• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.57-69
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• 2012

The main objective of this study was investigation of natural gas flames in a lean premixed swirl-stabilized dump combustor with an attention focused on the effect of the various fuel-air mixing section geometry on the combustion instability characteristics. The combustor and mixing section length was varied in order to have different acoustic resonance characteristics from 800 to 1800 mm in combustor and 470, 550, 870 mm in mixing section. We observed two dominant instability frequencies in this study. Lower frequencies were associated with a fundamental longitudinal mode of combustor length. Higher frequencies were related to secondary longitudinal mode of coupled with the combustor and mixing section. As a result, combustion instability was strongly affected by acoustic characteristics of combustor and mixing section geometry.

• International Journal of Automotive Technology
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.39-45
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• 2001

Hydrogen is seen as one of the important energy vectors of the next century. Hydrogen as a renewable energy source, provides the potential for a sustainable development particularly in the transportation sector. Hydrogen driven vehicles reduce both local as well as global emissions. The laboratory of transporttechnology (University of Gent) converted a GM/Crusader V-8 engine for hydrogen use. Once the engine is optimised, it will be built in a low-floor midsize hydrogen city bus for public demonstration. For a complete control of the combustion process and to increase the resistance to backfire (explosion of the air-fuel mixture in the inlet manifold), a sequential timed multipoint injection of hydrogen and an electronic management system is chosen. The results as a function of the engine parameters (ignition timing. injection timing and duration, injection pressure) we given. Special focus is given to topics related to the use of hydrogen as a fuel: ignition characteristics (importance of electrode distance), quality of the lubricating oil (crankcase gases with high contents of hydrogen), oxygen sensors (very lean operating conditions), noise reduction (configuration and length of inlet pipes). The advantages and disadvantages of a power regulation only by the air to fuel ratio (as for diesel engines) against a throttle regulation (normal gasoline or gas regulation) are examined. Finally the goals of the development of the engine are reached: power output of 90 kW, torque of 300 Nm, extremely low emission levels and backfire-safe operation.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.1222-1233
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• 1990

The formation and oxidation processes of soot particles in a diesel flame were investigated with a rapid compression machine. A cloud of soot particles was successfully visualized by means of the instantaneous laser shadow photographs technique and the equivalence ratio of the soot formation zone was estimated from a measured fuel concentration distribution in a nonevaporating spray. The temporal and spatial variation of soot concentration in the flame was also correlated with the rate of heat release. Soot particles appears first in a region near the flame tip when diffusion combustion period starts, and its concentration is a maximum at about the end of injection, then decreases due to oxidation. The reason for soot being formed in a fuel lean region near the flame tip is the evaporated fuel requires time to be pyrolized as it travels through the burning fuel rich zone towards the flame tip.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Combustion
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.1-6
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• 2008

An experimental study of the flame response in a turbulent premixed combustor has been conducted with room temperature, atmospheric pressure inlet conditions using premixed natural gas. The fuel is premixed with the air upstream of a choked inlet to avoid equivalence ratio fluctuations. Therefore the observed flame response is only the result of the imposed velocity fluctuations, which are produced using a variable speed siren. Measurements are made of the velocity fluctuation in the nozzle using hot wire anemometry and of the heat release fluctuation in the combustor using chemiluminescence emission. The results are analyzed to determine the phase and gain of the flame transfer function as a function of the modulation frequency. Of particular interest is the effect of flame structure on the flame response predictions and measurements. The results show that both the gain and the phase of flame transfer function are closely associated with the flame length and structure, which is dependent upon the upstream flow perturbation as well as equivalence ratio in the current study.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.27 no.11
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• pp.1630-1636
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• 2003

Automobile companies and research institutions in leading automobile-manufacturing nations have recently been very active with research regarding the HCCI engine for use in future vehicles. Because HCCI engines take advantage of high compression ratio and heat release rate, they exhibit high efficiency found in compression ignition engines. HCCI engines also utilize a lean air/fuel ratio resulting in low emissions of NO$_{x}$ and PM (particulate matter). The objective of this research is to determine the effects of EGR rate on the combustion processes of HCCI. for this purpose, a 4-cylinder, compression ignition engine was converted into a HCCI engine, and a heating device was installed to raise the temperature of the intake air and also to make it more consistent. In addition, a pressure sensor was inserted into each of the cylinders to investigate the differences in characteristics among the cylinders. The experimental study of the effects of EGR rate on various gas emissions, engine performance, etc. should prove to be a valuable source of information for the development of the HCCI engine.e.

• Journal of Power System Engineering
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.5-11
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• 2008

The RI gasoline engine haying a sub-chamber had a high cycle variation due to the difficulty of the residual gas scavenge in the sub-chamber. To solve this problem and improve the combustion performance of RI engine, we devised a method to inject directly CNG fuel into the sub-chamber. A DI diesel engine of single cylinder was converted into a RI-CNG engine and an electronic control unit for the engine was manufactured. In this study, the combustion characteristics of the RI-CNG engine were investigated with the injection timings and air excess ratios at the load conditions of 50% throttle open rate and 1700rpm. As the results from this study, the RI-CNG engine worked reliably under the condition of the ignitable lean limit of $\lambda=1.7$ by showing the $COV_{imep}$ below about 5%. And the highest thermal efficiency could be obtained in the injection timing that produced the high imep and the low $COV_{imep}$ at the same time. The CO emission concentration indicated very low values and the THC and $NO_x$ showed an opposite pattern. With a view to improving the thermal efficiency and reducing the harmful emissions, the proper control region of the ignition timing and the mixture ratio were nearly ATDC $20^{\circ}\sim50^{\circ}$ and $\lambda=1.4$ respectively.

• 한국연소학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2003.12a
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• pp.103-108
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• 2003

The effect of equivalence ratio and fuel/air mixing quality on the phase-resolved gas temperatures at different phases of the oscillating pressure cycle was experimentally investigated. An atmospheric pressure, optically accessible and laboratory-scale dump combustor operating on methane with heat release rate of 1.59kW was used. Temperature measurements were made using coherent anti-Stokes Raman spectroscopy (CARS) at several spatial locations for typical unstable combustion conditions. Analysis was conducted using parameters such as phase-resolved averaged temperature, normalized standard deviation and temperature probability distribution functions (PDFs). Also the probability on the occurrence of high temperature (over 1900K) was investigated to get the information on the perturbation of equivalence ratio and NOx emission characteristics. It was shown that most of temperature histograms exhibit Gaussian profile which has short breadth of temperature fluctuation at equivalence ratio of 0.6, while beta profile was predominant for the cases of other equivalence ratios (${\Phi}$=0.55, 0.50). The characteristics on the occurrence of high temperature also displayed periodic wave form which is very similar to the pressure signal. And the amplitude of this profile goes larger as the fuel/air mixing quality become poorer. These also provided additional information on the perturbation of equivalence ratio at flame as well as NOx emission characteristics.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Automotive Engineers
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.142-148
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• 2009

The direct injection(DI) diesel engine has become a prime candidate for future transportation needs because of its high thermal efficiency. However, nitrogen oxides(NOx) increase in the local high temperature regions and particulate matter (PM) increases in the diffusion flame region within diesel combustion. Therefore, the demand for developing a suitable after treatment device has been increased. NOx absorbing catalysts are based on the concept of NOx storage and release making it possible to reduce NOx emission in net oxidizing gas conditions. This De-NOx system, called the LNT(Lean NOx Trap) catalyst, absorbs NOx in lean exhaust gas conditions and release it in rich conditions. This technology can give high NOx conversion efficiency, but the right amount of reducing agent should be supplied into the catalytic converter at the right time. In this research, a performance characteristics of LNT with a hydrogen enriched gas as a reductant was examined and strategies of controlling the injection and rich exhaust gas condition were studied. The NOx reduction efficiency is closely connected to the injection timing and duration of reductant. LNT can reduce NOx efficiently with only 1 % fuel penalty.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• v.y2005m4
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• pp.274-280
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• 2005

Experimental investigations were carried out in an atmospheric pressure, optically accessible and laboratory-scale dump combustor. The objective of this study is to obtain the phase-resolved gas temperatures at different phases of the oscillating pressure cycle during unstable combustion. To see the effect of incomplete fuel-air mixing on phase-resolved temperature characteristics, CARS temperature measurements were performed. Results including phase-resolved averaged temperature, normalized standard deviation and temperature probability distribution functions (PDFs) were provided in this paper. It could be found that the profile of mean temperature showed the in-phase relationship with pressure cycle. Temperature PDFs give an insight on the flame behavior as well as NOx emission characteristics. These results would be expected to play an important role in better understanding of driving mechanisms and thermo-acoustic interactions.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.437-444
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• 2005

Experiments were carried out in an atmospheric pressure, lab-scale gas turbine combustor to see the effect of partial premixing on unstable flame structure and Nox emission characteristics. The swirl angle is 45 deg., fuel-air mixing degrees were varied 0, 50 and 100% respectively at equivalence ratio ranging from 0.53 to 0.79. The evolution of phased-locked OH chemiluminescence images were acquired with an ICCD. NOx emission characteristics were also investigated at each experimental condition. The effect of the fuel-air mixing degree on the flame structure was obtained from phase-locked $OH^*$ images. And it was obtained from local heat release characteristics that the information about the region which the combustion instability was amplified or damped. It also could be confirmed that $\sigma$ has greatly influence on NOx emission characteristics at lean regimes. It would be expected that it could provide invaluable data for understanding the mechanism of combustion instability.