Computational investigation of combustion and emission characteristics of toluene reference fuel (TRF) mixtures in an HCCI engine using stochastic reactor model

Abstract

In this study, a homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) engine was fueled with primary reference fuel (PRF) and toluene mixture using a zero-dimensional simulation code called stochastic reactor model (SRM) for simulations. A mixture of the PRF with Toluene fuel known as toluene reference fuel (TRF) was simulated using a skeletal kinetic mechanism consisting of 137 species and 633 reactions. Experimental results were used to validate SRM simulations' accuracy. Acceptable agreement was found between the computational results and the experimental data. Furthermore, parametric studies of experimentally validated simulation were performed to understand the effects of TRF blends, various initial conditions and fuel/air equivalence ratios (phi) on combustion and emission characteristics of the HCCI engine, to help with engine control strategies.