Modelling of Dual-fuel combustion by Large Eddy Simulation

Economical, geopolitical and social trends, apart from the well-posed environmental concerns, are possible to precipitate legislative actions for the partial substitution of Diesel by cleaner fuels in the imminent future. Besides, the already stringiest emission legislation referring to Diesel engines, e.g. EURO VI or Tier IV standards, in Europe and in the US, have boosted industrial interest on the development of IC engines capable of handling both liquid/gaseous fuel mixtures. The combustion process in these, so-called, dual-fuel engines comprises the compression ignition of Diesel fuel injected in a homogenized gaseous (or liquid) fuel-air mixture. The underlying cause is that at dual-fuel combustion, most Diesel fuel is burned in premixed combustion and, thus, soot formation is less. Furthermore, depending on the carbon content of the primary gaseous (or liquid) fuel, dual fuel operation mode can lead to significant decrease in CO2 emission. Hence, natural gas or bioresourced oxygenated fuels constitute ideal candidates among hydrocarbons. This PhD position takes place within the EDEM (Experimentally validated DNS and LES approaches for fuel injection, mixing and combustion of dual-fuel engines) EC project, which started in September 2019, in line with European and international policies in this area. Its aim is to develop and validate LES methodologies for combustion processes relevant to dual-fuel engines. For this purpose it relies on the research work previous performed at IFPEN on combustion modelling of dual-fuel and on the dual-fuel experiments acquired by the partners of EDEM (Purdue, Perkins, L’ORANGE). The first two years of the PhD will take place at IFPEN, Rueil-Malmaison, France, for model development and validation while in the last year a 9 month period will be spent at L’ORANGE, Stuttgart, Germany, to apply the newly derived models to the design of more efficient fuel injectors and engines and to estimate the environmental impact of the proposed concepts. In connection with the MSCA agenda of the European Union, the project will create a unique opportunity for joint industry-academia PhD training to the fellows in world leading multinational industries. This will equip them with skills, knowledge and knowhow that will not only enhance their future careers but propose solutions to global problems and thus, serve the well-being of the society as a whole.
 

Keywords: 3-D modelling, combustion modelling, Coding