Impact of the surrogate formulation on 3D CFD engine knock prediction using detailed chemistry
Corinna Netzer, Lars Seidel, Frédéric Ravet, Fabian Mauß
First published: 15 October 2019
Abstract
For engine knock prediction, surrogate fuels are often composed of iso-octane and n-heptane since they are the components of the Primary Reference Fuel (PRF). By definition, a PRF has no octane sensitivity (S = RON-MON). However, for a commercial gasoline fuel holds RON > MON and therefor S > 0. More complex surrogates are Toluene Reference Fuels (TRF) and Ethanol containing Toluene Reference Fuels (ETRF). In this work, the impact of the surrogate formulation on the prediction of flame propagation and auto-ignition in the unburnt gases are investigated. The surrogates are composed such that the Research Octane Number is the same. The auto-ignition events ahead of the flame front are predicted using 3D CFD and a combustion model based on the ETRF mechanism by Seidel (2017). The strength of the auto-ignition is determined using the detonation diagram by Bradley and co-workers (2002, 2003). Applying the different surrogates, ignition kernels of different size and reactivity are predicted. The results indicate a dependency on the local temperature history and the low temperature chemistry of the fuel species. The comparison of homogenous constant volume reactor and transient simulations show that the analysis of ignition delay time and octane rating solely from homogenous simulations is not sufficient if the knock tendency of a surrogate in engine simulations needs to be characterized.