Measuring pressures in a pre- and a main chamber gives great insight on energy flows

What is it about?

How to understand the energy flow between a prechamber and a main chamber in an engine? Usually, the only experimentally accessible quantities are the pressures in both chambers. This paper describes how to derive pressure trace based heat release rates and enthalpy flows as well as how to estimate mass and temperature in a prechamber.

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Photo by Garett Mizunaka on Unsplash

Photo by Garett Mizunaka on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Future renewable fuels for the heavy-duty and maritime segments differ considerably from classical fuels in many ways. Often, they are hard to ignite (as for example methane, ammonia) or need a lot of air excess or exhaust gas recirculations for several reasons (as for example hydrogen). One way of robust ignition is to use a non-fueled (passive) or a fueled (active) prechamber, which creates intense, turbulent jets to robustly ignite the charge in the main chamber. Understanding the thermodynamic processes for such prechamber systems is key for finding the right parameters (e.g. geometrical details of the prechamber, injection and ignition phasing). This paper describes a method which gives the researcher looking at recorded data, or the engineer calbrating engine settings on a test bench a tool to interpret the processes in a comparably simple and quick way.

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