Investigation of knock suppression characteristics in a boosted methane : gasoline blended fuelled SI engine

Natural gas has a higher knock suppression effect than gasoline which makes it possible to operate at higher compression ratio and higher loads resulting in increased thermal efficiency in a spark ignition engine However, using port fuel injected natural gas instead of gasoline reduces the volumetric efficiency from the standpoints of the charge displacement of the gaseous fuel and the charge cooling that occurs from liquid fuels. This article investigates the combustion and engine performance characteristics by utilizing experimental and simulation methods varying the natural gas-gasoline blending ratio at constant engine speed, load, and knock level. The experimental tests were conducted on a single cylinder prototype spark ignited engine equipped with two fuel systems: (i) a Direct Injection system for gasoline and (ii) a Port Fuel Injection (PFI) system for compressed natural gas. For the fuels, gasoline with 10% ethanol by volume (commercially known as E10) with a research octane number of 91.7 is used for gasoline via the DI system, while methane is injected through PFI system. The knock suppression tests were conducted at 1500 rpm, 12 bar net indicated mean effective pressure wherein the engine was boosted using compressed air. At 60% of blending methane with E10 gasoline, the results show high knock suppression. The net indicated specific fuel consumption is 7% lower, but the volumetric efficiency is 7% lower compared to E10 gasoline only condition. A knock prediction model was calibrated in the 1-D simulation software GT-Power by Gamma Technologies. The calibration was conducted by correlating the simulated engine knock onset with the experimental results. The simulation results show its capability to predict knock onset at various fuel blending ratios