Modeling virtual fuels for HCCI-like internal combustion engines development

Efficiency and cleanliness of internal combustion engines can be easily improved with better after-design agents like cleaner lubricants and fuels, tribo-coatings and innovative materials or complex exhaust after-treatment systems, but it is above all a matter of well-planned design from the beginning of engine development itself. The rush for the zero-emission vehicle sets on the table the old chimaera of automotive engineers: the HCCI combustion engine. This particular engine has very high efficiency and produces neither PM nor NOx but, however, for its development, it cannot be simulated trustfully and completely with current virtual tools yet (because of the complexity of that kind of combustion) nor tested on real benches (because of the that kind of combustion is still hard to control). Supported by QuickSim©, a Virtual Engine (VE) used in FKFS/IVK for series/motorsport/educational purposes, a better description of the combustion characteristics of gasoline surrogates has been developed by means of Virtual Reactors (VR), as far as flame speed and ignition point are concerned, and the results are presented in this work, as extract from the PhD final work of the author. This way, innovative combustions can be investigated and developed involving also unconventional fuels and following operations at real test benches where slight differences among traditional gasolines do affect tests results.