate the effect of diesel injection pres-
Available online 13 October 2014
sure on the characteristics of performance and exhaust emissions from the engine with common-rail fuel
system. The experimental results show that at low injection pressure, the IMEP of DMDF mode is lower
Keywords:
than that of pure diesel combustion (D) mode. COVIEMP of DMDF mode rstly decreases and then
Diesel engine
Dual fuel
increases with increasing injection pressure, and it remains under 2.1% for all the tests. It is found that
Methanol the combustion duration in DMDF mode becomes shorter, the maximum cylinder pressure and the peak
Engine performance heat release rate increase, and CA50 gets close to the top dead center as the injection pressure increases.
Emission BSFC of DMDF mode decreases with the increase of injection pressure, and is lower than that of D mode
for injection pressure over 115 MPa. Both of NOX and smoke emissions are reduced in DMDF mode. But
smoke decreases and NOX increases as the diesel injection pressure increases in DMDF mode. DMDF gen-
erates lower NO and CO2 emissions, while produces higher HC, CO, andNO2 emissions compared to D
mode. As the diesel injection pressure increases, CO and HC emissions are decreased, however, CO2
and NO2 emissions are slightly increased.
2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction exhaust emissions of diesel engines and there is a trade-off

Diesel engines are widely used in transportation industry and
construction machines owing to their high fuel efciency and
durability. However, the NOX and smoke emissions are the main
Abbreviations: DMDF, diesel/methanol dual fuel; D, pure diesel combustion;
IMEP, indicated mean effective pressure; COVIMEP, coefcient of variations of IMEP;
BSFC, brake specic fuel consumption; FSN, lter smoke number.
Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 22 2740 6649; fax: +86 22 2738 3362.
E-mail address: arcdyao@tju.edu.cn (C. Yao).
relationship between them. It is a hotspot to research the simulta-
neous reduction of both NOX and smoke emissions. The combined
application of in-cylinder combustion optimization and after treat-
ment devices is adopted to meet regulatory requirements [1,2].
Besides, alternative fuel is one of the effective means to reduce
exhaust emissions and slow down the petroleum consumption
[3,4]. Methanol is a widely investigated alternative fuel of diesel
engine for its low cost, easy storage and wide distribution. Due
to its high latent heat of vaporization and oxygen content,

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.fuel.2014.09.109
0016-2361/ 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 J. Liu et al. / Fuel 140 (2015) 192200
methanol has the potential to reduce smoke and NOX emissions
[59]. Methanol is almost exclusively produced from fossil fuels
(production via syn-gas) and biomass. Nowadays, some research-
ers have turned their attentions to produce methanol from black
liquor gasication or the reaction of hydrogen and CO2 recovered
from fossil fuel-burning power plants, industrial ue gases or the
atmosphere [10]. Methanol production from coal is especially
important in China, which is rich in coal but poor in petroleum
and natural gas.
Due to diesel fuel and methanol being practically non-miscible,
the applications of methanol fuel on the diesel engine are mainly
methanol-diesel blends with additives and fumigation methanol.
The blend method needs to add some additives to the mixtures
to satisfy homogeneity and prevent phase separation and has been
investigated by some researchers [7,8]. Cheung et al. [6] found that
biodiesel blended with methanol could simultaneous reduce PM
and NOX emissions, but increase the unburned methanol, formal-
dehyde, and acetaldehyde emissions. Zhu et al. [8] compared the
performance and emissions of a diesel engine operating on biodie-
sel-methanol blends and biodiesel-ethanol blends. The methanol
blends were more effective in reduction of PM and NOX emissions
than the ethanol blends, but generated higher HC and CO emis-
sions. The brake thermal efciency had a slight increase for the
blended fuels with 5% methanol and ethanol. Sayin et al. [11] car-
ried out a research using methanol-diesel blends and they found
increasing injection pressure could cause the reduction of smoke
opacity, CO and HC emissions, while increase NOX emission. Huang
et al. [12,13] investigated the combustion and emissions behaviors
of diesel-methanol blends in a diesel engine for various fuel
delivery advance angles. They found that the ignition delay, the
maximum cylinder pressure and NOX emission increased as the
fuel delivery advance angle increased.
The fumigation method, which is fueled with intake port
injected methanol and direct-injected diesel fuel, has been widely
investigated recently [1420]. Yao et al. [14] proposed a diesel/
methanol compound combustion (DMCC) scheme which belongs
to the fumigation method. Their experimental results showed that
the DMCC method could reduce the NOX and soot emissions
simultaneously but increase the CO and HC emissions. Other
experiments [15,16] conducted on a naturally-aspirated direct-
injection diesel engine with fumigation methanol showed same
results as Yaos. Haribabu et al. [17] investigated the performance
and exhaust emissions of a single cylinder DI diesel engine fueled
with methyl ester injection and methanol carburetion, and they
found there was better reduction of NOX, CO2 and smoke emissions
and improvement of fuel economy. Furthermore, theoretical
researches [18,19] have been conducted to investigate the combus-
tion and emission characteristics of a diesel/alcohol reactivity con-
trolled compression ignition (RCCI) engine. Li et al. [18] found that
with premixed methanol advancing the start of injection of diesel
was benecial to the decreases of HC and soot emissions. Results
[18] also showed that both advancing the injection timing and
raising methanol fraction were favorable to avoid engine knock
and improve thermal efciency. Literatures [5,8] showed that in
general, the increase of HC and CO emissions for both of the fumi-
gation methanol and the methanol blends could be effectively
reduced by the DOC.
Compared with the methanol blends method, the fumigation
methanol is more exible in the proportion of methanol and diesel,
and allows a higher percentage of methanol fuel to be applied in a
diesel engine. However, precious studies were mainly
concentrated on the application of the fumigation methanol in
the naturally-aspirated direct-injection diesel engine, and few
reports about the effects of fuel injection parameters on the com-
bustion and emissions characteristics in a diesel engine fueled with
diesel and methanol fuel.
193
In this study, the DMDF combustion is investigated as a new
combustion mode for NOX and PM reduction from the diesel
engine. The aim of this research is to investigate the effect of diesel
fuel injection pressure on the performance and emissions
characteristics in a 6-cylinder turbocharged intercooled common-
rail diesel engine. Under DMDF mode, diesel fuel is used as a pilot
injection fuel to ignite the air/methanol premixed mixtures. The
results were compared with those of the engine fueled with diesel
fuel alone.
2. Experimental setup and method
2.1. Test engine system
To investigate the effect of diesel injection pressure on the
performance and exhaust emissions in a DMDF engine, a turbo-
charged, intercooled, in-line 6-cylinder, common rail diesel engine
is used in this study. The specications of the test engine are
presented in Table 1. The engine speed and torque are controlled
automatically by an electrical dynamometer (DynoRoad 504/4.6
SL; AVL) of 500 kW.
The engine was modied with a methanol rail and six methanol
injectors added to the intake manifold. A methanol pump
controlled by a separate electronic control unit (ECU) was used
to supply methanol to the methanol rail. Methanol was injected
into the intake manifolds of each cylinder with a pressure of
0.42 MPa to form homogeneous methanol/air mixture and metha-
nol injection was controlled by the ECU. Fig. 1 shows the schematic
diagram of the test engine. The diesel supply system was a com-
mon rail system produced by Denso Company. The injection pres-
sure and injection timing of the common rail system were
controlled by the base engine ECU. The methanol consumption
and diesel fuel consumption were measured by two AVL fuel mass
ow meters, respectively.
A smoke meter (415SE; AVL) and online exhaust gas analyzers
(AMA i60; AVL) were installed to measure the exhaust emissions.
NOX and NO concentrations were measured with a chemilumines-
cence detector (CLD) analyzer, and the NO2 concentration was
dened as the difference between NOX and NO concentrations;
HC was measured by a ame lionization detector (FID) analyzer,
and the unburned methanol was measured as part of the HC; while
CO2 and CO were measured with an infrared detector (IRD) ana-
lyzer. All gas analyzers were calibrated with zero gas and standard
gas before the experiment. The in-cylinder pressure was measured
using a piezo-electric type pressure sensor (6125C, Kistler)
installed at the head of the sixth cylinder. Crank angle position
was recorded using a crank angle encoder mounted at the free
crankshaft with resolution of 0.1 crank angle. These signals were
transferred to a combustion analyzer (IndiModul, AVL) which com-
bined up to a charge amplier. In each operating condition, the cyl-
inder pressure data were collected over 150 continuous cycles and
Table 1
Test engine specications.
Items Specications
Type 6-cylinder, in-line, turbocharged, direct injection
Fuel injection system Common rail
Bore  stroke (mm) 126  130
Displacement (L) 9.726
Compression ratio 17.5
Intake value opening 15CA before top dead center
Intake value closing 64.8CA after top dead center
Exhaust value opening 64.8CA before top dead center
Exhaust value closing 15CA after top dead center
Max. power (kW/r/min) 249/1900
Max. torque (Nm/r/min) 1490/13001500
194 J. Liu et al. / Fuel 140 (2015) 192200

Methanol tank
Methanol pump Methanol inlet
Methanol rail Signal output DMDF ECU
Methanol injector

Throttle position
Pressure regulating

Coolant-Temp

Engine speed
Intake manifold
valve
Intercooler

Signal input
6-cylinder common-rail diesel engine
Fresh air Electric
dynamometer

Exhaust Pressure Engine control

Turbocharger transducer system
Exhaust

Smokemeter Gas
analyzer

Fig. 1. The schematic diagram of the testing engine.

analyzed with a combustion analysis system (IndiCom, AVL). The

Table 3
cylinder pressure data were averaged to eliminate the effect of Properties comparison of diesel and methanol [5,20].
cycle-to-cycle variations, and then the heat release rate was calcu-
Properties Diesel Methanol
lated based on the cylinder pressure. The steady state tests were
repeated at least twice to ensure that the results are repeatable Density at 20 C (kg/m3) 830 790
within the experimental uncertainties. The measuring accuracy Low heating values(MJ/kg) 42.5 19.7
Content of C (%) 86 38
of each instrument and the experimental uncertainty are given in Content of H (%) 13 12
Table 2. Content of O (%) 50
Sulfur (mg/kg) 350 0
Autoignition temperature (C) 250 450
2.2. Diesel and methanol fuel Latent heat of evaporation (kJ/kg) 250 1110
Cetane number P49 35
Burning range (%) 1.47.6 5.526
The diesel fuel used in this study is commercial diesel with sul- Kinematic viscosity at 20 C (mm2/s) 3.08.0
fur content less than 350 ppm. The methanol used does not contain
sulfur, is produced from coal and the purity of methanol is greater
than 99.9%. Table 3 shows the general properties of the two fuels.
Notice that the latent heat of vaporization of methanol is about 4 process, the intake air temperature was controlled at 40 3 C,
times of diesel, but the cetane value of methanol is much lower. while the cooling water temperature was controlled at 80 3 C.
To investigate the engine performance and exhaust emissions in
D mode and DMDF mode according to the variation of diesel injec-
2.3. Test method and conditions tion pressures, each experiment was carried out with the xed
injection timing of 0CA. In DMDF mode, the diesel fuel injection
Experiments were conducted at different injection pressures at quantity was decreased and meantime the methanol injection
the engine maximum torque speed of 1400 r/min with the output quantity was increased to keep the engine output torque constant.
torque of 447 Nm and 1192 Nm, corresponding to engine loads of In this study, the proportion of methanol replacement of diesel fuel
30% and 80%, respectively. Experiments were rstly carried out consumption maintained at about 45%. The engine load and speed
with D mode and then carried out with DMDF mode. The injection of the DMDF mode was consistent with that of D mode. The
parameters of diesel fuel and methanol were controlled respec- methanol substitution ratios at different injection pressures are
tively with their own dedicated ECU. Throughout the whole test given in Table 4. And the methanol substitution ratio is dened

Table 2
Accuracy and uncertainty of measured parameters.

Instrument Measured parameters Range Accuracy Uncertainty (%)

Electric dynamometer Speed 05000 r/min 0.05%
Torque 03000 Nm 0.1%
Fuel mass ow meter Diesel consumption 0125 kg/h 0.12% 0.6
Methanol consumption 050 kg/h 0.12% 0.5
Exhaust gas analyzer NOX 010,000 ppm 20 ppm 2.8
NO 010,000 ppm 10 ppm 3.9
HC 010,000 ppm 10 ppm 2.4
CO 05000 ppm 5 ppm 1.4
CO2 020 Vol% 0.5% 1.7
Smoke meter Smoke 010 FSN 0.002FSN 0.5
Pressure transducer Cylinder pressure 020 MPa 0.01 MPa 0.22
 J. Liu et al. / Fuel 140 (2015) 192200 195

Table 4
Engine test conditions of the experiment.

Engine load (%) Diesel injection D DMDF

pressure (MPa)
Diesel (kg/h) Diesel (kg/h) Methanol (kg/h) Methanol substitution ratio (%)
30% 70 13.66 6.90 20.71 49.52
85 13.52 6.65 19.35 50.85
100 13.45 6.92 18.44 48.57
115 13.42 6.91 18.35 48.55
130 13.41 7.48 15.92 44.25
140 13.38 7.54 15.76 43.67
80% 70 34.64 18.53 36.33 46.51
85 33.91 17.49 36.61 48.43
100 33.42 17.22 36.01 48.47
115 33.33 18.04 33.77 45.87
130 33.31 19.00 29.67 42.96

as the percentage reduction of diesel fuel consumption with DMDF

Engine speed:1400r/min D
mode compared to D mode under the same conditions and is cal- Engine load 80% DMDF
2.5
culated using the following equation.
qd;d  qm;d 2.0
st  100% 1
qd;d

IMEP/ MPa
1.5
where qd,d is the instantaneous mass consumption rate of diesel fuel
with D mode in kg/h; qm,d and qm,a are instantaneous mass con- 1.0
sumption rates of diesel fuel and methanol with DMDF mode in
kg/h, respectively. 0.5
The BSFC of DMDF mode is calculated using the following
equation. 0.0
70 85 100 115 13 0 70 85 100 115 13 0
qm;d  Q LHV;d qm;a  Q LHV;a
BSFC  100% 2 Diesel injection pressure /MPa
Q LHV;d Pb
(a) IMEP
where QLHV,d and QLHV,a represent the low heating values of diesel
and methanol in MJ/kg, respectively; Pb is the effective power of
D
the engine. 3.0
Engine speed:1400r/min DMDF
Engine load 80%
2.5
3. Results and discussion 2.10
2.01
2.0
COV IMEP/%

3.1. Effect of fuel injection pressure on combustion characteristics

1.40
1.5
Fig. 2(a) shows the IMEP of D mode and DMDF mode for differ-
ent injection pressures at 80% engine load. It is shown that the 1.0
0.68
IMEP increases with fuel injection pressure increasing under both 0.52
0.5
modes. This is because that the maximum cylinder pressure
increases as injection pressure increases [21], which results in
0.0
the increase of friction loss between piston ring and cylinder liner. 70 80 90 100 110 120 130
Meantime, the power consumption of the common-rail pump dri- Diesel injection pressure/ MPa
ven by the engine will increase with the fuel injection pressure (b) COVIMEP
increases. Compared with D mode, IMEP in DMDF mode is lower
at low injection pressure but a little higher at high injection pres- Fig. 2. The IMEP and COVIMEP of the two combustion modes at different injection
sure. At lower fuel injection pressure, methanol slows down the pressures.
combustion rate and extends the combustion duration, results in
low pressure in-cylinder and friction loss, as shown in Fig. 3. When
the injection pressure is higher than 115 MPa, fuel atomization COVIMEP for D mode increases as injection pressure increases but
obviously improves, cylinder temperature is higher and more fuel less than 1% at 130 MPa. It is attributed to the improved diesel
is burned in the premixed combustion. All these lead to increase atomization and accelerated combustion rate as the diesel injec-
the peak pressure and friction loss between piston ring and cylin- tion pressure increases.
der liner, so the IMEP of DMDF mode is higher than that of D mode. Fig. 3 gives the cylinder pressure and heat release rate for the
The COVs of IMEP in D mode and DMDF mode at different injec- two combustion modes and different injection pressures at 80%
tion pressures at 80% engine load are given in Fig. 2(b). It is shown engine load. Before ignition, the cylinder pressure of DMDF mode
that COVIMEP of DMDF mode is higher than that of conventional is lower than that of D mode, and the trend is more obvious at
diesel mode. It is considered that methanol injected into intake the lower diesel injection pressure. And the peak cylinder pressure
port lowers inlet temperature, thus leads to DMDF combustion and heat release rate of DMDF mode occur later and are lower than
instability. The COVIMEP of DMDF mode rst decreases and then those of D combustion mode. At 70 MPa, the cylinder gas temper-
increases as the diesel injection pressure increases. The COVIMEP ature is lower and further reduces due to the vaporization of meth-
of DMDF mode remains under 2.1% among all the tests. The anol. In general, methanol has lower cetane number and higher
196 J. Liu et al. / Fuel 140 (2015) 192200

Engine speed:1400r/min reasonable because the atomization of diesel fuel is improved

14 70MPa,D
Engine load 80% 130MPa,D and the ignition delay is shortened as the injection pressure
600
12 70MPa,DMDF increases. At 30% load, the combustion starts earlier, the peak cyl-

Heat release rate/ J/CA

130MPa,DMDF inder pressure and heat release rate obviously increase with the
10
increase of injection pressure. At 80% load, when the injection
Pressure/ MPa

400 pressure is lower than 100 MPa, the high latent heat of vaporiza-
8
tion of methanol and poor fuel atomization lead to lower the cylin-
6 der pressure, as shown in Fig. 4(b). Moreover, the compression
4 200 pressure curve before ignition with 115 MPa injection pressure is
higher than those with lower injection pressure. There are two rea-
2 sons for the large divergence of the pressure curve before ignition.
Firstly, the methanol substitution ratio is relatively low at
0 0
-20 0 20 40 60 80 115 MPa, which means methanol ratio is low and diesel fuel ratio
Crank Angle /CA is high in this condition. Secondly, as the injection pressure
increases, both the peak cylinder pressure and the temperature
Fig. 3. Cylinder pressure and heat release rate of the two combustion modes at of combustion chamber and cylinder wall increase, and the cooling
different injection pressures.
effect of methanol with high latent heat of vaporization will be
decreased.
The inuence of fuel injection pressure and engine load on CA50
300
Engine speed:1400r/min 100MPa
and the combustion duration of DMDF mode are shown in Fig. 5.
8 Engine load 30% 115MPa The CA50 is dened as the crank angle where the 50% of the total
Heat release rate/ J/ CA

140MPa heat release. CA50 is the crank angle of burning center and reects
the economy of the combustion process [22]. As the fuel injection
Pressure/ MPa

6 200
pressure increases, the heat release rate curve moves forward, the
heat release rate increases and its corresponding phase advances,
4 and CA50 gets close to the top dead center, as given in Fig. 5(a).
The CA50 of 30% engine load is earlier than that of 80% load.
100
Because the higher engine load means more fuel consumption,
2

0 0
-2 0 0 20 40 60
Engine speed:1400r/min Engine load 30%
Crank Angle /CA Engine mode: DMDF Engine load 80%
(a) Engine load 30%
30 28.6

600
CA50/ CA

14 Engine speed:1400r/min 85MPa

100MPa 20.2
Engine load 80%
Heat release rate/ J/ CA

20
12 115MPa
13.1 13.6
Pressure/ MPa

10 11.6
400
10
8

6
200 0
4 70 85 100 115 130 140
Diesel injection pressure /MPa
2 (a) CA50 of the DMDF mode
0 0
-20 0 20 40 60
Engine speed:1400r/min Engine load 30%
Crank Angle /CA Engine mode: DMDF Engine load 80%
Combustion duration/ CA

(b) Engine load 80% 80

66.9
Fig. 4. Cylinder pressure and heat release rate of DMDF mode for different diesel
injection pressures. 60

41.7
40
latent heat of evaporation, as given in Table 3. However, at the 23.5
21.5
injection pressure of 130 MPa, the ignition timing of DMDF mode 20
19.9

is delayed, but the peak cylinder pressure and the maximum heat
release rate of DMDF combustion both increase signicantly,
compared with D mode. 0
70 85 100 115 130 140
Fig. 4 shows the changes in cylinder pressure and heat release Diesel injection pressure /MPa
rate of DMDF combustion at different injection pressures and
engine loads. It is found that the combustion of DMDF mode starts
(b) Combustion duration of the DMDF mode
a little earlier, the cylinder pressure and heat release rate of DMDF Fig. 5. CA50 and combustion duration of the DMDF mode for different diesel
mode increase with the increases of injection pressure. This is injection pressures.
 J. Liu et al. / Fuel 140 (2015) 192200 197

which, couple with fuel injection pulse-width extended, leads to a
prolonged combustion duration and a delayed CA50.
The combustion duration is dened as the crank angle from 5%
of the cumulative heat release to 90% of the cumulative heat
release. With the increase of injection pressure, the combustion
duration becomes shorter, as shown in Fig. 5(b). The combustion
duration of 80% load reduces from 66.9CA to 23.5CA, and that
of 30% load reduces from 41.7CA to 21.5CA, when the injection
pressure increases from 70 MPa to 130 MPa. This can be attributed
300
Engine speed:1400r/min
Engine load 80%
250
198.2
BSFC/ g/(kwh)
to two reasons. Firstly, the diesel injection rate gets faster as injec-
tion pressure increases. Secondly, the heat release rate increases
with the higher injection pressure. At the same injection pressure,
the combustion duration increases with higher load, due to the
increase of the fuel injection duration, fuel preparation and fuel
combustion duration.
3.2. Effect of fuel injection pressure on engine performance
In order to compare the fuel economy of D mode and DMDF
mode, the BSFC is used in this study. Fig. 6 shows the BSFC of D
mode and DMDF mode with different injection pressures at 80%
D engine load. The BSFC of the engine decreases as the injection pres-
DMDF
sure increases in the both modes. This is because the increase of
injection pressure will increase the premixed combustion ratio
202.3 and the heat release rate, which leads to the improvement of con-

200 190.4 187.3

stant volume combustion. When the injection pressure is below
150 115 MPa, the BSFC of DMDF mode is higher than that of the D
mode. However, the result is opposite when the injection pressure
100
is higher than 115 MPa. At 130 MPa, the BSFCs of DMDF and D
mode are 187.3 g/kW h and 190.4 g/kW h, respectively.
50
3.3. Effect of fuel injection pressure on engine emissions
0
70 85 100 115 130 70 85 100 115 130
Fig. 7(a) and (b) give the NOX emissions of D and DMDF modes
Diesel injection pressure /MPa
with different injection pressures at 30% and 80% engine loads. In
Fig. 6. BSFC of the two modes for different diesel injection pressures at 80% engine general, it can be observed that NOX emissions in both modes
load. increase as the fuel injection pressure increases and the engine
load increases. It is considered that the increase of injection

1.0 1.0
Engine speed:1400r/min
Engine speed:1400r/min
Engine load 80%
300 Engine load 30%
0.8 800 0.8
250

NOX/NOX*
0.6 600 0.6
NOX / ppm

200
NOX/NOX*

NOX / ppm

150 400 0.4

0.4
100
0.2 200 0.2
50

0 0.0 0 0.0
70 85 100 115 130 140 70 85 100 115 130
Diesel injection pressure /MPa Diesel injection pressure /MPa
(a) NOX emissions of 30% eng ine load (b) NOX emissions of 80% engine load

800 1.0
NOX
NO
Engine speed:1400r/min
Engine load 30% NO2 0.8
NO X , NO, NO 2 / ppm

600 NO/NOX
Mode: D
0.6
NO/NO X

400 Mode: DMDF

0.4

200
0.2

0 0.0
70 85 100 105 130 140 70 85 100 105 130 140
Diesel injection pressure /MPa
(c) NO, NO2 and NO/NOX of the two modes at 30% engine load
Fig. 7. NOX, NO, NO2 and NO/NOX of the two modes versus diesel injection pressures.
198 J. Liu et al. / Fuel 140 (2015) 192200

pressure leads to increase the peak cylinder pressure and the peak 0.25 1.0
heat release rate, and thus the NOX emissions increase as the injec-
tion pressure increases [23]. The relative ratio of NOX, NOX/NOX,
0.20 0.8
which represents the ratio of the NOX of DMDF mode to the NOX

Smoke/Smoke*
of D mode, increases as injection pressure increases but remains Engine speed:1400r/min

Smoke / FSN
Engine load 30% 0.6
lower than 1.0. The value of NOX/NOX is between 0.55 and 0.60 0.15
at 30% load, and is between 0.73 and 0.82 at 80% load.
The NOX formation rate is strongly dependent on the oxygen 0.10 0.4
concentration, combustion temperature and high temperature
duration [24]. The decrease of NOX emissions in DMDF mode are
0.05 0.2
caused by the following mechanisms. Firstly, methanol injected
during the intake stroke lowers the intake air temperature and
the combustion temperature, and thus leads to reduce the NOX 0.00 0.0
70 85 100 115 130 140
emissions [14]. Secondly, methanol increases the oxygen content
that may promote the formation of NOX. Thirdly, the DMDF mode Diesel injection pressure /MPa
can expedite combustion rate and reduce the duration of high tem- (a) Engine load 30%
perature. The average reduction of NOX emission is about 42.3% at
30% engine load, however, the average reduction is about 23.14% at 0.25 1.0
80% load with DMDF mode. It is considered that the increase of
engine load leads to a higher in-cylinder gas temperature, which 0.20 0.8
will weaken the cooling effect of methanol.

Smoke/Smoke*
Engine speed:1400r/min
Fig. 7(c) shows the NO emission, NO2 emission and NO/NOX of

Smoke / FSN
Engine load 80%
DMDF mode and D mode for different injection pressures at 30% 0.15 0.6
engine load. Here, NO/NOX represents the ratio of NO and NOX. It
is found that NO increases as injection pressure increases, and 0.10 0.4
the NO of DMDF mode is lower than that of D mode. The average
value of NO/NOX is about 0.912 at D mode, and is around 0.246
0.05 0.2
at DMDF mode. NO2 of DMDF mode increases about 4 times of that
from D mode, and more NO is converted to NO2 and the NO2 is pre-
served as the injection pressure increases. Hori et al. [25] suggest 0.00 0.0
70 85 100 115 130
that NO is converted to NO2 mainly through the following reaction:
NO + HO2 ? NO2 + OH, and NO2 is converted back to NO with the Diesel injection pressure /MPa
following route: NO2 + O ? NO + O2. The injected methanol leads (b) Engine load 80%
to more low-temperature regions in cylinder, which will restrain
Fig. 8. Smoke emissions and relative ratio of D to DMDF smoke emissions at
the conversion of NO2 back to NO. Furthermore, in DMDF mode, different injection pressures.
the unburned methanol increases in the exhaust gas, which is con-
ducive to the production of NO2 with methanol being the source of
HO2 radical [26]. Previous researches [5,15] showed that DOC can of soot precursor [29], and the alcohol fuel has obvious inhibitory
greatly reduce NO2 emissions. effect on the formation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. Previ-
Fig. 8 illustrates a comparison of the smoke emissions between ous studies [30,31] show that the alcohol fuel in premixed ames
the DMDF mode and the D mode at different fuel injection pres- can signicantly decrease the benzene concentration.
sures at 30% and 80% engine loads. The relative ratio of smoke, Fig. 9 shows the relationship between NOX and smoke emis-
smoke/smoke, which indicates the ratio of smoke emission of sions for the two modes according to the increase of injection pres-
DMDF mode to that of D mode. Smoke emission of DMDF mode sure. It is observed that DMDF combustion mode has the potential
decreases with the increase of injection pressure, and the decrease for reducing NOX and smoke emissions, simultaneously. As the tra-
trend of smoke emission is more obvious at high load. At 80% ditional diesel engine, there also exists the trade-off relationship of
engine load, as the injection pressure increases from 70 MPa to NOX and smoke emission in the DMDF mode, with the increase of
130 MPa, smoke emission of DMDF mode reduces from 0.230FSN
to 0.039FSN. This is because the increase of fuel injection pressure
can improve the fuel spray atomization, increase the contact sur-
0.7
face area between diesel fuel and air, increase the speed of mixture Engine speed:1400r/min Engine load 30%,D
formation and evenness, and raise the combustion temperature to 0.6
Engine load 30%,DMDF
Engine load 80%,D
accelerate oxidation, resulting in the improvement of more com- Engine load 80%,DMDF
plete combustion. The value of smoke/smoke increases with the 0.5 70
Injction pressure
Smoke / FSN

increases
increase of diesel injection pressure but is lower than 1. There
are several reasons leading to the decrease of smoke emission with 0.4 70

DMDF mode. Firstly, the methanol with premixed form decreases

0.3
the proportion of diffusion combustion. Secondly, methanol con-
taining 50% oxygen, could effectively improve the oxygen ratio at 0.2 85 85
the center of the diesel spray where the air/fuel ratio is low [5]. 100
100
Thirdly, due to no CC bond in methanol molecule structure and 0.1 115 115
130
the smokeless of methanol ame, the replacement of diesel 140 130
0.0
reduces the source of soot emission. Fourthly, methanol produces 200 400 600 800 1000
OH radical at oxidation process [27], which will oxidize soot pre- NOX / ppm
cursor with a higher chance during diffusion combustion phase
[28]. In addition, the aromatic hydrocarbon is the main component Fig. 9. The trade-off relation of NOX and smoke at different injection pressures.
 J. Liu et al. / Fuel 140 (2015) 192200 199

injection pressure the smoke decreases but the NOX increases.
However, at 80% load, a at trade-off curve between NOX and
smoke is presented for the DMDF mode. This means that NOX
can be decreased by reducing the injection pressure without
increasing the smoke emission sharply.
Fig. 10 shows the effect of injection pressure on HC, CO and CO2
emissions of D mode and DMDF mode at 80% load. Compared with
the D mode, the HC in DMDF mode increases signicantly, but
decreases as the injection pressure increases. There are several rea-
sons that cause the average HC emission of DMDF mode reaches
23.2 times of that of D mode. Firstly, due to the scavenging process,
some of the methanol-air premixed mixture escapes from cylinder
2000
Engine speed:1400r/min
Engine load 80%
1500
D is found that the CO2 concentration in DMDF mode increases with
HC/ ppm
without burning during the valve overlap. Secondly, ame quench-
ing at the chamber wall and crevice effect lead to the increase of
HC emission. Thirdly, the cooling effect of methanol and the lean
mixture of methanol and air causes poor combustion quality.
When the injection pressure increases from 70 MPa to 130 MPa,
the HC emission of DMDF mode decreases by 49.11%.
Fig. 10(b) shows that CO emission of DMDF mode is higher com-
pared with that of D mode, and decreases with the increase of
injection pressure. This might be caused by the signicant CO oxi-
dation rate reduction due to the cooling effect of methanol evapo-
ration. However, some studies [5,14] have shown that after DOC
fumigation methanol would not cause too much CO and HC
emissions.
Fig. 10(c) shows the CO2 concentration of the two modes accord-
ing to the increase of fuel injection pressure at 80% engine load. As
Fig. 10(c) shows the relative ratio of CO2, CO2/CO2, which represents
the ratio of CO2 concentration of DMDF mode to that of D mode,
increases with injection pressure increasing but is lower than 1. It

DMDF
the increase of injection pressure, but is lower than that of D mode.
1000
This is because when the same caloric value of fuels are consumed
completely during the combustion, methanol generates less CO2
compared to diesel fuel. Meantime the HC and CO are higher in
500
DMDF mode, which reduces the degree of the fuel oxidation to gen-
erate CO2. With the increase of injection pressure, the in-cylinder
combustion becomes better and the CO and HC emissions decrease,
0
70 85 100 115 130 70 85 100 115 130 lead to a slight increase of the CO2 concentration.
Diesel injection pressure /MPa
(a) HC
4. Conclusions

D The engine performance and emissions characteristics of a 6-

2000 DMDF
Engine speed:1400r/min
Engine load 80% cylinder common-rail diesel engine fueled with DMDF mode for
different diesel injection pressures were investigated, and the main
1500 results are drawn as follows:
CO/ ppm

The IMEP of DMDF mode is higher than that of D mode at high

injection pressure, and increases with increases of injection pres-
1000
sure. COVIMEP of DMDF mode rst decreases and then increases
with increase in diesel injection pressure, and it remains under
500 2.1% among all the test injection pressures.
Compared with D mode, the combustion of DMDF mode starts a
little later due to the ignition delay of methanol. The maximum
0 cylinder pressure and the peak heat release rate in the DMDF mode
70 85 100 115 130 70 85 100 115 130 increase as the fuel injection pressure increases. At the DMDF
Diesel injection pressure /MPa mode, the combustion duration decreases and CA50 of heat release
(b) CO moves close to the top dead center with the increase of fuel injec-
tion pressure.
1.00 BSFC of DMDF mode decreases with the increasing fuel injec-
14 Engine speed:1400r/min tion pressure. The BSFC for DMDF mode is higher than that of D
Engine load 80% mode at most cases, but lower at the injection pressure over
0.95
12 115 MPa.
10 0.90 NOX increases and smoke decreases as the injection pressure
increases in DMDF mode. However, compared to D mode, both of
CO 2 / %

CO2/CO2*

8
7.03 7.40 0.85 NOX and smoke emissions from DMDF mode are reduced over all
test conditions, especially at low injection pressure. There is also
6
0.80 a signicant increase in NO2 emission at DMDF mode.
4 Compared to D mode, there is an obvious increase in CO and HC
0.75 emissions but a reduction in CO2 from DMDF mode. With increas-
2 ing the injection pressure, there is a reduction in CO and HC, and a
0 0.70 slight increase in CO2 emission.
70 85 100 115 130
Diesel injection pressure /MPa
Acknowledgements
(c) CO 2
Fig. 10. Effects of diesel injection pressure on HC, CO and CO2 emissions of the two The authors acknowledge the nancial support from the
modes. National Natural Science Foundation of China (Contract No.
200 J. Liu et al. / Fuel 140 (2015) 192200
51336005) and the project of Doctorate Funding from the Ministry
of Education of China (No. 20120032130009).
References
[1] Ratcliff MA, Dane AJ, Williams A, Ireland J, Luecke J, McCormick RL, et al. Diesel
particle lter and fuel effects on heavy-duty diesel engine emissions. Environ
Sci Technol 2010;44:83439.
[2] Koebel M, Elsener M, Kleemann M. Urea-SCR: a promising technique to reduce
NOX emissions from automotive diesel engines. Catal Today 2000;59:33545.
[3] Bayraktar H. An experimental study on the performance parameters of an
experimental CI engine fueled with dieselmethanoldodecanol blends. Fuel
2008;87:15864.
[4] Sayin C. Engine performance and exhaust gas emissions of methanol and
ethanoldiesel blends. Fuel 2010;89:34105.
[5] Zhang ZH, Cheung CS, Chan TL, Yao CD. Emission reduction from diesel engine
using fumigation methanol and diesel oxidation catalyst. Sci Total Environ
2009;407:4497505.
[6] Cheung CS, Zhu L, Huang Z. Regulated and unregulated emissions from a diesel
engine fueled with biodiesel and biodiesel blended with methanol. Atmos
Environ 2009;43:486572.
[7] Liu Y, Jiao W, Qi G. Preparation and properties of methanoldiesel oil
emulsied fuel under high-gravity environment. Renew Energy
2011;36:14638.
[8] Zhu L, Cheung CS, Zhang W, Huang Z. Emissions characteristics of a diesel
engine operating on biodiesel and biodiesel blended with ethanol and
methanol. Sci Total Environ 2010;408:91421.
[9] Cheng CH, Cheung CS, Chan TL, Lee SC, Yao CD, Tsang KS. Comparison of
emissions of a direct injection diesel engine operating on biodiesel with
emulsied and fumigated methanol. Fuel 2008;87:18709.
[10] Olah GA, Goeppert A, Prakash GS. Beyond oil and gas: the methanol economy.
2nd ed. Weinheim: Wiley-VCH; 2009.
[11] Sayin C, Ozsezen AN, Canakci M. The inuence of operating parameters on the
performance and emissions of a DI diesel engine using methanol-blended-
diesel fuel. Fuel 2010;89:140714.
[12] Huang Z, Lu H, Jiang D, Zeng K, Liu B, Zhang J, et al. Combustion behaviors of a
compression-ignition engine fuelled with diesel/methanol blends under
various fuel delivery advance angles. Bioresour Technol 2004;95:33141.
[13] Huang Z, Lu H, Jiang D, Zeng K, Liu B, Zhang J, et al. Performance and emissions
of a compression ignition engine fueled with diesel/oxygenate blends for
various fuel delivery advance angles. Energy Fuels 2005;19:40310.
[14] Yao CD, Cheung CS, Cheng CH, Wang Y, Chan TL, Lee SC. Effect of diesel/
methanol compound combustion on diesel engine combustion and emissions.
Energy Convers Manage 2008;49:1696704.
[15] Zhang ZH, Cheung CS, Chan TL, Yao CD. Experimental investigation on
regulated and unregulated emissions of a diesel/methanol compound
combustion engine with and without diesel oxidation catalyst. Sci Total
Environ 2010;408:86572.
[16] Zhang ZH, Cheung CS, Yao CD. Inuence of fumigation methanol on the
combustion and particulate emissions of a diesel engine. Fuel 2013;111:4428.
[17] Haribabu N, Apparao BV, Adinarayana S, Sekhar Y, Rambabu K. Performance
and emission studies on di-diesel engine fueled with pongamia methyl ester
injection and methanol carburetion. J Eng Sci Technol 2010;5:3040.
[18] Li Y, Jia M, Liu Y, Xie M. Numerical study on the combustion and emission
characteristics of a methanol/diesel reactivity controlled compression ignition
(RCCI) engine. Appl Energy 2013;106:18497.
[19] Ra Y, Reitz RD. A combustion model for IC engine combustion simulations with
multi-component fuels. Combust Flame 2011;158(1):6990.
[20] Geng P, Yao CD, Wei LJ, Liu JH, Wang QG, Pan W, et al. Reduction of PM
emissions from a heavy-duty diesel engine with diesel/methanol dual fuel.
Fuel 2014;123:111.
[21] Sayin C, Gumus M, Canakci M. Effect of fuel injection pressure on the injection,
combustion and performance characteristics of a DI diesel engine fueled with
canola oil methyl esters-diesel fuel blends. Biomass Bioenergy
2012;46:43546.
[22] Swor TA, Kokjohn S, Andrie M, Reitz R. Improving diesel engine performance
using low and high pressure split injections for single heat release and two-
stage combustion. SAE Technical Paper 2010-01-0340; 2010.
[23] Ryu K. Effects of pilot injection pressure on the combustion and emissions
characteristics in a diesel engine using biodieselCNG dual fuel. Energy
Convers Manage 2013;76:50616.
[24] Heywood JB. Internal combustion engine fundamentals. New York: McGraw-
Hill; 1988.
[25] Hori M, Matsunaga N, Marinov N, William P, Charles W. An experimental and
kinetic calculation of the promotion effect of hydrocarbons on the NONO2
conversion in a ow reactor. Symp (Int) Combust 1998;27(1):38996.
[26] Lyon RK, Cole JA, Kramlich JC, Chen SL. The selective reduction of SO3 to SO2
and the oxidation of NO to NO2 by methanol. Combust Flame
1990;81(1):309.
[27] Li J, Zhao Z, Kazakov A, Chaos M, Dryer FL, Scire JJ. A comprehensive kinetic
mechanism for CO, CH2O, and CH3OH combustion. Int J Chem Kinetics
2007;39(3):10936.
[28] Xu H, Yao C, Xu G, Wang Z, Jin H. Experimental and modelling studies of the
effects of methanol and ethanol addition on the laminar premixed low-
pressure n-heptane/toluene ames. Combust Flame 2013;160(8):133344.
[29] Martinot S, Beard P, Roesler J, Garo A. Comparison and coupling of
homogeneous reactor and amelet library soot modeling approaches for
diesel combustion. SAE Technical Paper 2001-01-3684; 2001.
[30] Gerasimov IE, Knyazkov DA, Yakimov SA, Bolshova TA, Shmakov AG,
Korobeinichev OP. Structure of atmospheric-pressure fuel-rich premixed
ethylene ame with and without ethanol. Combust Flame
2012;159(5):184050.
[31] Korobeinichev OP, Yakimov SA, Knyazkov DA, Bolshova TA, Shmakov AG, Yang
JZ, et al. A study of low-pressure premixed ethylene ame with and without
ethanol using photoionization mass spectrometry and modeling. Proc
Combust Inst 2011;33(1):56976.