A study of hydrogen internal combustion engine EGR system

NOx are the only harmful emissions of hydrogen internal combustion engine. EGR is one of the effective methods to reduce NOx. The traditional EGR is not suitable for hydrogen internal combustion engine. Therefore, the study of influence of hot EGR on hydrogen internal combustion engine is important. A 2.0L hydrogen internal combustion engine with hot EGR system model is employed to optimize the diameter and position of hot EGR based on a simulation analysis. The result shows that both of the combustion temperature and NOx increase as EGR increases due to the rise of intake temperature for low load condition, for heavy load, with the increase of EGR rate, NOx emissions decreases slightly before the mixture equivalence ratio comes to 1and then dropped significantly after the mixture equivalence ratio greater than 1. Unburned hydrogen in TWC has the effect of reducing NOx after catalysts decrease largely. Hydrogen engine combustion characteristics with hot EGR was analyzed, it suggests that EGR hasn't any benefit on combustion and NOx emission under low load condition; however, a significant amount reduce of NOx can be achieved under a rich condition (equivalence ratio greater than 1) by adjusting the EGR rate for high load condition with sacrificing power output slightly.