Numerical study on the wall-impinging diesel spray soot generation and oxidation in the cylinder under cold-start conditions of a diesel engine

The combustion of wall-impinging diesel spray of heavy-duty diesel engines deteriorates combustion quality under cold-start conditions, making it difficult to control soot emissions. To investigate the causes of soot increase in the combustion of wall-impinging spray at low temperature and low speed starting conditions, the effect of the starting fuel mass on the soot formation and oxidation process was analyzed using a multidimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model. The results show that the diesel spray is guided by the piston wall and the limited space, the spray impinged on the wall and the vapor-phase fuel flowed in the spray interaction zone. Thus, the soot mainly accumulates in the spray interaction zone, the region near the cylinder head and the bowl wall in the combustion chamber bowl. The soot from the vapor of deposited fuel film in the piston bowl wall and near wall region accumulates continuously in the after combustion stage, becoming the main source of soot emissions at the time of exhaust valve opening (EVO). Increasing the mass of starting fuel raises the mass of the rich mixture and wall-impinging fuel, which enhances the mismatch between fuel and air, resulting in higher soot generation, while soot is more difficult to be completely oxidized by OH radicals, and ultimately soot emissions increase significantly. It can be deduced that the engine-optimized injection strategy may mitigate the increase in soot emissions at high start-up fuel injection conditions.