Development of a virtual fuel testing platform

NIGRO, NORBERTO M.; AGUERRE, HORACIO J.

Santa Fe

Workshop; French Argentinean Workshop on Heterogeneous Catalysis; 2023

Universidad Nacional del Litoral, Facultad de Ingeniería Química

The importance of the efficient use of fuels in general applications and particularly in automotive transport is well known. Its impact in geopolitical and environmental terms is undeniable, motivating studies to focus on improving consumption and a significant reduction in emissions, always maintaining the performance of the engine that uses it.To date, most of the published studies analyze a fuel through laboratory tests using only the fuel. In the case of gasoline, these are qualified based on their antiknock power measured in terms of RON and MON. In the case of Diesel cycle engines, one of the required tests is that of the cetane number, which estimates the ignition delay of the fuel by compression.Other thermophysical parameters that are measured are calorific value, density, viscosity, surface tension, among others. Although all these indicators have made it possible to design the engines we use today, we believe that with modern calculation techniques it is possible to predict in advance how that fuel will behave when applied to a real engine.Our development is aimed precisely at being able to simulate this behavior but on a virtual engine, a mathematical and computational model that predicts the engine curves as if they were tested on a test bench. The engine model takes into account the non-stationary 3D character of the problem, solving the gas flow from its entry into the combustion chamber through the intake system to its exit through the exhaust system. In particular, combustion is solved using a model that is a hybrid between a simplified chemistry model and a detailed one.For the naphthas on the market, a substitute fuel is characterized for the real fuel mixture, but which performs similarly to the real one in terms of combustion dynamics. Comparative results with market fuels are presented to identify the effectiveness of the developed tool.