Analysis the effect of advanced injection strategies on engine performance and pollutant emissions in a heavy duty DI-diesel engine by CFD modeling

An Advanced CFD simulation has been carried out in order to explore the combined effects of pilot-, post- and multiple-fuel injection strategies and EGR on engine performance and emission formation in a heavy duty DI-diesel engine. An improved version of the ECFM-3Z combustion model has been applied coupled with advanced models for NOx and soot formation. The model was validated with experimental data achieved from a Caterpillar 3401 DI diesel engine and good agreement between predicted and measured in-cylinder pressure, heat release rate, NOx and soot emissions was obtained. The optimizations were conducted separately for different split injection cases without pilot injection and then, for various multiple injection cases. Totally, three factors were considered for the injection optimization, which included EGR rate, the separation between main injection and post-injection and the amount of injected fuel in each pulse. For the multiple injection cases, two more factors (including double and triple injections during main injection) were also added. Results show that using pilot injection accompanied with an optimized main injection has a significant beneficial effect on combustion process so that it could form a separate 2nd stage of heat release which could reduce the maximum combustion temperature, which leads to the reduction of the NOx formation. In addition, it has found that injecting adequate fuel in post-injection at an appropriate EGR allows significant soot reduction without a NOx penalty rate.