Work

CFD Analysis of Diesel Pilot Injection for Dual-Fuel Diesel–Hydrogen Engines

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: In the pursuit of cleaner and more efficient internal combustion engines, dual-fuel strategies combining diesel and hydrogen are gaining increasing attention. This study employs detailed computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations to investigate the behaviour of pilot diesel injections in dual-fuel diesel–hydrogen engines. The study aims to characterize spray formation, ignition delay and early combustion phenomena under various energy input levels. Two combustion models were evaluated to determine their performance under these specific conditions: Tabulated Well Mixed (TWM) and Representative Interactive Flamelet (RIF). After an initial numerical validation using dual-fuel constant-volume vessel experiments, the models are further validated using in-cylinder pressure measurements and high-speed natural combustion luminosity imaging acquired from a large-bore optical engine. Particular attention was given to ignition location due to its influence on subsequent hydrogen ignition. Results show that both combustion models reproduce the experimental behavior reasonably well at high energy input levels (EILs). At low EILs, the RIF model better captures the ignition delay; however, due to its single-flamelet formulation, it predicts an abrupt ignition of all available premixed charge in the computational domain once ignition conditions are reached in the mixture fraction space.

Source: Energies

DOI: 10.3390/en19020380

Authors: Gianluca D’Errico, Giovanni Gaetano Gianetti, Tommaso Lucchini, Alastar Gordon Heaton, Sanghoon Kook

Institutions: Politecnico di Milano, UNSW Sydney

Language: English

Topic: Advanced Combustion Engine Technologies

Subfield: Fluid Flow and Transfer Processes

Field: Chemical Engineering

Domain: Physical Sciences

SDG: Affordable and clean energy

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $3,137