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Energy & Fuels 2008, 22, 10461054

Optimization of a Fuel Injection System for Diesel and Biodiesel Usage

Breda Kegl,* Marko Kegl, and Stanislav Pehan
UniVersity of Maribor, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, SmetanoVa 17, SI-2000 Maribor, SloVenia ReceiVed NoVember 3, 2007. ReVised Manuscript ReceiVed December 17, 2007

This paper presents an optimization procedure of a fuel injection system of a bus diesel engine. Attention is focused on the differences resulting from using two different types of fuel: diesel and biodiesel. The proposed design procedure relies on the assumption that the atomization of fuel spray inuences the diesel engine performance, fuel consumption, and harmful emission signicantly. As a measure of spray atomization, the Sauter mean diameter is employed and introduced into the objective function. The design problem is formulated in the form of a multiobjective optimization problem, taking into account the ESC 13 mode test for diesel engines of commercial vehicles. The design variables of the injection system are related to the shape of the cam prole, to the nozzle geometry, and to the control parameters inuencing the injection quantity and timing. The geometrical properties of the cam prole and the injection parameters are kept within acceptable limits by the imposed constraints. The results of optimization using diesel and biodiesel are compared to each other to show the inuence of fuel type on nal design and performance of the system.

Introduction In the past decade enormous efforts have been done to reduce harmful diesel engine emissions. One of the most important factors is precise control of the fuel injection process.14 The injection system must satisfy the following requirements: (i) high pressure capability, (ii) injection pressure control, (iii) exible timing control, and (iv) injection rate control. Another factor inuencing the emissions is the use of alternative fuels. It has already been shown that alternative fuels offer an opportunity to reduce harmful emissions while keeping other engine characteristics within acceptable limits.2,59 High injection pressure generally contributes to decreased fuel droplet size and improved combustion, resulting in reduction
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. Tel: +386 2 2207732. Fax: +38622207990. E-mail: breda.kegl@uni-mb.si. (1) Palomar, J. M.; Cruz-Peragon, F.; Jimenez-Espadafor, F. J.; Martinez, G.; Dorado, M. P. Computer model to simulate the injection process in a rotary injection pump: The inverse problem. Energy Fuels 2007, 21, 110 120. (2) Kegl, B. Numerical analysis of injection characteristics using biodiesel fuel. Fuel 2006, 85, 23772387. (3) Chan, T. L.; Cheng, X. B. Numerical Modeling and Experimental Study of Combustion and Soot Formation in a Direct Injection Diesel Engine. Energy Fuels, 2007, 21, 1483-1492.. (4) Szybist, J. P.; Boehman, A. L.; Taylor, J. D.; McCormick, R. L. Evaluation of formulation strategies to eliminate the biodiesel NOx effect. Fuel Process. Technol. 2005, 86, 11091126. (5) Nabi, N.; Akhter, S.; Shahadat, M. Z. Improvement of engine emissions with conventional diesel fuel and diesel-biodiesel blends. Bioresour. Technol. 2006, 97, 372378. (6) Durbin, T. D.; Collins, J. R.; Norbeck, J. M.; Smith, M. R. Effects of Biodiesel, Biodiesel Blends, and a Syntetic Diesel Diesel on Emissions from Light Heavy-Duty Diesel Vehicles. EnViron. Sci. Technol. 2000, 34, 349355. (7) Canakci, M. Combustion characteristics of a turbocharged DI compression ignition engine fueled with petroleum diesel fuels and biodiesel. Bioresour. Technol. 2007, 98, 11671175. (8) Dorado, M. P.; Ballesteros, E.; Arnal, J. M.; Gomez, J.; Lopez, F. J. Exhaust emissions from a diesel engine fueled with transestered waste olive oil. Fuel 2003, 82, 13111315. (9) Boehman, A. L.; Song, J.; Alam, M. Impact of biodiesel blending on diesel soot and the regeneration of particulate lters. Energy Fuels 2005, 19, 18571864.

Table 1. Diesel and Biodiesel Properties

fuel kinematic viscosity at 30 C surface tension at 30 C (N/m) caloric value (kJ/kg) cetane number (mm2/s) D2 3.34 0.0255 43.800 4555 B100 5.51 0.028 38.177 >51

Table 2. Biodiesel Specications

tested biodiesel ester content (% m/m) sulfur content (mg/kg) carbon residue on 10% distillation residue (% m/m) water content (mg/kg) oxidation stability, 110 C (hours) acid value (mg of KOH/g) iodine value (g of I2/100 g) linolenic acid methyl ester (% m/m) methanol content (% m/m) 96.9 <10 <0.3 208 14.8 0.24 117 8.5 0.01 european standard EN 14214 >96.5 <10 <0.3 <500 >6 <0.50 <120 <12 <0.20

of smoke emission. Low injection pressure, on the other hand, is required to reduce noise at idling and in the very low load range. In other words, optimum injection pressure must be determined in accordance with engine load and speed.10 Regarding the fuel consumption, it was found out that some improvement might be achieved by increasing the injection pressure. More precisely, the fuel should be injected with low pressure at the initial phase of injection and with high pressure in the later phases.11 According to above requirements, a fuel injection system should have a wide pressure controllability. Optimization of the injection timing is also important to control nitrogen oxidant (NOx) and particulate matter (PM)
(10) Omori, T. Electronic controlled fuel injection system for clean diesel engine. ATZ/MTZ Sonderheft Motor und Umwelt92, Vieweg Verlag: Wiesbaden, 1992. (11) Shin, B.-S.; Lee, J.-H. The effects of injection parameters on a heavy-duty diesel engine with TICS system. SAE Paper, 1998; 981070, pp 177-185..

10.1021/ef700657g CCC: $40.75 2008 American Chemical Society Published on Web 02/07/2008

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Figure 1. Schematic diagram of inline fuel injection system. Table 3. Test Injection System Main Specications
injection model fuel injection pump type pump plunger (diameter lift) fuel tube (length diameter) injection nozzle (number nozzle hole diameter) needle lift (maximal) needle opening pressure start of delivery (pump injection timing) direct injection M system Bosch PES 6A 95D 410 LS 2542 9.5 mm 8 mm 1024 mm 1.8 mm 1 0.68 mm 0.3 mm 175 bar 17 CA BTC

Figure 2. Fuel injection system test bed scheme.

emission simultaneously. Flexible injection timing control, which considers both engine speed and load, is required. Injection timing is directly related to the initially injected fuel quantity, which in turn inuences harmful emissions.2,1214 NOx-PM trade-offs are handled by variation of the injection timing and injection rate history. Besides NOx and PM emission, the injection rate history also affects the fuel consumption. Once the above-mentioned injection characteristics are optimally matched to each other, they typically result in a fuel spray with small droplet size (good atomization), long tip penetration, and narrow spray angle. These spray characteristics play an important role to improve engine performance, to reduce fuel consumption, and to reduce harmful emission. This is especially true for the fuel atomization.15,16 For this reason, it seems to be a good idea to involve fuel spray atomization (Sauter mean diameter) into the optimization process of the fuel injection system. Optimization of a time-dependent mechanical system may often be based on a solution process of a nonlinear problem P of mathematical programming, written in the following form min g0(b, u) gi(b, u) e 0, i ) 1, ... , j u ) f(b, t, u), u|t)0 ) u0 (1) (2) (3)

Figure 3. ESC test, 13 mode cycle, weighting factors.

(12) Boehman, A. L.; Morris, D.; Szybist, J. The impact of the bulk modulus of diesel fuels on fuel injection timing. Energy Fuels 2004, 18, 18771882. (13) Kegl, B. Experimental investigation of optimal timing of the diesel engine injection pump by using biodiesel fuel. Energy Fuels 2006, 20, 1460 1470. (14) Lin, C. Y.; Lin, H. A. Diesel engine performance and emission characteristics of biodiesel characteristics of biodiesel produced by the peroxidation process. Fuel 2006, 85, 298305. (15) Lee, C. S.; Park, S. W.; Kwon, S. I. An experimental study on the atomization and combustion characteristics of biodiesel-blended fuels. Energy Fuels 2005, 19, 22012208. (16) Aigal, A. K. Analysis of measured droplet size distribution of air deected diesel spray. Proc. Inst. Mech. Eng., Part D 2003, 209, 3343.

where b Rn denotes the vector of design variables, u Rm is the vector of response variables, and u Rm are their time derivatives. The dependency of u on time t and b is given by the response eq 3. The scalar functions g0 and gi are termed the objective and constraint functions, respectively. The objective function is related to the quality of the design b, while the constraints (eq 2) reect mechanical, technological, and other limitations. The symbol n denotes the number of design variables, m is the number of response variables, and j is the number of constraints. To solve P, different methods have to be applied, depending mainly on the properties of the involved functions and the type of design variables. If the functions g0 and gi are at least once differentiable with respect to b, and if the components of b are continuous variables, P can usually be most efciently solved by employing one of the gradient-based methods of mathematical programming. In the past decade, optimal design of diesel engines and diesel injection systems has been quite frequently addressed; as an example, a few of the recent papers are listed in the references.1,1720 However, in recent years, the production and usage of alternative fuels also came into foreground. Because
(17) Zhao, Y.; Lin, B.; Zhang, Y.; Chen, J. Performance analysis and parametric optimum design of an irreversible Diesel heat engine. Energy ConVers. Manage. 2006, 47, 33833392. (18) Cruz-Peragon, F.; Jimenez-Espadafor, F. J. Design and optimization of neural networks to estimate the chamber pressure in internal combustion engines by an indirect method. Energy Fuels 2007, 21, 26272636. (19) Kegl, B.; Pehan, S.; Kegl, M. Improvement of engine performance using an optimization procedure. Proc. Inst. Mech. Eng., Part D 2007, 221, 10011014. (20) Kegl, B. Injection system optimization by considering fuel spray characteristics. J. Mech. Des. 2004, 126, 703710.

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Figure 4. Pressure pII and needle lift hn at fuel temperature of 20 C for D2 and B100.

biodiesel may potentially be used on existing diesel engines, it might be quite interesting to see how the usage of biodiesel inuences the optimal design of the injection system. The present paper addresses this topic by optimizing the injection system for diesel and biodiesel usage separately. The purpose of this optimization is to see what the needed design differences are if diesel is replaced by biodiesel. Furthermore, it would be interesting to see if by the optimized injection and fuel spray characteristics the harmful emissions of biodiesel can be expected to be within the range of those of mineral diesel (or even lower). The outline of the paper is as follows. At rst, the tested fuels and the injection system are described. This is followed by a description and experimental verication of the mathematical model for numerical simulation of fuel injection and spray characteristics. In the next sections, the optimal design problem is formulated and the solution procedure is described briey. Numerical implementation and results are presented in the last section. Tested Fuels and Injection System The tested fuels are neat diesel fuel D2, conforming to European standard EN 590 and neat biodiesel fuel B100, conforming to European standard EN 14214. Some measured properties of these fuels are given in Table 1. The biodiesel is produced from rapeseed by Pinus, Slovenia. Some of its specications are given in Table 2, along with the corresponding EN 14214 standard specications.

The tested injection system is a mechanically controlled fuel injection M system, Figure 1. Some of its specications are given in Table 3. The test bed of fuel injection system was fully instrumented to measure the basic injection characteristics, Figure 2. A diaphragm-type pressure transducer (AVL 31DP 1200E) was applied for measurement of pressure traces pI at the high pressure pipe inow just behind the injection pump. A piezoelectric-type pressure transducer (Kistler 6227) with a charge amplier was applied for measurement of pressure traces pII within high pressure tube just before the injector. A specially designed variable-inductance sensor was applied for needle lift hn pickup. The position of top dead center (TDC) was measured by an optic sensor. The fuel temperature was measured at the inow into and behind the delivery pump. The injected fuel quantity was measured by collecting the injected fuel over 500 cycles in a test glass. The measurements and computations of injection and engine characteristics were performed at the 13 characteristic mode steady-state regimes of the ESC test, Figure 3. The ESC test cycle (also known as OICA/ACEA cycle) for emission certication of diesel engines has been introduced together with the ETC (European Transient Cycle) and ELR (European Load Response) tests in Europe (Directive 1999/ 96/EC of December 13, 1999). The importance of an individual mode is determined by the corresponding weighting factor. The weighting factors for all modes in percent (%) are given in Figure 3.

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Energy & Fuels, Vol. 22, No. 2, 2008 1049

and the sound velocity a (m/s) as a ) (a0 + a1p + a2p2) (C1 + bio (C - C3)) 100 2 (5)

Figure 5. Fuel spray development of D2 and B100 at mode 3 of ESC test. Table 4. Initial and Limit Values of the Design Variables
design variables 0 (CAM) cix,cjy (mm), i ) 2, ... , 5, j ) 3, ... , 4 i(-), i ) 2, ... , 5 L (mm) dm (mm) hz (mm), z ) 1,... ,N p tz (mm), z ) 1,... ,N d 35 0.25 1.0 1000 0.68 1.87 0.5, 1.5, 0.5, 1, 0.5, 1, 0.5, 1.5, 0.5, 1.5, 0.5, 1, 0.5 initial lower 20 0.001 0.1 500 0.5 1 0.1 upper 50 0.5 2.0 1500 0.9 5 3

where the symbol bio (%) is the part of biodiesel in fuel (either 0 for D2 or 100 for B100), p (bar) is the fuel pressure, T (C) is the fuel temperature, and the quantities a0 through C3 are dened as a0 ) 1376.2 1.9676T - 9.625 10-3T2, a1 ) 0.5327 1.644 10-3T2 + 3.394 10-5T2, a2 ) 2.637 10-4 + 4.43 10-6T - 5.358 10-8T2, C1 ) 0.975, C2 ) 0.03, and C3 ) 4 10-5 p. With the known density and sound velocity, the bulk modulus of elasticity E can be calculated as E ) a2 F. This model was thoroughly veried on the tested fuel injection M system at different operating regimes. The most signicant calculated parameters have been compared to the measured ones. As example, the agreement of pressure pII and needle lift history hn is presented in Figure 4. The calculated pressure pII is obtained from the injection pressure pinj (pressure in the injector chamber) and the pressure wave propagation between the injector chamber and the measuring point. The different properties of D2 and B100 lead to different injection characteristics and consequently to different fuel spray. The spray penetration length Lp(mm) is calculated by the Lustgarten equation Lp ) 2 dm0.46

2 (p - pam) Ff inj

) ()
0.54

Ff Fa

0.23

t0.54 (6)

According to the ESC test, the pump speeds to be tested in this paper are nA ) 680 rpm, nB ) 850 rpm, nC ) 1000 rpm, and at the idle 275 rpm. To nd the optimal design of the system for tested fuels D2 and B100, at rst the mathematical model for numerical simulation has to be veried experimentally for both fuels. Mathematical Model for Numerical Simulation of Fuel Injection and Spray Characteristics The fuel injection characteristics are investigated using our own mathematical model BKIN for numerical simulation of processes.2,20 In BKIN, the fuel transport is modeled as a onedimensional ow. The whole injection process is described by 15 quantities: the fuelling; the pressures in the barrel chamber, delivery valve chamber, snubber valve chamber, and injector chamber; the lifts and velocities of the delivery valve, snubber valve, and the needle; and the vapor volumes in the delivery valve chamber, snubber valve chamber, HP tube, and injector chamber. These quantities are related to each other and to time by 15 ordinary differential equations, containing an unknown parametersthe residual pressure. Because this quantity is not known in advance, iterations are needed to solve this system of differential equations. Because two different fuels are considered, the corresponding fuel properties have to be determined properly. In dependence on temperature and pressure, the fuel density F(kg/m3) is expressed as bio bio (0.0543 p + 877) + 1 F) (0.0611 100 100 p + 826) - ((T - 20) 0.88) (4)

where Fa (kg/m3) and Ff (kg/m3) are the air and fuel densities, pinj (Pa) and pam (Pa) are the injection and ambient pressures, dm (mm) is the nozzle hole diameter, and t(ms) is time. Figure 5 shows the spray comparison for D2 and B100 at mode 3 of the ESC test. One can see that the biodiesel penetration length is somewhat larger than that of D2. Numerical simulation gives similar results. At mode 3, the numerically obtained spray tip penetration is 176.5 mm for D2 and 186.3 mm for B100; the average fuel spray penetration of three experiments is 174.2 mm for D2 and 186.1 mm for B100. The experimental and numerical values are compared at the same time moment: 2 ms after fuel spray development. Compared to D2, the sprays of B100 were narrower and longer at most tested operating regimes. Some of the most important reasons for that are worse atomization and higher injection pressure of B100. Worse atomization is a consequence of higher surface tension and viscosity of B100, which leads to higher mean droplet size (SMD). Higher injection pressure causes a higher injection rate, which obviously results in higher spray velocity and penetration. Higher injection pressure also annihilates the effect of increased friction between fuel and nozzle surface due to higher viscosity of B100. Commonly, the Sauter mean diameter, d32, is taken to be a very important index of atomization. One of the many empirical formulas for the determination of d32 (m) is the very wellknown Hiroyasu and Kadota formula16 d32 ) 2.39 103(pinj - pam)-0.135Faq0.131 (7)

where q (m3/stroke) is the fuelling. Generally, one can conclude that numerical simulation agrees quite well with the experiment. Based on this observation, one may assume that the inuence of different fuels on the injection

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Table 5. Pump Rotational Speed, Upper Limit of Maximal Injection Pressure maxp, Lower and Upper Limits (Intervals) for Fuelling q, Injection Timing , and Injection Duration T
mode 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 pump speed (min-1) 275 680 850 850 680 680 680 850 850 1000 1000 1000 1000
maxp z

(MPa)

(CAM) [-16, -10] [-16, -10] [-16, -10] [-16, -10] [-16, -10] [-16, -10] [-16, -10] [-16, -10] [-16, -10] [-16, -10] [-16, -10] [-16, -10] [-16, -10]

q (mm3/stroke) [5, 15] [110, 130] [50, 80] [80, 110] [30, 60] [80, 110] [10, 50] [120, 140] [20, 60] [120, 140] [30, 60] [80, 110] [50, 90]

(CAM) [1, 4] [10, 14] [8, 12] [10, 14] [5, 9] [8, 12] [3, 7] [13, 17] [6, 10] [14, 18] [9, 13] [11, 15] [10, 14]

30 50 30 50 40 50 40 60 40 70 40 60 50

Table 6. Optimal Values of the Design Variables

case 0 (CAM) c2x,c3x,c3y,c4x,c4y,c5x, 2,3,4,5 L dm (hz ,tz ), z ) 1,... ,N p d 28.58 0.30352, 1.26038, 1.01332 0.61247 1.97414, 0.95997, 1.91244, 0.10016, diesel 0.25692, 0.36866, 0.28845, 0.32365, 0.28776, 0.88739, 1.13024, 1.39873 0.54523, 1.79904, 1.57345, 2.01694, 1.75976, 0.25808, 1.72530, 0.97043, 22.55 0.25566, 1.05785, 0.95790 0.61600 1.39697, 1.86833, 0.35384, 1.95489, 1.20393, 1.90468, 0.95529, 1.76308, 0.10000, 0.80478, 0.16213, 1.84628, 1.55342, 1.65557, 2.05228, 1.93086, 0.47963 0.11141, biodiesel 0.17621, 0.29047, 0.25302, 0.26798, 0.23985 0.83403, 0.93552, 1.25995 0.71998, 1.64899, 1.69821, 1.92101, 2.07246, 0.30884, 1.85486, 0.81730, 1.44619, 1.85066, 0.13186, 1.88366, 1.87820, 0.29018, 2.30993, 0.85077, 1.62637, 0.13611, 1.79030, 1.73583, 1.59724, 0.39181

and fuel spray characteristics (at various operating regimes) can be determined with reasonable accuracy using this mathematical model only. Formulation of the Optimal Design Problem Let the objective be to determine such values of the design variables b that the injection characteristics will be optimal in some sense. Let us further assume that the quality of injection is closely related to the average SMD the SMD averaged over the time of injection.

According to the above arrangement, the objective can be expressed as min {d1 , d2 , ... , dN } 32 32 32
b

(8)

j 32 where d z is the average SMD corresponding to the zth operating regime and N is the total number of operating regimes under consideration. In other words, the objective is to minimize the average SMD at all N operating regimes. The design variables bi, i ) 1, ... , n are related to geometrical and control parameters. The geometrical parameters are related

Figure 6. Average SMD at initial and optimal designs for D2 and B100.

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Energy & Fuels, Vol. 22, No. 2, 2008 1051

Finally, to prevent a technologically unacceptable design, constraints on lower and upper limits of the design variables have to be imposed as well. All of the above constraints can be written in a normalized form as
+ - 1 e 0, -1e0 1 - + L e 0, - - U + 1 e 0, U L z z qz 1 - L e 0, - 1 e 0, 1 - L e 0, z ) 1, ... , N U z z qz qz z z - 1 e 0, 1 - L e 0, - 1 e 0, z ) 1, ... , N U U qz z z

Figure 7. Cam proles of initial and optimal design for D2 and B100.

pz - 1 e 0, max U pz bL e bi e bU, i i

max

z ) 1, ... , N i ) 1, ... , n (9)

to the cam prole, HP tube, and nozzle. The cam prole is k dened as a rational Bezier curve, that is, by r ) i)1 Bkiqi i k Bk , where Bk is the Bernstein blending polynomial of / i)1 i i i the order (k - 1), qi ) qi(b) is the position vector of a control point, i ) i(b) is a positive weighting factor, and k is the number of all control points.20 The rst control point is determined by the angle of zero pump plunger lift 0 ) 0(b); meanwhile, the components of the intermediate control points can be dened in terms of the parameters cix(mm), i ) 2,... ,5 and ciy(mm), i ) 3,... ,4.21 The last two parameters are the high pressure tube length L and the nozzle hole diameter dm. The control parameters are related to the pump plunger prelift hp and to the geometrical duration of fuel delivery td. The pump plunger prelift inuences the injection timing; meanwhile, the geometrical duration of delivery inuences the injection duration, which affects also the fuelling. It should be noted that these two parameters are related to an individual operating regime. Thus, for N operating regimes 2 N of such parameters enter the set of design variables. In technical applications, the design variables can typically not be varied completely unconstrained. In our case, for technological reasons, the minimal positive value + ) min (+e) and the maximal negative value - ) max (-e) of the local radius of the cam prole should be constrained properly. In the above expressions, +e ) {e|e>0} and -e ) {e|e<0}. The local radius e of the cam prole curve can be expressed by e ) [(h + r0 + rrol)2 + V2]3 / 2 / (h + r0 + rrol)2 + 2V2 - (h + r0 + rrol)a - rrol, where r0 is the cam basic radius, rrol is the tappet roller radius, h is the pump plunger lift, ) dh/d is the relative pump plunger velocity, a ) d2h/d2 is the relative pump plunger acceleration, and is the camshaft angle. The term relative is used to emphasize that the pump plunger lift h is differentiated with respect to the camshaft angle so that and a are measured in (m/rad) and (m/rad2), respectively. To avoid torsion torque overloading and loosing contact min between the cam and the follower, the minimal, ) 0eteT (a), min and maximal, ) 0eteT (a), pump plunger acceleration has to be limited also. Additionally, proper constraints also have to be imposed on the injection timing and injection duration (both quantities are measured in degree of camshaft), on the fuelling q (mm3/ stroke), and on the maximal injection pressure maxp.
(21) Kegl, B. A procedure for upgrading an electronic control Diesel fuel injection system by considering several engine operating regimes simultaneously. J. Mech. Des. 1999, 121, 159165.

where the right superscripts L and U denote the prescribed lower and upper limits. The objective (eq 8) to minimize N functions, the selection of the design variables, the constraints (eq 9), and an appropriate response model (BKIN) dene completely the design problem. Unfortunately, this problem does not have the standard form (eqs 13), because it is a multiobjective one. To solve it efciently, we have to transform it into the standard form, that is, into a form with one objective function. This transformation can be done in several different ways that typically yield different results; usually, these are the points belonging to the Pareto front. In any case, we have to replace the requirement to minimize N independent functions by minimization of a substitute scalar function. This can be done in a satisfactory manner only if the relative importance (weighting) factors of original objective functions are known. In general, these factors cannot be determined easily; in fact, observation of the optimization progress and good intuition are needed to get a satisfactory result. Luckily, in our case, the original objectives are related to individual operating regimes, which in turn are already weighted adequately by the ESC test weighting factors z. Therefore, in this work, we decided to take the ESC weights to be the factors of the original objective functions. j32 Thus, by multiplying each dz by the corresponding z and summing up, one gets a substitute scalar objective function of the form g0 )

d
z)1

z z 32

(10)

It is expected that minimization of the above sum will yield a Pareto point, being satisfactory from the engineering point of view. Optimization Procedure
The optimization problem P was solved by employing the convex approximation method of mathematical programming.22 This method belongs to the family of gradient-based methods. Similarly as other methods, it also solves a sequence of approximate subproblems iP, i ) 0,1,2, .... However, to obtain iP, the method employs a nonlinear convex approximation technique with automatically adjustable conservativeness. The automatic adjustment
(22) Kegl, M.; Butinar, B.; Kegl, B. An efcient gradient-based optimization algorithm for mechanical systems. Commun. Numer. Methods Eng. 2002, 18, 363371.

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Figure 8. Injection characteristics of initial and optimal designs for D2 and B100.

is based on function gradient data, collected during previous optimization cycles. In each optimization cycle (iteration), this method requires only one evaluation of all involved functions and their design gradients. In this work, the functions have been evaluated by employing the described mathematical model, while the design derivatives have been obtained numerically by using nite differences.

Numerical Implementation and Results The considered engine operating regimes are the ones given in the ESC test, so that one has N ) 13. The following geometrical and control parameters are selected to be the design variables:20,21 the parameters 0, c2x, c3x, c3y, c4x, c4y, c5x, related to the cam prole; the weighting factors 2, 3, 4, 5, related to the rational Bezier curve representing the cam prole; the HP tube length L; the nozzle hole diameter dm; and the control parameters (hz,tz), z ) 1, ... ,N, d related to individual engine operating regimes. Because N ) 13, we have a total of n ) 39 design variables. The initial values of the design variables as well as their lower and upper limits are given in Table 4. The following lower and upper limits of the constrained quantities have also been taken to be the same in all operating

regimes: +L ) 2 mm, -U ) -60 mm, L ) -100 mm, U ) 100 mm. The limits of the maximal injection pressure maxp, fuelling q, injection timing , and injection duration differ for individual operating regimes (Table 5). Two optimization cases were considered; neat diesel was used in the rst case and neat biodiesel was used in the second case. Both cases have been solved successfully within eight iterations. The optimal values of design variables are given in Table 6. j The average SMD values d32 (m) for z ) 1,... ,N at initial design for diesel are 22.15, 31.94, 30.49, 30.73, 30.53, 31.33, 30.53, 31.59, 30.49, 31.23, 30.19, 30.47, and 30.19 and for biodiesel are 23.65, 31.74, 30.51, 30.93, 30.46, 31.42, 30.46, 31.45, 30.51, 31.17, 30.22, 30.39, and 30.22, respectively. The optimal values for diesel are 21.56, 31.16, 29.58, 30.42, 28.86, 30.83, 25.92, 30.84, 29.25, 30.59, 29.25, 29.89, and 29.62 and for biodiesel are 24.55, 31.10, 29.50, 30.44, 28.79, 30.79, 27.23, 30.86, 29.26, 30.69, 29.32, 30.22, and 29.47. Figure 6 shows the differences between the average SMD at initial and optimal designs. It can be seen that the improvement at higher pump speeds and higher loads is not signicant. However, it must be pointed out that at these regimes the

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Figure 9. Fuelling during needle lifting at initial and optimal designs for D2 and B100.

Figure 10. Pressure squareness at initial and optimal designs for D2 and B100.

constraints were not fullled at the initial design, whereas at optimal design all of the imposed constraints are fullled. The j 32 weighted sums N zd z are 29.55 m and 28.59 m at initial z)1 and optimal design for diesel and 29.76 m and 29.11 m at initial and optimal design for biodiesel. As can be seen from Figure 6, the optimized designs offer atomization improvements practically at all engine operating regimes without increasing the maximal injection pressure beyond the prescribed limits. This result might offer a possibility to improve NOx-PM tradeoff. The cam proles of initial and optimal design are compared in Figure 7, where x and y denote the Cartesian coordinates of

the prole. The optimal design differs from the initial one signicantly. One can also observe that optimal designs for D2 and B100 are quite different. Clearly, during the optimization procedure, the injection characteristics also change. For some operating regimes, the injection pressure, needle lift, and injection rate histories at the initial and optimal designs are compared for B100 and D2 in Figure 8. As expected, at the same initial design, the injection pressure and injection rate are higher, and the needle opens earlier for B100. After optimization, the opposite is observed. The injection pressure of B100 is lower at all operating regimes. Furthermore, at some operating regimes the needle opens later

1054 Energy & Fuels, Vol. 22, No. 2, 2008

Kegl et al.

Figure 11. Fuelling during needle closing at initial and optimal designs for D2 and B100.

and the injection rate history is shifted accordingly. This actually means that injection timing of B100 is retarded compared to D2. This could potentially mean lower NOx emission. Some other injection characteristics of the initial and optimal injection systems are compared for all 13 operating regimes. These characteristics are the fuelling during needle lifting qnl, Figure 9, the ratio of mean to the peak injection pressurepressure squareness sq, Figure 10, and the fuelling during needle closing qnc, Figure 11. In Figure 9 one can see that for D2 and B100 qnl is reduced by optimization at almost all modes. The optimal design gives higher qnl for B100 and D2 at two modes only (at higher pump speeds at 25% load). In the case of B100, the lower values of qnl (at optimal design) might offer a possibility to reduce NOx emission. After the initial part of the injection process, the fuel should be injected with high pressure. Taking into account that the maximal injection pressure must be limited to avoid pump drive overloading and to save fuel consumption, it follows that the pressure squareness sq should be as high as possible. At most operating regimes, the pressure squareness of the optimized design is higher than the squareness of the initial system, Figure 10. After optimization, the pressure squareness increased for D2 and decreased for B100 only at one tested operating regime (at high pump speed nC at 25% load). At the initial design, the fuel quantities during needle closing qnc were lower for B100 at most operating regimes, Figure 11. After optimization, these values were improved (reduced) substantially for both fuels. This is especially true for B100, which

performs better at practically all modes. Because fuelling during needle closing is closely related to PM emission, this result indicates that PM emission might be reduced signicantly by optimization. Conclusions The paper discusses the optimal design of the fuel injection M system of a bus engine MAN D 2566 when D2 and B100 fuels are used. The tested biodiesel (B100) was produced from rapeseed oil. On the basis of the presented results, the following conclusions can be made: (1) Optimization may lead to signicant improvements of the injection process regardless of the fuel used. One must note, however, that the optimal design depends signicantly on the fuel type. This is true for both, geometrical and control, design variables. (2) Owing to quite different optimal designs, it seems that a diesel engine, equipped with the injection system under consideration, cannot run very efciently with both tested fuels. It has to be adjusted either to D2 or B100. (3) From the numerical results it also follows that with both fuels satisfactory performance regarding harmful emissions may be obtained. The calculated numbers (fuelling during needle lifting and needle closing) might even indicate that in that view B100 might perform slightly better than D2.
Acknowledgment. This research was supported by the European Communitys Sixth Framework Programme in the scope of the Civitas II Mobilis project.
EF700657G