Development of a multizone model for
direct injection diesel combustion
Y Liu and K C Midkiff
Department of Mechanical Engineering,
The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Alabama,
USA
S R Bell
School of Engineering, University of Kansas,
Lawrence, Kansas, USA
Accepted 26 August 2003
Abstract: Diesel engines have attracted considerable
attention in recent years because of the increasingly
restrictive `engine-out’ emission standards being adopted
by regulatory agencies. The cutting-edge technologies of
emissions reduction in engines fall into three categories:
preprocessing, improved combustion processing and post-
processing. An engine cycle simulation was developed to
investigate and, thus, find possible avenues of reducing
emissions through modifying the combustion process. This
simulation includes models for fresh air charging, fuel and
air mixing, wall heat transfer, diesel droplet evaporation,
ignition delay and mixture combustion with species equi-
librium reactions. These models, together with a thermo-
dynamic analysis of the cylinder gas, yield instantaneous
cylinder conditions, overall indicated engine performance
and a prediction of the engine-out NOx and soot emissions.
The engine parameters and operating conditions used
in the work presented here were chosen to be representative
of a Caterpillar 3401 single-cylinder diesel engine. Experi-
mental investigations were also conducted with the engine,
and the combustion model has been verified by comparing
the experiment results to the simulation results.
Key words: multizone model, engine cycle simulation,
emission modelling
1. Introduction
Diesel fuel is an attractive fuel for reciprocating
internal combustion engines due to its relatively low
price and its availability. Compared to spark-ignited
gasoline engines, advantages inherent in diesel
Int. J. Engine Res. ä Vol. 5 ä No. 1
JER 02601 ä © 2004 ä IMechE
engines are high thermal efficiencies and reduced
emissions of hydrocarbons and oxides of nitrogen
(NOx ). However, diesel engines still emit high levels
of particulates and achieving acceptable NOx levels
is becoming a challenge as more restrictive emissions
restrictions are implemented. Consequently, motiv-
ation for developing cleaner-burning diesel engines
has escalated.
Three categories of emission reduction strategies
are commonly applied to engines: preprocessing,
combustion processing and postprocessing. Here,
`preprocessing’ refers to all technologies used to treat
the fresh air and/or fuel before its admission into
the cylinder and `postprocessing’ refers to the tech-
nologies applied to the exhaust gas after it leaves the
engine cylinder. The application of preprocessing
technologies generally increases the production cost
of the fuel and reduces emissions by influencing the
combustion process. The obvious shortcomings of
postprocessing methods are the extra cost in main-
tenance and replacement of these devices. Because
numerical and experimental studies play a unique
role in combustion improvement for engines, further
numerical and experimental studies are needed.
Engine models of varying complexity are com-
monly employed, including relatively simple zero-
dimensional thermodynamic combustion models as
well as complex three-dimensional models. Zero-
dimensional models of diesel engines are typically
used to analyse the heat release and fuel-mass burn-
ing rates based on the solution of a system of ordi-
nary differential equations for pressure, temperature
and mass. However, they do not explicitly model the
71
Y Liu, K C Midkiff and S R Bell

detailed phenomena, such as diesel fuel droplet

vaporization, air entrainment, local temperatures
and local equivalence ratio, that vary temporally and
spatially. Three-dimensional models use time-
averaged and turbulence-correlated conservation
equations of mass, momentum, energy and atomic
species. In addition to the possible drawbacks of
mesh-dependence and mathematically inaccurate
approaches to modelling viscous flow and boundary
conditions, the time cost to obtain solutions for the Fig. 2 Schematic of packet development and air entrainment
governing equations is often burdensome. Quasi- during fuel injection.
dimensional models can be used to provide some
details of the temporal and spatial phenomena of include mass conservation, energy conservation, the
combustion with the potential to reduce the compu- ideal gas equation of state and the cylinder gas
tational time significantly. volume constraint. The thermodynamic state of the
The engine cycle simulation developed in this gas in each packet is determined from a differential
work was used to model a Caterpillar 3401 engine, equation for the packet gas energy as shown in Fig. 3:
which is a single-cylinder, four-stroke, water-cooled,
turbocharged direct injection diesel engine. dEg
Ç
=Q Ç +Q
Ç
combustion ­ W heat transfer ­ Ç l hl +m
m Ç ea hea
dt
(1)
2. Cycle Simulation Description Ç
where Q combustion is the chemical energy released due
to diesel combustion, W Ç is the boundary work occur-
A schematic describing the major processes in a typi-
ring on the packet, Q Ç
cal engine cylinder, which include combustion, heat heat transfer represents the radiative

transfer and piston work, is shown in Fig. 1. As fuel and convective heat losses from the packets and the
is injected into the cylinder, several fuel packets of last two terms represent enthalpies of the vaporized
equal mass are assumed to be formed for each crank diesel fuel and entrained air respectively. The
angle. Packets formed at different crank angle times internal energy of each packet may be written as
are subject to varying evaporation rates and air dEg
entrainment rates. The packet development is sche- =mg Cv TÇg +Cv Tg m
Ç g (2)
dt
matically described in Fig. 2. The thermodynamic
state of the cylinder gas in each of the packets is Combining equations (1) and (2), an expression for
evaluated continuously throughout the engine simu- the packet temperature can be obtained as
lation, and the combustion process details within the 1
TÇg = (QÇ ­ W Ç +Q Ç
packet are provided at each time step. mg Cv combustion heat transfer

The governing equations used in the simulation ­ mÇ l hl +m

Ç ea hea ­ m Ç g Cv Tg ) (3)

Runge± Kutta integration of equation (3) is performed

on each packet, yielding instantaneous local tem-
perature across the cylinder. An average cylinder

Fig. 1 Schematic of a direct injection (DI) engine with thermo-

dynamic processes identified. Fig. 3 Schematic of the thermodynamic state in local packets.

72 Int. J. Engine Res. ä Vol. 5 ä No. 1

JER 02601 ä © 2004 ä IMechE

temperature is then calculated at each instant and,
using the ideal gas equation, the cylinder gas press-
ure is determined. From the close of the intake valve
to the start of fuel injection (FIS), a single zone is
used to simulate the compression process, with
property values updated each time step.
To calculate QÇ
combustion in equation (3), several sub-
routines are used for modelling the processes of fuel
evaporation, air entrainment, ignition delay, diesel
chemical energy release and combustion product for-
mation. The boundary work rate (W Ç ) is obtained by
the simple calculation of the product of pressure, P,
and volume change, D V, across each calculation time
step. The heat loss rate (Q Ç
heat transfer ) includes the heat
exchange processes with the surroundings. The last
three terms on the right-hand side of equation (3)
describe diesel droplet enthalpy, entrained air
enthalpy and the internal energy change of a packet.
3. Subroutine development
During the diesel injection process, fuel is sprayed
into a relatively high-temperature, high-pressure cyl-
inder charge where the liquid begins vaporizing. As
described earlier, the non-uniform mixture in the cyl-
inder is modelled using multiple zones and the
injected fuel is divided evenly into the packets. In
developing the simulation for non-uniform mixtures,
the desire was to introduce air/fuel stratification in
a realistic yet simple manner. As fuel is injected, air
from the surrounding unburned zone is entrained
into the various burning packets. Each packet is
identified by the time of entry into the cylinder and
classified by a simple numbering method to permit
easy identification (the packet numbering method is
shown in Fig. 2). No geometrical characteristics are
assigned to the spray jet and local packets. The
entrained air mass is determined by a simple
entrainment function. As the spray jet develops, the
entrained air mass increases. As the end of injection
approaches, the spray jet dissipates and the air
entrainment decays. A simple mathematical equation
[1, 2] for the air mass entrained, mea , was used:
A B A
mub Dh calc I J
mea (I, J) =K exp ­
It Jt (Y+1) hs It Jt
In equation (4), the value of injected fraction, Y, is
determined as a function of crank angle:
G
h end ­ h
when h <h end
Y= D h inj
0 when h >h end
Int. J. Engine Res. ä Vol. 5 ä No. 1
JER 02601 ä © 2004 ä IMechE
Development of a multizone model for DI diesel combustion
Equation (4) suggests three critical features. Firstly,
the entrained air mass should be related to the mass
of the surrounding fluid. Secondly, the overall
entrained air mass should increase as the fuel injec-
tion continues. Finally, at each time step there should
be stratification of entrainment into different packets.
Each packet is described by an entry index, I, and a
packet classification index, J. It is the total number of
entry indices and Jt is the total number of packet
classification indices. K is an arbitrary air entrain-
ment constant. The parameter mea refers to the
entrained mass of the local packet with entry index
and classification index J and I respectively. The par-
ameter mub is the total mass of the unburned zone.
The parameters h and h end are the instantaneous cal-
culation crank angle and the fuel-injection-end crank
angle respectively. The parameters D h calc and D h inj
are the calculation time step and overall fuel injection
duration respectively used in the calculation. The
parameter h s is the time required to completely
entrain the surrounding fluid into the spray jet or
the time required for the spray jet to engulf the
combustion chamber volume.
For simplicity, diesel droplet evaporation was
modelled by the isolated, steady state, single-droplet
approach of Spalding [3, 4]. To summarize, the solu-
tion of mass flux out of the diesel droplet surface is
obtained after solving the energy and species equa-
tions for the droplet through application of suitable
boundary conditions. The mass flux can be written
as
Ç =g* ln(B+1)
m (6)
where g*=rg /RÄ and B is the mass transfer number.
During evaporation prior to combustion, the mass
transfer number is evaluated by assuming the Lewis
number equal to one (the thermal transfer equivalent
to diffusion transfer). The thermal and diffusion
transfer numbers prior to combustion may be
expressed respectively as
Cg (T2 ­ Tw )
BT = (7)
L +Cl (Tw ­ TR )
B
and
(4)
YF2 ­ YFW
BD = (8)
YFW ­ YFR
where the subscripts 2 , w, F and R refer to the sur-
rounding ambient, the surface wall of the diesel
droplet, the fuel side and the droplet inner side
(5) respectively. After ignition and in the presence of
combustion, modification must be made on the mass
73
Y Liu, K C Midkiff and S R Bell

transfer numbers, i.e. equations (7) and (8). The yields the cylinder gas temperature, expressed as
updated equations are written as
1
TÇg = Ç +Q
Ç
D H f Y02 +Cg (T2 ­ Tw ) (­ W heat transfer ­ m
Ç ex hex
BT = (9) mg Cv
L +Cl (Tw ­ TR ) +m
Ç in hin ­ m
Ç g Cv Tg ) (16)
and
The mass flowrates of exhaust and intake gas can
f Y02 +YFW be calculated using a simple, one-dimensional, adia-
BD = (10)
YFR ­ YFW batic, quasi-steady, incompressible flow equation for
an ideal gas:
where f refers to the stoichiometric fuel± oxygen ratio

S CA B A B D
and D H is the enthalpy of combustion for diesel fuel.
2 c P2 2/ c P2 (c+1)/c 0.5
An ignition delay model was used to account for Ç in,ex =AVP Cf
m ­
RT c ­ 1 P1 P1
the physical and chemical preparation of the first
(17)
group of flamelets in the cylinder after fuel injection.
After evaluating several models with the operating where P1 is the upstream pressure, P2 is the down-
conditions of the test engine, the Hardenberg and stream pressure, AVP is the open valve port area
Hase equation [5] was selected for ignition delay: depending on the valve lift, valve diameter and

C A B A B D
1 1 21.2 0.63 design of the intake system or exhaust system, Cf is
tid =Kconst exp EA ÄRT ­ + the discharge coefficient for the valve port, c is the
17 190 P­ 12.4
(11) ratio of specific heats and P2 /P1 is the downstream±
upstream pressure ratio. For choked flow, the press-
where ure ratio, P2 /P1 , in equation (17) can be replaced by
Kconst =(0.36+0.22SÂ p )

A B
(12)
P2 2 c/(c­ 1)
= (18)
618 840 P1 c +1
EA = (13)
CN+25
Combining equations (16), (17) and (18) and the
The variables appearing in equations (11) to (13) are
necessary geometric parameters, solutions describ-
temperature T in Kelvin, mean piston speed SÂ p
ing the gas exchange processes can be obtained with
in m/s, pressure P in bars absolute, activation energy
acceptable accuracy.
EA in units of kJ/kmol, cetane number CN and
The oxides of nitrogen, NOx , are formed mainly at
ignition delay tid in crank angle (CA) degrees.
high temperature [7] in the presence of nitrogen and
A simple model was used [1, 2] for the heat
oxygen. Nitrogen oxide emissions in combustion
exchange between the cylinder wall and the local
result from (a) thermal NO, oxidation of molecular
combusting packets. The heat transfer rates from the
nitrogen in the post-flame zone; (b) prompt NO, for-
burning packets and the unburned zone can be
mation of NO in the flame zone, and (3) fuel-bound
expressed respectively as
NO, oxidation of nitrogen containing compounds in
Vi2/3 (Ti ­ Tm ) the fuel [8]. Thermal NO is the dominant mechanism
Ç =Q
Q Ç (14)
i tot
S Vi2/3 (Ti ­ Tm )+Vm2/3 (Tm ­ Tw ) in internal combustion engine combustion [7].
Combustion products of eleven species [9] were con-
and
sidered in the NOx model: H, O, N, H2 , OH, CO, NO,
2/3 (T ­
Vm Tw ) O2 , H2O, CO2 and N2 . The extended Zeldovich mech-
Ç =Q
Q Ç m
(15)
m tot
S Vi2/3 (Ti ­ Tm ) +Vm2/3 (T ­
m Tw ) anism [8, 10], assuming that N remains in the steady
state concentration [11] and all other species concen-
In equations (14) and (15), QÇ
tot is the overall cylinder trations achieve chemical equilibrium, is used to
heat transfer calculated from Woschni’s correlation
determined NO kinetics. The extended Zeldovich
[6] and the subscript i refers to the burning packets,
mechanism consists of the following three reactions:
m to the unburning zone and w to the cylinder wall.
The summation of Q Ç and all Q Ç yields QÇ . K
m i tot
A thermodynamic model of the cylinder gas is N2 +O uA NO+N (19)
K
B
employed to simulate the exhaust and intake pro-
K
cesses under a transient system analysis of the N+O2 uC NO+O (20)
K
boundary work and heat loss. Energy conservation D

74 Int. J. Engine Res. ä Vol. 5 ä No. 1

JER 02601 ä © 2004 ä IMechE
 Development of a multizone model for DI diesel combustion

K formation process usually considers the simple

N+OH uE NO+H (21) stages of particle generation and particle growth. The
K
F
soot formed during the combustion process also sim-
Once the concentrations of O2 , N2 , H, O, and OH in ultaneously undergoes oxidation, which can occur at
equations (19), (20) and (21) are known from equilib- precursor, nuclei and particle growth stages. Soot
rium analysis, the formation rate of N (in terms of oxidation, which is a heterogeneous reaction,
concentration) can be obtained as depends on the diffusion of reactants to and products
from the soot surface as well as the kinetics of the
dCN
=KA CN CO ­ KB CNO CN reaction.
dt 2
Soot formation is primarily controlled by the tem-
­ KC CN CO +KD CNO CO
2 perature, pressure and equivalence ratio of the local
­ KE CN COH +KF CNO CH (22) packets. Based on the work of Hiroyasu and Kadota
[14], the following model for soot formation was
The forward and reverse reaction rate constants KA ,
adopted:
KB , KC , KD , KE and KF , which are functions of tem-

A B
perature, are shown in Table 1 [12]. After substituting dmsoot,form 1.25×104
=Aform mdiesel,gas w B1 P 0.5 exp
the steady state N concentration obtained above, the dh RÄT
non-linear equation for the rate of change of CNO (24)
concentration (dCNO /dt) can be expressed as
where mdiesel,gas is the mass of the diesel vapour in
dCNO the local combustion packet, w is the equivalence
=KA CN CO ­ KB CNO CN
dt 2 ratio of local packet, the cylinder pressure P is in
+KC CN CO ­ KD CNO CO units of MPa, RÄ is the universal gas constant
2
(kJ/kmol K), T is the temperature in local packet (K)
+KE CN COH ­ KF CNO CH (23)
and Aform and B1 are constants.
The NO concentration is obtained by solving equa- Soot oxidation is also governed by the tempera-
tion (23). ture, pressure and equivalence ratio, and the follow-
For diesel combustion, particulate emissions stem ing equation was used to model the process of soot
primarily from the combustion of locally rich mix- oxidation [14]:

A B
tures. Carbonaceous particulates formed from gas-
dmsoot,oxidation P 1.4×104
phase processes are generally referred to as soot. The =Aoxidation msoot O2 P 1.8 exp
dh P RÄT
balance between the formation and subsequent
destruction by combustion governs the soot concen- (25)
tration in the exhaust during engine combustion. where msoot is the mass of the soot particulate in the
Despite much recent progress towards the under- local packet, PO is the oxygen partial pressure in the
2
standing of soot formation mechanisms [13], the local packet (MPa), P is the cylinder pressure (MPa),
exact processes are still unclear. A study of the soot T is the temperature in the local packet (K) and
Aoxidation is a constant.
The net soot formation rate is the summation of
Rate constants (cm3/mol s) and temperature (K)
the soot formation and oxidation rates. Once the local

A B
­ 38370
KA =1.8× 1014 ×exp diesel vapour mass, soot mass, equivalence ratio,
T

A B
oxygen mass fraction, cylinder pressure and tem-
­ 425
KB =3.8×1013 ×exp perature are known, the net soot formation in local
T

A B
packets can be achieved by integrating over time the
­ 4680
KC =1.8× 1010 ×T ×exp summation of soot formation and oxidation rates.
T

A B
­ 20820 Summation of the net soot formation for all packets
KD =3.8×109 ×T ×exp across the cylinder yields the overall instantaneous
T

A B
­ 450 soot mass in the chamber.
KE =7.1×1013 ×exp
T

A B
­ 24560
KF =1.7×1014 ×exp 4. Results and Discussion
T

Table 1 Rate constants for the NO formation As mentioned earlier, the cycle simulation has been
mechanism [11]. developed for modelling the Caterpillar 3401 engine,

Int. J. Engine Res. ä Vol. 5 ä No. 1 75

JER 02601 ä © 2004 ä IMechE
Y Liu, K C Midkiff and S R Bell

and the simulation results are compared with the

experimental results. The engine specifications and
baseline operating conditions for the modelling
study were selected to be representative of the test
diesel engine. The major engine specifications and
baseline operating conditions are summarized in
Table 2. Experimental measurements of cylinder
pressure, injection timing, NOx emissions and per-
formance parameters were conducted on the engine
at half-load and 1700 r/min. Cylinder pressure was
measured with a piezoelectric pressure sensor
coupled with an angular position encoder. A chemi-
luminescent analyser was used to measure exhaust
gas NOx concentration. Injection timing was meas-
ured using a needle lift indicator. The simulation
model was used to predict combustion phenomena Fig. 4 Instantaneous cylinder pressures and needle lift as a
at the same conditions for which measurements function of crank angle for baseline firing and motoring
were made. operations with conditions: 1700 r/min, half-load,
For the modelling cases investigated, it was CR = 15.1, DD= 40 mm, FIS=­ 19 CA.
assumed that no wall impingement of the fuel spray
occurred and the formation of combustion products Figure 5 shows the experimental and predicted
was calculated for each packet. Summation of these results for the heat release rate with the experimental
products across the cylinder yielded the concen- needle lift for the baseline firing operating condition.
tration of chemical species in the exhaust gas. The The ignition delay can be obtained from the rise of
predicted specific emissions were obtained through the needle to the start of the positive heat release rate
dividing the emission mass by the measured brake in the experimental results. During the ignition
power to compare with the experimental brake delay, the heat release rate is slightly negative. The
specific emissions. model prediction of the heat release rate of premixed
Figure 4 shows that there is good agreement combustion is slightly less than the experimental
between the experimental and predicted cylinder result. The peaks of the heat release rate curves in
pressures under motoring and baseline firing the premixed combustion period were pronounced
operating conditions. The baseline engine operating in both the experimental result and simulation
parameters include a speed of 1700 r/min, inlet air results. The predicted heat release rate also shows a
temperature of 348 K, inlet pressure of 1.82 bar, start
of fuel injection (FIS) at 19 CA BTDC and injection
duration of 20 CA. In the modelling work, an
assumed mean diameter of 40 mm for diesel droplets
(DD) was used.

Cylinders 1
Cycle 4
Bore (mm) 137
Stroke (mm) 165
Displacement volume (cm3 ) 2442
Compression ratio (CR) 15.1
Normal injection timing (BTDC) ­ 20± 0.5
Injection duration (CA) 20±0.5
Inlet air temperature (K) 349
Inlet air pressure (kPa) 182
Exhaust pressure (kPa) 131
Speed (r/min) 1700
Power (kW) 20.9 Fig. 5 Instantaneous heat release rates and needle lift as a
Torque (N m) 117
function of crank angle for the baseline firing operation
Table 2 Caterpillar 3401 engine specifications and with conditions: 1700 r/min, half-load, CR = 15.1,
baseline operating conditions. DD=40 mm, FIS= ­ 19 CA.

76 Int. J. Engine Res. ä Vol. 5 ä No. 1

JER 02601 ä © 2004 ä IMechE
 Development of a multizone model for DI diesel combustion

slightly longer period of late diffusion combustion

than the experimental results. Overall, good agree-
ment is seen between the experimental and predicted
heat release results.
Results of the predicted cylinder average tempera-
ture and specific NOx and soot emissions are shown
for the baseline conditions in Fig. 6. Experimental
soot measurements have not been made and, there-
fore, are not available for verification. In equations
(24) and (25), constants for soot formation, Aform , B1
and Aoxidation , were tentatively chosen as 2 ×104, 0.6
and 5×102 respectively, according to the experimen-
tal results by others [15] using the same engine.
Comparison between the simulation results and
experimental soot results from elsewhere [15] sug-
gests that the order of magnitude predicted appears
reasonable. As shown in Fig. 6, the specific NOx and
soot emissions peaked and levelled off late in the Fig. 7 Instantaneous cylinder pressures as a function of
combustion process as the gas temperatures dropped crank angle for varying engine loads with conditions:
to relatively cool levels. full-load: Pin = 202 kPa, Pex = 187 kPa, Tin =55 °C;
Figure 7 shows the influence of the engine running quarter- and half-loads: Pin =182 kPa, Pex =170 kPa,
load on the cylinder pressure. The best pressure Tin = 75 °C.
match between the simulation and experiment is
seen at the half-load condition. Table 3 presents the
engine emissions are given in Table 4. Reasonably
influence of the engine running load on the engine
good agreement of specific NOx emissions between
performance for both experiment and simulation.
the experimental and simulation results occurred for
The results show that increased loads yielded lower
all loads, but in all cases the model underpredicts
indicated specific fuel consumption (i.s.f.c.). The
NOx emissions. This underprediction of NOx is simi-
results also show good agreement between the
lar to many previous modelling efforts. This prob-
experimental and predicted values for power and
ably occurs because the small but very hot regions
fuel consumption.
in the flame sheets surrounding burning fuel pro-
The influence of the engine running load on the
duce high levels of NOx emissions but are not rep-
resented well by relatively coarse models. Predicted
soot emissions increased with load, as would be
expected. Figure 8 shows the soot formation in the
cylinder as a function of crank angle for quarter-,
half- and full-load conditions. Although the pre-
dicted rate of soot formation is lower for quarter-
load, the soot formation rate is nearly the same for
both half- and full-loads. Due to the increased equiv-
alence ratio for full-load, the lower soot oxidation
yields a higher specific engine-out soot for the
prediction.
Figure 9 presents the influence of varying engine
speeds (1300, 1500 and 1700 r/min) on the cylinder
pressures. With the same inlet air temperature, inlet
pressure, exhaust pressure and engine load, decreas-
Fig. 6 Instantaneous gas average temperature and in-cylinder ing the engine speed increases the cylinder pressure
specific NOx and soot emissions as a function of crank in both the experimental and simulation results.
angle for the baseline firing operation with conditions: Table 5 presents the influence of engine speed on the
1700 r/min, half-load, CR = 15.1, DD=40 mm, FIS= engine performance at half-load with increasing
­ 19 CA. engine speed, leading to increased engine indicated

Int. J. Engine Res. ä Vol. 5 ä No. 1 77

JER 02601 ä © 2004 ä IMechE
Y Liu, K C Midkiff and S R Bell

Indicated power (kW) I.s.f.c. (g/kW h)

Load Experiment Simulation Experiment Simulation

1/4 15.1 17.6 193 196

2/4 26.0 28.5 183 186
4/4 47.3 50.3 181 184

Table 3 Influence of the engine load on the engine performance.

Specific NOx (g/kW h) Specific soot (g/kW h)

Load Experiment Simulation Simulation

1/4 14.8 9.2 0.08

2/4 14.1 12.1 0.58
4/4 10.2 7.2 2.0

Table 4 Influence of the engine load on the engine emissions.

Fig. 9 Instantaneous cylinder pressures as a function of

Fig. 8 Instantaneous in-cylinder soot emissions as a function
crank angle for varying engine speeds with conditions:
of crank angle for varying engine loads with conditions:
Pin = 182 kPa, Pex = 170 kPa, Tin =75 °C, half-load.
full-load: Pin =202 kPa, Pex =187 kPa, Tin =55 °C;
quarter- and half-loads: Pin = 182 kPa, Pex =170 kPa,
cylinder pressure in both the experimental and simu-
Tin =75 °C.
lation results. Increasing the inlet air temperatures
slightly improves the fuel efficiency, as shown in
power and essentially constant fuel consumption.
Table 7, but leads to higher levels of specific NOx
Table 6 shows that increasing engine speed slightly
emissions, as shown in Table 8, and predicted soot
increases the specific NOx emissions for both experi-
emissions increase with temperature increase due to
ment and simulation but decreases specific soot
the higher equivalence ratio resulting from the
emissions in the simulation results. Again, the model
higher inlet air temperature.
slightly underpredicts NOx levels for all engine
speeds.
The cylinder pressures around top dead centre 5. Conclusions
(TDC) are presented in Fig. 10, showing the influence
of varying inlet air temperatures on the combustion A phenomenological engine cycle simulation has
process. Increasing inlet air temperatures lowers the been developed for evaluating the use of diesel fuel

78 Int. J. Engine Res. ä Vol. 5 ä No. 1

JER 02601 ä © 2004 ä IMechE
 Development of a multizone model for DI diesel combustion

Indicated power (kW) I.s.f.c. (g/kW h)

Speed (r/min) Experiment Simulation Experiment Simulation

1300 24.7 26.6 183 187

1500 25.2 27.1 183 187
1700 26.0 28.5 182 186

Table 5 Influence of the engine speed on the engine performance at half-load.

Specific NOx (g/kW h) Specific soot (g/kW h)

Speed (r/min) Experiment Simulation Simulation

1300 13.4 11.2 0.84

1500 13.4 11.8 0.86
1700 14.1 12.1 0.58

Table 6 Influence of the engine speed on the engine emissions at half-load.

combustion and emission formation processes were

investigated along with overall engine performance.
Reasonable agreements with experimental data for
cylinder pressure and NOx were obtained using the
model. The major conclusions of the study include:

1. The multizone model for direct injection (DI)

Fig. 10 Instantaneous cylinder pressures as a function of
crank angle for varying inlet air temperatures with
conditions: Pin = 182 kPa, Pex =170 kPa, half-load,
1700 r/min.
in a reciprocating, compression ignition engine. A
Caterpillar 3401 engine was modelled and tested
experimentally and results from the model and
experiments have been compared. The details of the
diesel combustion was developed and verified
with limited experimental data. Coupled with the
chemical equilibrium reactions, the extended
Zeldovich mechanism and soot formation oxi-
dation were successfully integrated in the engine
simulation for calculating NOx and soot emissions.
Predicted soot emissions are yet to be verified by
comparison to experiment, although literature
data [15] suggest that the order of magnitude
predicted is reasonable.
2. The difference between predicted and experimen-
tal peak cylinder pressures in the baseline and
parametric studies is less than 5 per cent for all
cases. The predicted indicated specific fuel con-
sumptions are very close to the experimental
results. The calculated specific NOx emissions for
varying loads, engine speeds and inlet air tem-
peratures showed reasonable agreements with the
experimental results, although model predictions

Indicated power (kW) I.s.f.c. (g/kW h)

T in (°C) Experiment Simulation Experiment Simulation

75 26.0 28.5 183 186

95 25.8 28.2 182 186
115 25.5 28.1 181 183

Table 7 Influence of the inlet air temperature on the engine performance at half-load.

Int. J. Engine Res. ä Vol. 5 ä No. 1 79

JER 02601 ä © 2004 ä IMechE
Y Liu, K C Midkiff and S R Bell

Specific NOx (g/kW h) Specific soot (g/kW h)

T in (°C) Experiment Simulation Simulation

75 14.1 12.1 0.58

95 15.4 14.1 0.77
115 16.6 16.2 0.92

Table 8 Influence of the inlet air temperature on the engine emissions at half-load.

were somewhat lower than the measured NOx Subscripts

emissions. ea entrained air
3. The influence of engine operating parameters ex exhaust
(such as engine load, engine speed and inlet air g gas in local packet
temperature) on the engine combustion process in intake
and emissions has been investigated. Models for l liquid phase
NOx and soot emissions provide the potential to
assist in the design and operating parameter
selection for optimized operation. Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial

support from Caterpillar, Inc. and The Center for
Advanced Vehicle Technologies at The University
Notation
of Alabama, which receives partial funding from
BTDC before top dead centre the Alabama Department of Transportation under
Ci concentration of species i (i=H, O, N, Project HPP-1602 (526).
H2 , OH, CO, NO, O2 , H2O, CO2 or N2 )
CA crank angle
References
CN cetane number
CR compression ratio
1 Bell, S. R. Development of a cycle simulation for a coal-
DD mean diameter for diesel droplets fueled, direct-injected, internal combustion engine. PhD
E internal energy Dissertation, Texas A&M University, College Station,
FIS start of fuel injection Texas, 1986.
h specific enthalpy 2 Bell, S. R. and Caton, J. A. Numerical simulation of a
coal-fueled compression-ignition engine. Fuel, April
L latent heat 1988, 67, 474± 481.
m mass 3 Kanury, M. A. Introduction to Combustion Phenomena,
m
Ç mass flux out of the diesel droplet 1984 (Gordon and Breach Science Publishers, New
York).
surface
4 Spalding, D. B. Some Fundamentals of Combustion, 1955
P pressure (Academic Press, London).
Ç
Q heat transfer rate from the `burning’ 5 Hardenberg, H. O. and Hase, F. W. An empirical for-
i
packets mula for computing the pressure rise delay of a fuel
Ç from its cetane number and from the relevant param-
Q m heat transfer rate from the `unburned’
eters of direct-injection diesel engines. SAE Paper
zone 79493, 1979.
Ä
R universal gas constant=8.314 6 Woshni, G. Universally applicable equation for the
(kJ/kmol K) instantaneous heat transfer coefficient in the internal
combustion engine. SAE Paper 670931, 1967.
T temperature 7 Newhall, H. K. and Shahed, S. M. Kinetics of nitric
V volume oxide formation in high pressure flames. In Thirteenth
Ç
W boundary work occurring on the packet Symposium (International) on Combustion, Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania, 1971, pp. 381± 389.
DH heat of combustion of the diesel fuel 8 Breen, B. P. Combustion control for elimination of NO
emissions from fossil-fuel power plants. In Thirteenth
DV volume change
Symposium (International) on Combustion, Pittsburgh,
h instantaneous crank angle position Pennsylvania, 1971, pp. 391± 401.
w equivalence ratio 9 Olikara, C. and Borman, G. L. A computer program

80 Int. J. Engine Res. ä Vol. 5 ä No. 1

JER 02601 ä © 2004 ä IMechE
 Development of a multizone model for DI diesel combustion
for calculating properties of equilibrium combustion
products with some applications to I.C. engines. SAE
Paper 750468, 1975.
10 Lavoie, G. A. and Heywood, J. B. Experimental and
theoretical investigation of NO formation in internal
combustion engines. Combust. Sci. Technol., 1970, 1,
313± 326.
11 Heywood, J. B. Internal Combustion Engine
Fundamentals, 1988 (McGraw-Hill, New York).
12 Flagan, R. C. and Seinfeld, J. H. Fundamentals of Air
Int. J. Engine Res. ä Vol. 5 ä No. 1
JER 02601 ä © 2004 ä IMechE
Pollution Engineering, 1990 (Prentice-Hall PTR,
Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey).
13 Lindstedt, P. Soot Formation in CombustionÐ Mechanisms
and Models, 1994 (Springer, Berlin, Germany).
14 Hiroyasu, H. and Kadota, T. Model for combustion and
formation of nitric oxide and soot in direct injection in
a direct injection diesel engine. SAE Paper 760129, 1976.
15 Curtis, E. W., Uludogan, A. and Reitz, R. D. A new
high pressure droplet vaporization model for diesel
engine modeling. SAE Paper 952431, 1995.
81