SAE TECHNICAL

PAPER SERIES 2000-01-0662

3-D CFD Analysis of the Combustion Process in a

DI Diesel Engine using a Flamelet Model
H. Bensler, F. Bühren and E. Samson
Volkswagen AG

L. Vervisch
INSA de Rouen & LMFN – CORIA / CNRS

Reprinted From: Multi-Dimensional Engine Modeling

(SP–1512)

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3-D CFD Analysis of the Combustion Process in a DI Diesel
Engine using a Flamelet Model
Copyright © 2000 Society of Automotive Engineers, Inc.
ABSTRACT
A 3-dimensional numerical study has been conducted
investigating the combustion process in a VW 1.9l TDI
Diesel engine. Simulations were performed modeling the
spray injection of a 5-hole Diesel injector in a pressure
chamber. A graphical methodology was utilized to match
the spray resulting from the widely used Discrete Droplet
Spray model to pressure chamber spray images.
Satisfactory agreement has been obtained regarding the
simulated and experimental spray penetration and cone
angles. Thereafter, the combustion process in the engine
was simulated. Using engine measurements to initialize
the combustion chamber conditions, the compression
stroke, the spray injection and the combustion simulation
was performed. The novel RTZF two-zone flamelet
combustion model was used for the combustion
simulation and was tested for partial load operating
conditions. An objective analysis of the model is
presented including the results of a numerical parameter
study. A comparison of numerical and experimental
engine results was found to be encouraging and show
potential for the further development and implementation
of the combustion model.
INTRODUCTION
Due to increasing market demands, there is a great need
to design and develop cleaner and optimized Diesel
engines in ever shorter time periods. Through the use of
3-dimensional Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)
simulations, the design process can be greatly speeded
up with minimal costs. The amount of manufacturing and
testing of prototypes can be reduced through the pre-
optimization of engine processes via numerical
simulations. Of these engine processes, the 3-D
simulation of the combustion process has one of the
highest levels of complexity. Here all the various aspects
and parameters of the combustion process need to be
modeled including the proper flow field (main flow and it’s
associated turbulence), the spray injection and the
1
2000-01-0662
H. Bensler, F. Bühren and E. Samson
Volkswagen AG
L. Vervisch
INSA de Rouen & LMFN – CORIA / CNRS
combustion process itself. In direct-injection (DI) Diesel
engines the complexity of the CFD simulation is even
higher through the presence of partially mixed
combustion.
In this study, the Diesel combustion process was
investigated both numerically and experimentally in a VW
1,9l TDI engine. The following sections will describe the
experimental and numerical setups utilized. A brief
review of turbulent combustion modeling will be
presented along with the theory behind the new RTZF
combustion model used for the simulations. Finally, the
results will be discussed and improvements to the
combustion model will be proposed.
COMBUSTION MODELING THEORY
Although non-premixed combustion is not the most
efficient way to burn, it is the most common regime found
in internal combustion engines. The modeling of non-
premixed (and partially premixed) turbulent combustion
requires expressing the mean reaction rate, as a function
of chemistry and flow. As it is impossible to directly
average the reaction rate due to its highly non-linearity, it
is necessary to propose other approaches to express the
mean reaction rate ω& .
The different tools used to model turbulent combustion
can be listed as follows:
• the mean values method, where the mean reaction
rate is calculated using the mean values of different
properties [1]
• the geometric description method, where the flame is
described as a geometrical entity [2]
• the scalar dissipation method, where the reaction
rate is calculated using the dissipation rate of a
scalar field [3]
• the statistical description method, which uses a
stochastic approach to determine ω& [4,5,6].
Some assumptions need to be made to simplify
chemistry and transport. Depending on the conditions,
several hypotheses can be made:
• infinitely fast chemistry
• finite rate chemistry, where diffusion and reaction are
coupled as in laminar flames (the laminar flamelet
assumption)
• finite rate chemistry, where diffusion and reaction are
treated separately, as in probability density function
(pdf) methods.
Modeling combustion in DI diesel engines requires to
take into account the possibility to burn under different
regimes: premixed, non-premixed and partially premixed,
due to the inhomogeneous mixing of the reactants.
Models have to represent those phenomena accurately.
This approach is the one of pdf-generator modeling [5].
Other ways can be followed, using a more empirical
formulation such as in the mean values and geometrical
description methods.
RTZF COMBUSTION MODEL
A combination of these two methods is the novel Ricardo
Two Zone Flamelet (RTZF) combustion model [7]
investigated by this study. In this model, a semi-empirical
approach is adopted where the turbulent burning velocity
and the burning rate are estimated based on fractal
geometry and basic dimensional analysis of turbulent
flames. In this way, difficulties such as the description of
the flame front area can be avoided. In addition, there is a
simple and clear relationship between the turbulence and
burning velocity, which can be easily compared with
measurements. A fractal-based model provides limited
physical insight, but it quickly provides the burning rate,
which is a major requirement for combustion modeling.
The proper description of the effects of chemistry is an
essential of combustion modeling. A large amount of
computing resources is required for the simulation of full
chemical reaction schemes; however, as an engineering
tool, this approach is too costly and complex. On the
other hand, simplified reduced reaction schemes have
been developed for a few particular fuel types. These are,
however, lacking in generality and can be over simplified.
An example of this is the previously mentioned
Magnussen model [1], which uses an over-simplified
scheme, based on a one-step reaction of burning at a
stoichiometric air/fuel ratio. Important effects such as the
incomplete combustion of fuel-rich mixture burning are
ignored with this method. Moreover, information
concerning the chemical composition of the combustion
products is also not provided thus emissions formation
cannot be determined.
The current model uses a chemical equilibrium approach
for the chemistry modeling. Since the reactions, which
are responsible for the heat release, are always
performed at fast rates, they can therefore be treated at
equilibrium conditions. The chemical species
2
concentrations and thermal properties are calculated for
a given mixture composition, pressure and temperature.
The mixture compositions consist of the mass fractions of
air, unburned fuel, burned air and burned fuel. There are
11 chemical species making up the combustion products:
CO , CO 2 , H , H 2 , H 2 O , N 2 , NO , O , O 2 , OH and N .
These represent the major chemical species in both the
complete and incomplete combustion products. These
chemical species concentrations are then used for the
determination of the emissions, which are calculated
separately. Their formation reactions have much slower
rates and make a small contribution to the total energy
balance.
SPECIES SCHEME – The computational cells are
notionally divided by the flame front into two zones: an
unburned zone and a burned zone. Air, fuel vapor and
residual gases are found in the unburned zone and
combustion products are in the burned zone. The
unburned region is further divided into two regions: a
segregated and a fully mixed region. In the segregated
region, the air and fuel are not mixed at a molecular level
and are therefore not ready to react chemically. In the
other region, the air, fuel and residuals are fully mixed.
The segregated region increases in mass from newly
evaporated fuel from a fuel spray or from the flow from an
inlet boundary. The fluid flow and molecular diffusion
convert segregated reactants to fully mixed reactants;
combustion then consumes the fully mixed reactants and
converts them into combustion products. The mixture
components in the unburned zone have effectively three
mass fractions: a segregated, a fully mixed and an overall
mass fraction; only two of these are however
independent. The segregated and overall mass fractions
are solved for and the fully mixed mass fraction is
obtained from the other two.
The species concentrations of the combustion products
are determined from the initial air/fuel ratio before
combustion. Thus the mass fractions of both the burned
air and fuel are used rather than the total mass fraction of
the combustible products in the burned zone. In a similar
manner, the separate mass fractions of the residual air
and fuel are also used.
Figure 1. Schematic of the RTZF Combustion model.
MIXING AND FLAME PROPAGATION – The different where c is the regress variable and is defined as the
components in the segregated region are converted to sum of mass fractions of unburned air, unburned fuel and
the fully mixed mass fraction by turbulent mixing. The residuals ( c = Y A + YF + YRA + YRF ). Before the start of
turbulent mixing is based on the large-eddy scale and
combustion, the regress variable for a given cell is equal
has a mixing rate of:
to 1; it has a value of 0 after the completion of
k combustion. The characteristic cell length is evaluated by
ω αmix = c mix ρYαseg
ε (1) the cubic root of the cell volume ( Lc = 3 Vc ) and the
coefficient g has an approximate value of 4.
where c mix is the mixing constant ranging from a value of
2 to 32 (a value of 20 is the recommended default value For the case of non-premixed flames, the ratio of the fully
mixed reactant volume to the total volume ( rvol ) is
for c mix ). estimated for the degree of segregation. The segregated
Reactants, which are fully mixed, are consumed by the air/fuel mixture causes holes in the flame front. Thus the
combustion. Low temperature reactions occur for auto- non-premixed burning rate is slower than a pre-mixed
ignition and high-temperature reactions occur for the rate.
flame propagation. High-temperature reactions always
follow after auto-ignition. Thereafter, the combustibles AUTO-IGNITION MODEL – Since low temperature
can be consumed by either more auto-ignition or by reactions are responsible for auto-ignition and high-
normal flame propagation. For the normal flame temperature reactions for the normal flame, these two
propagation, the burning rate is determined by: reactions are treated separately. Low-temperature
reactions for the auto-ignition are considered as a
AT lumped one-step reaction of a generic intermediate
ω f = ρr SL I Σ rvol
A ignition species Yig , which is inversely proportional to the
(2)
where the effective unstretched laminar burning velocity ignition time ( Yig = 1 / τ ig ). The ignition probability, p ig , is
S L is derived from measured maximum laminar burning determined via the integral:
velocity where the effects of the reference condition, fuel-
dt
air equivalence ratio and residuals are taken into p ig = ∫
account. τ ig
(6)
The effect of strain on flame burning velocity is
represented by the flame stretch factor I . With The ignition delay is a function of temperature and
increasing strain, the propagating flame will be partially pressure given by:
quenched and can even be extinguished. For the
turbulent flame, the ratio of flame surface area to the τ ig = AP − n e (T A / T )
(7)
projected transverse area ( AT / A ) is determined from
fractal geometry: where the coefficients A , n and T A (activation
temperature) are determined from experimental ignition
D −2 delay measurements. A transport equation for the ignition
AT l 
=  I 
 probability is solved and auto-ignition occurs when p ig
A  lk  has reached a value of unity. The contribution of heat
(3)
from the low-temperature reactions is considered
Here l I is the integral length scale and l k is the negligible.
Kolmogorov scale. When considering the transition from
laminar to turbulent regime, the fractal dimension D is COMMENTS – The mixing rate is built in the same way
correlated as a function of the ratio of turbulence intensity as the Eddy Break-Up model [8], using a linear relaxation
to laminar burning velocity: model. Only the effect of turbulence is taken into account.
Reaction takes place in a thin zone between burned and
  ′ 
 − 0,5 / ln  1+ u  unburned gas, assimilated to a set of laminar flames. Its
  S 
  
D = 2 + 0,75e L formulation seems to be a mix between the BML model
(4)
modified by Bray et al. [9] and the approach of Gouldin et
The flame projected transverse area per unit volume al. [10]. The BML model supposes that a point of the flow
( Σ = A / V ) is a shape function, and is defined as is either in the burned or in the unburned zones,
separated by the reaction area. The reaction rate is then
gc (1 − c ) proportional to the pass frequency of the flame front.
Σ=
Lc
(5)

3
Those models are formulated in terms of flame density. TDI ENGINE – The experimental engine used was a VW
The first one, with reference of equation (5) for the TDI 1.9l direct injection Diesel engine. The engine
formulation of the flame density, makes the flame density characteristics are found in Table 1 below.
to be proportional to the crossing frequency of the flame
front. In the other one, the flame density is expressed as Table 1. Engine Characteristics.
a fractal surface and gives an expression quite analog to
(3). TDI 1,9 liter
The RTZF model uses the approach of Bray et al. [9] for Type 4 in-line-cylinder
the reaction rate, the fractal formulation being used for Injection Direct
the calculation of the surface area of the flame. The
model enables to simulate both non-premixed and Arrangement Row
premixed combustion. For non-premixed combustion, Timing 1 overhead camshaft (belt)
reactants are first mixed locally, in each cell, and are then
burned. For pre-mixed combustion, only the second step Valves 2 per cylinder
is required. For more RTZF model details see [7]. Capacity 1896cm 3

EXPERIMENTATION Bore x stroke 79 ,5 mm × 95 ,5 mm

Compression ratio 17,8

There were two experiments involved for the validation of
the numerical results: a pressure chamber for the spray
modeling and a TDI Diesel engine. Their respective
setups will be discussed in the sections below.
PRESSURE CHAMBER – The pressure chamber is a
cylindrical chamber equipped with small windows, which
enable to take pictures of the inside-phenomena. Fig. 2
shows a schematic of the pressure chamber. A light
source is used to illuminate the spray and a digital video
camera then records the images. A high-pressure
compressor and a heat exchanger allow the pressure
and temperature in the chamber to be adjusted. In this
study, the chamber pressure was set to 20 bar with a
constant temperature of 293K. The Diesel fuel was
injected with a 5-hole injector and had a temperature of
303K and an injection pressure of 400 bar. Pictures were
taken through the bottom window of the chamber each
50 µs for a duration of 2 ms.
F uel-
pres s ure
P ow er U nit DU T
L ight
S our ce 60°
Connecting Rod 144 mm
Turbocharger Garrett VNT15
Engine speed 1000 rpm
The engine was mounted on a standard VW test bed.
Important engine parameters were measured including
the injected mass of the fuel, the cylinder pressure, and
emissions such as NOx, Soot, Hydrocarbons, CO , CO 2
and O 2 . Air and exhaust temperatures were measured
using thermal resistance sensors at 8 different locations
ranging from the air filter to the exhaust pipe. For the
numerical simulations conducted in this study, the
measured intake manifold temperature was of prime
importance.
In order to determine the time-dependent fuel injection
rate for a given injector, measurements were made
separately on a hydraulic injector test bed. Here the fuel
H eat - H igh-P r es s ure-
ex chan ger com pres s or is injected into a tube filled with the same fuel. Time
dependent pressure waves are measured, whose integral
L ight D at a
is proportional to the injected mass of fuel. In this

40°
60°

40°
S our ce S av in g manner, an accurate injection law can be determined for
20° 20°
any type of injector. This methodology provides an
K-EFAM
VOLKSWAGEN
E lect rical
accurate description of the time dependent injected fuel
10° 10°
D at a mass flow rate law.
A quis it ion
Calculat ion
Engine measurements for this study were made for part
O pt rical
S ignal-
con t roller
K am era
D at a
load operating conditions with an engine speed of 1000
A quis it ion
RPM, a Pmep of 1 bar and with 6 mg of injected fuel. The
fuel was injected with a pressure of 400 bar in two
Figure 2. Schematic of pressure chamber.
phases: a pre- and a main-injection. The mass of the
injected fuel equaled 1.6 mg and 4.4 mg, respectively.
The corresponding injection law can be seen in Fig. 3.

4
 DISCUSSION AND RESULTS

PRESSURE CHAMBER – The two main parameters

Figure 3. Measured injection rate.
NUMERICAL ANALYSIS
The 3-dimensional simulations were performed using the
finite-volume CFD code VECTIS [11]. The CFD solver
provides 3-D time-dependent, compressible or
incompressible solution of the continuity, Navier-Stokes,
and energy equations. The turbulence model used is the
standard k − ε model [12] based on the assumption of
local isotropic turbulence at high Reynolds numbers.
Equations are solved fully-implicitly with coupling
between variables and non-linear effects using iterative
or predictor-corrector methods. An orthogonal structured
Cartesian mesh is used with wall cell volume and face
area adaptation. The computational meshes are
generated using a fully automatic mesh generator. Local
mesh refinement is utilized for the resolution of small-
scale flow structures near boundaries and in regions of
high gradients. The standard logarithmic “law of the wall”
is used for the evaluation of the wall boundary layer.
considered for the correlation of the simulated and
photographed spray images were the spray cone angle
and the penetration. Several calculations were needed to
get an acceptable match with the pressure chamber
images. The procedure was to begin with an estimated
value of the cone angle of 8 degrees resulting from
correlations existing in the literature [14]. The simulation
was conducted and the width of the spray angle and the
penetration were visually compared to the experimental
images. If a poor correlation was obtained, an iterative
process was used either increasing or decreasing the old
value of the cone angle. Once a suitable cone angle was
obtained, the other parameters such as droplet size
distribution and droplet interaction models were tested.
Results showed that a cone angle of 10 degrees
corresponded well with the experimental images. An
example of the computational mesh and the
corresponding spray are seen in Fig. 4. Each of the 5
holes was modeled identically which resulted in 5 very
similar jets. Note that the mesh in the area near the
injector is twice as fine as in the area of the spray jets.
This was done to increase the numerical accuracy of the
spray modeling. The mesh density used for the pressure
chamber simulations was also used later for modeling the
spray and combustion in the TDI engine. It should be
further noted that the only the main injection described in
Fig. 3 was modeled in the pressure chamber since no
photographs were available for the pre-injection.

SPRAY MODELLING – The fuel injection simulation is

done using a Lagrangian stochastic spray model of
discrete droplets [7]. The spray is modelled as a
dispersed liquid phase which interacts and penetrates
the surrounding continuous gas phase. The spray is
described by an ensemble of discrete droplets parcels,
where each parcel contains a quantity of droplets with the
identical velocity, temperature and size. Both the droplet
parcels and the gas phase interact with each other
through drag forces and heat and mass transfer.
Differential equations for the droplet mass, momentum
and temperature are solved. In addition, other spray
phenomena such as droplet-coalescence, -turbulence
interaction, -wall interaction and –breakup are also
modelled. The droplet-breakup model used for this study
is that of Patterson and Reitz [13].
Figure 4. Pressure chamber computational mesh and
spray simulation.

5
 Figure 5. Comparison of simulated and pressure chamber spray penetration: Pchamber = 20 bar, Tchamber = 293 K,
Prail=400bar and Trail=303K.
A comparison of the simulated and photographed spray
results can be seen in Fig. 5. A total of six pairs of images
are presented showing the cone angle and penetration
for one representative jet of the spray. Both the simulated
and photographic images were directly comparable
through the use of a 10-mm square reference grid. A
spray image is shown every 250 microseconds. The lines
at the tip and sides of the sprays had identical
dimensions for both the simulated and photographic
images. One can see that although the slightly non-
symmetric nature of the photographed spray was not
found in simulated spray, general good agreement was
found with regards to both the spray cone angle and
penetration.
TDI ENGINE – The engine numerical simulations were
done from –40° CA BTDC until 40° ATDC. The
calculations were initialized with measured swirl ratio of
2.2 from another study done on a transparent VW TDI
engine [15]. The initial conditions in the combustion were
taken from engine measurements where the pressure
and temperature equaled 9.2 bar and 735K, respectively.
The species in the chamber were initialized to take into
account the 30% EGR set up on the experimental
engine. The injection parameters used for the simulations
were the same as those for the engine measurements
mentioned in the Experimentation section.
6
A view of the computational mesh used for the engine
simulations can be seen in Fig. 6. Note that in the area of
the injector, local mesh refinement is used to improve the
accuracy of the spray modeling. The cell size in the bowl
was 1mm square that resulted in an average mesh size
of 100000 internal cells. The calculation time on a single-
processor workstation which included the compression,
spray and combustion simulation equaled about 40
hours.
Figure 6. Cross-sectional view of the computational
mesh at 10°CA ATDC.
A comparison of the simulated and measured in-cylinder
pressure can be seen in Fig. 7 based on the default
values of the combustion model constants. The
measured pressure curve has a maximum value of about
43 bar. Thereafter, two pressure peaks are found at 5 and
17° ATDC, which indicate combustion occurring after the
pre- and main injections. When considering the simulated
pressure curve, very good agreement is observed from –
40 to –5° CA BTDC. The simulations also show two
peaks smaller in magnitude, however both beginning very
close to the measured start of combustion.
Figure 7. Comparison of simulated and measured in-
cylinder pressure using the default values of
the combustion model constants
(Cmix=20, RSF=1, ISF=1).
Figure 8. Measured and simulated in-cylinder pressure
with and without combustion with default
values of the combustion model constants
(zoom of Fig.7).
The area of combustion in Fig. 7 from 0 to 20 °CA is
shown in more detail in Fig. 8. Here it can be seen that
there is a general under-prediction of the calculated
pressure curve except in a region between 10° and 12°
CA ATDC. Moreover, one can see that there is a
difference of about 0.4 bar (approximately 1%) between
the measured pressure curves with and without
combustion where the unfired pressure curve is lower in
magnitude. An explanation for this discrepancy is that the
combustion chamber gas temperature and pressure
could be influenced by wall heating effects since a unfired
engine would have lower wall temperatures than a fired
engine. In addition, since the fired engine was run with an
7
EGR level of 30%, the chemical composition of the
chamber gases would be in effect different compared to
the unfired engine.
The simulation results based on the default values of the
combustion model constants already showed an
encouraging correlation compared to the measured
pressure curve. However, in order to further test the
model, a parameter study was conducted by changing
the mixing coefficient (Cmix), the Reaction Scaling Factor
(RSF) and the Ignition Scaling Factor (ISF). The mixing
coefficient is a real constant in the model and directly
controls the rate of mixing of the species, i.e. their
conversion from a segregated to a mixed condition. In
addition, Cmix has a strong influence on the overall
combustion reaction rate. The other two parameters
investigated are used for fine-tuning of the model. The
RSF controls the burning velocity and thus the overall
reaction rate. Finally, the ISF tunes the auto-ignition pdf,
effecting the rate of the low-temperature reactions that
lead to auto ignition. The default values for the
parameters are Cmix=20, RSF=1, and ISF=1.
In order to investigate the effects of varying Cmix, three
simulations were performed with Cmix set at 10, 20 and
32; the values of RSF and ISF were left at their default
values of 1. Fig. 9 shows the percentage difference
between the simulated and the measured cylinder
pressure curves as a function of °CA. It can be seen that
combustion begins at about 3° CA ATDC for all the three
Cmix values. For Cmix=10, the pressure is always more
under-predicted than for the case of the other two Cmix
values and has a mean difference of –3.0 %. When
Cmix=32, the mean difference equals –2.2% and has a
higher value of the pressure over the entire 25°CA. The
default value of Cmix=20 is very similar to Cmix=32 with
a mean difference of -2.5%. Thus the higher the value of
Cmix, the smaller was the mean difference between the
simulated and measured pressure.
Figure 9. Percent difference between simulated and
measured combustion chamber pressure for
varying mixing coefficient as a function of
crank angle (RSF=1, ISF=1).
The variation of RSF is shown in Fig. 10. As the RSF
value decreased, the percent difference increased from a
mean difference of –2.5% at RSF=1 to –3.1% at
RSF=0.5. Once again the point of combustion begin at
5°CA ATDC was not affected. Thus the default value of
RSF=1 showed the better fit to the experimental pressure
curve.
Figure 10. Percent difference between simulated and
measured combustion chamber pressure for
varying reaction scaling factor as a function of
crank angle (CMIX=20, ISF=1).
As expected, by changing the ISF, the point of ignition
begin was influenced. The ISF was simulated at three
different values: 0.5, 0.75 and 1.0. In Fig. 11, it can be
clearly seen that the time of ignition begin occurs
progressively later as ISF is decreased; moreover, the
magnitude of the initial pressure peak also becomes
progressively smaller. After the initial point of pre-
injection combustion, the effect of changing ISF becomes
smaller with increasing °CA.
Figure 11. Measured and simulated in-cylinder pressure
with and without combustion as a function of
crank angle for varying ISF values
(CMIX=20, RSF=1).
8
In Fig. 12, it is shown that the percent difference in the
pressure for the different ISF values becomes relatively
similar with increasing °CA where the mean difference
ranges from –2.5 to -2.7%.
Figure 12. Percent difference between simulated and
measured combustion chamber pressure for
varying ignition scaling factor as a function of
crank angle (CMIX=20, RSF=1).
In order to better understand the RTZF model and to
provide ways in which the model could be improved, data
from the literature were analyzed. Direct Numerical
Simulation (DNS) studies [16,17,18] have reported that
the time evolution of the mixture during auto-ignition
strongly depends on the time evolution of the mixture
fraction dissipation rate itself. The mixture fraction
dissipation rate is one of the key quantities of non-
premixed turbulent combustion, where the extent of
mixing between evaporated fuel and oxidiser is usually
measured using a mixture fraction [19]. The control
parameters of a reaction-diffusion layer are: a diffusive
time measured from the diffusive flux of mixture fraction,
used to define the inverse of the scalar dissipation rate,
and a chemical time. Both are retained to build a
Damkohler number useful for characterising various
combustion regimes [20].
DNS results suggest that one important point to
reproduce auto-ignition is to capture the time history of
the mean mixture fraction dissipation rate evaluated
under stoichiometric conditions. Practically speaking,
when all the local characteristic micro-mixing times
(inverse of the scalar dissipation rate) are much smaller
than the local ignition times of the stoichiometric mixture
(or of the most reactive mixture), ignition is more or less
uniformly distributed. Accordingly, when local turbulent
micro-mixing leads to possibilities of non-uniform
ignition, edge-flame combustion involving partially
premixed flames will control the development of the heat
release rate.
In the light of these DNS observations, one possibility to
improve the combustion model, and to mimic these
important features of auto-ignition, would consist of
modifying the calculation of the probability of finding
ignition. Following the work of Ravet and Vervisch [5],
based on an idea first proposed by Borghi [4], a table
look up of ignition time delay could be constructed. The
resulting ignition times would be a function of the mean
temperature, mean species mass fraction and position in
mixture fraction space. Introducing the probability density
distribution of micro-mixing time, the probability of finding
ignition for each possible instantaneous value of the
mixture fraction is then measured from the probability of
having micro-mixing times greater than the ignition time.
A presumed beta-pdf for the mixture fraction could be
used to average over the range of variation of mixture
fraction. The existence of characteristic mixing times
smaller than ignition delay would prevent auto-ignition
and then combustion. However, when ignition prevails
over micro-mixing, combustion would occur. This
modification of the model would lead to a more accurate
description of the first stage of combustion in the engine.
Finally, the ignition table look-up could be implemented
using a detailed chemical mechanism; this would allow
for better accuracy in the determination of the burning
rate.
CONCLUSION
A numerical and experimental study was conducted
investigating the combustion process in a 1.9L TDI Diesel
engine. Simulations and measurements were conducted
in both for the case of a pressure chamber and the
engine. A graphical methodology was used which
matched the simulated spray well with the spray images
taken in the pressure chamber. The novel RTZF flamelet
model was used for the combustion simulations. A
comparison of the calculated and measured in-cylinder
pressure indicated good agreement at partial load
operating conditions with a mean difference between the
simulation and measurement pressure equalling 3%.
Furthermore, suggestions based on Direct Numerical
Simulations from the literature have been proposed how
to improve the auto-ignition model utilized. In conclusion,
this study has shown that the RTZF flamelet model tested
shows encouraging results and thus merits further
development and investigation at other engine operating
conditions.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors would like to thank Arno Homburg and
Reinhard Schulz for their help concerning the pressure
chamber measurements and diagrams. Finally, thanks
are given to Dr. H.-J. Oberg for his useful discussions
during the course of this study.
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