Heat release determination in a constant volume combustion chamber from the instantaneous cylinder pressure

A diagnostic method has been developed to interpret the results of basic combustion studies with diesel-like fuels performed in a constant volume reactor originally conceived for cetane number measurements. The main target of the method is to calculate the instantaneous heat release over time from the chamber pressure experimental signal. The method incorporates filtering of the raw data to eliminate the oscillations recorded as a consequence of the location of the pressure sensor. It considers homogeneity of the gaseous mixture (single zone model) and change in its composition due to the combustion process. A semi-empirical heat transfer model was also proposed and its coefficients were fitted from experimental results obtained in the constant volume chamber using diesel fuel.