Combustion of Supercritical Spray under High-Pressure and High-Temperature Conditions

减少我们的碳足迹的需要变得更加普遍，因为人们越来越意识到它对气候变化的影响。虽然运输部门的电气化正在迅速推进，以通过混合动力提高效率，但碳氢化合物的燃烧在未来几十年仍将是主要的推进选择，特别是在重型、船舶和航空应用方面。该项目将研究一种使用超临界流体的新燃烧概念。它将促进和提供有关超临界喷雾在内燃机上的应用的新知识。这些技术的成功应用可以显著降低燃油消耗和污染物排放，有利于环境和能源安全。此外，该项目将为研究和教育的整合提供一个极好的机会。研究生和本科生，特别是来自代表性不足和多样化群体的学生，将参与这项研究。这一项目的研究成果将有助于丰富当前课程中的三门课程。研究结果还可用于服务于工程界，并激励年轻一代(K-12学生)将来攻读STEM专业。该提议的假设是，超临界喷雾燃烧具有与传统喷雾燃烧显著不同的混合、点火、燃烧和污染物形成过程，了解基本原理可以帮助实现适用于许多新兴应用的清洁和高效的燃料燃烧。这项研究的目的是通过实验演示超临界燃料燃烧，并量化其对空气-燃料混合、点火、燃烧和污染物排放的影响。超临界喷雾燃烧是一个新的领域，尽管在下一代压燃式发动机和其他燃烧装置中具有潜在的应用前景，但还没有得到很好的研究。除了对超临界喷雾渗透、混合、燃烧和污染物形成的基本了解外，这项研究还将对未来柴油机的性能产生重大影响。实际上，拟议的研究将有可能转变为高燃油效率和超低排放的内燃机。从根本上说，提案研究将填补极端超临界条件下喷雾燃烧的知识空白。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The need to decrease our carbon footprint becomes more prevalent due to the increased awareness of its effect on climate change. Although electrification of the transportation sector is moving forward rapidly to increase efficiency through hybridization, combustion of hydrocarbons will continue to be the dominant choice for propulsion for many decades to come, especially the heavy duty, marine, and aviation applications. This project will investigate a new combustion concept using supercritical fluids. It will advance and provide new knowledge pertaining to the applications of supercritical spray in combustion engines. The successful adoption of the proposed techniques can dramatically reduce the fuel consumption and pollutant emissions, benefiting the environment and energy security. Additionally, this project will provide an excellent opportunity for integrating research and education. Graduate and undergraduate students, particularly from underrepresented and diversified groups, will be involved in the research. The research outcome from this project will help enrich three courses within the current curriculum. The results can also be used to serve the engineering community and to motivate the younger generation (K-12 students) to pursue STEM majors in the future.The hypothesis of this proposal is that supercritical spray combustion has significantly different mixing, ignition, combustion, and pollutant formation processes from conventional spray combustion and understanding the fundamentals can help achieve clean and efficient fuel combustion suitable for many emerging applications. The objective of this research is to experimentally demonstrate supercritical fuel combustion and quantify its impact on air-fuel mixing, ignition, combustion, and the production of pollutant emissions. Supercritical spray combustion is a novel area that has not been well studied despite potential applications in next-generation compression-ignition engines and other combustion devices. Besides fundamental understanding of supercritical spray penetration, mixing, combustion, and pollutant formation, this study will have significant impact on the performance of future diesel engines. Practically, the proposed research will have the potential to transform combustion engines with high fuel efficiency and ultra-low emissions. Fundamentally, the proposal research will fill the knowledge gap for spray combustion under extreme supercritical conditions.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.