IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/energy/v339y2025ics0360544225045840.html

Effect of high-pressure spray spatiotemporal interaction on combustion and emissions in a large-bore locomotive methanol/diesel dual-fuel engine

Author

Listed:
  • Zhang, Zhi
  • Han, Yiyong
  • Liu, Haifeng
  • Yang, Guofeng
  • Li, Mengfei
  • Ju, Chengyuan
  • Ming, Zhenyang
  • Zhang, Xiaoteng
  • Jin, Chao
  • Yao, Mingfa

Abstract

This study comprehensively investigated the spray spatiotemporal interaction in high-pressure direct-injection methanol/diesel dual-fuel (HPDF) mode for a large-bore locomotive engine, examining its effects on methanol ignition mechanisms, combustion characteristics, thermal efficiency, and emission performance. The results indicate that the spatiotemporal interaction between methanol spray and pilot diesel flames govern methanol ignition modes. Under coaxial injection or minor non-coaxial offset distances, methanol ignites via diesel flame ignition, exhibiting diffusion combustion. As the non-coaxial offset distance increases, the ignition mode transitions to a combination of diesel flame ignition and thermal atmosphere ignition, demonstrating partial premixed and diffusion combustion characteristics. The coaxial injection demonstrates optimal overall performance, followed by non-coaxial injection with moderate offset distances. Adopting an appropriate variable nozzle hole diameter scheme in non-coaxial injection can improve indicated thermal efficiency (ITE) by 0.45 %, achieving comparable ITE, NOx, and HC emissions to coaxial injection. Nevertheless, Soot and CO emissions remain over three and seven times higher, respectively, due to poorer mixture homogeneity. The coaxial D-M (Diesel-Methanol) injection strategy demonstrates superior overall performance relative to the M-D strategy. Increasing methanol injection pressure (MIP) significantly enhances combustion performance and reduces Soot, CO, and HC emissions, albeit with elevated NOx emissions. Ultimately, constrained by the engine's maximum cylinder pressure (Pmax), peak pressure rise rate (PPRR), and Euro V regulations, the HPDF mode achieved a 2.84 % increase in ITE compared to the baseline diesel engine. It also reduced NOx emissions by 8.4 % and significantly lowered Soot and CO by over 97 %, despite a slight increase in HC.

Suggested Citation

  • Zhang, Zhi & Han, Yiyong & Liu, Haifeng & Yang, Guofeng & Li, Mengfei & Ju, Chengyuan & Ming, Zhenyang & Zhang, Xiaoteng & Jin, Chao & Yao, Mingfa, 2025. "Effect of high-pressure spray spatiotemporal interaction on combustion and emissions in a large-bore locomotive methanol/diesel dual-fuel engine," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 339(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:energy:v:339:y:2025:i:c:s0360544225045840
    DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2025.138942
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544225045840
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.energy.2025.138942?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Li, Yaopeng & Li, Hua & Pang, Bin & Liu, Fei & Jia, Ming & Long, Wuqiang & Tian, Jiangping & Guo, Lijun, 2023. "Co-optimization of injection parameters and injector layouts for a methanol/diesel direct dual-fuel stratification (DDFS) engine," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 284(C).
    2. Wang, Bin & Yao, Anren & Yao, Chunde & Chen, Chao & Wang, Hui, 2020. "In-depth comparison between pure diesel and diesel methanol dual fuel combustion mode," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 278(C).
    3. Liu, Jinlong & Dumitrescu, Cosmin E., 2019. "Single and double Wiebe function combustion model for a heavy-duty diesel engine retrofitted to natural-gas spark-ignition," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 248(C), pages 95-103.
    4. Kiouranakis, Konstantinos I. & de Vos, Peter & Zoumpourlos, Konstantinos & Coraddu, Andrea & Geertsma, Rinze, 2025. "Methanol for heavy-duty internal combustion engines: Review of experimental studies and combustion strategies," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 214(C).
    5. Wang, Yifeng & Yao, Mingfa & Li, Tie & Zhang, Weijing & Zheng, Zunqing, 2016. "A parametric study for enabling reactivity controlled compression ignition (RCCI) operation in diesel engines at various engine loads," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 175(C), pages 389-402.
    6. Yang, Yong & Long, Wuqiang & Qian, Yuehua & Dong, Pengbo & Wang, Yang & Cai, Ziao, 2025. "Spatiotemporal regulation of methanol premixed and diffusion Co-combustion for marine methanol/diesel dual fuel engine," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 315(C).
    7. Li, Yuhui & Huang, Yinmin & Chen, Hanyu & Wei, Feng & Zhang, Zunhua & Zhou, Mengni, 2024. "Combustion and emission of diesel/PODE/gasoline blended fuel in a diesel engine that meet the China VI emission standards," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 301(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Tian, Zhi & Feng, Xupeng & Wang, Yang & Zhen, Xudong & Lu, Enshen, 2025. "Research on the substitution rate and main injection timing and ultra-low emission mechanism under diesel-methanol dual-fuel injector controlled by pressure difference," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 335(C).
    2. Pei, Yiqiang & Zhang, Dinghai & An, Yanzhao & Chu, Guoliang & Liu, Haoye & Wang, Zhanguang & Mansour, Mohy Saad & Ojapah, Mohammed, 2025. "Numerical study on the energy conversion of diesel-methanol partially premixed combustion in dual-fuel at DI diesel engine," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 338(C).
    3. Luo, Zunan & Stanislav, Bolonkin & Li, Jingrui & Jing, Haiguo & Xu, Changchun & Chen, Daifen, 2025. "The influence of water addition on the combustion performance and exhaust emissions of methanol/diesel marine direct injection engines," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 339(C).
    4. Tian, Zhi & Feng, Xupeng & Wang, Yang & Zhen, Xudong & Li, Xiaoyan, 2025. "Comparative analysis of combustion and emission characteristics of diesel/alcohol dual-fuel in a pressure-difference controlled same needle injector system with synergistic EGR optimization," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 337(C).
    5. Ma, Yinjie & Zhao, Yuanhao & Yang, Dong & E, Jiaqiang & Zhao, Jialuo & Pan, Mingzhang, 2024. "Parametric study of combustion characteristics of diesel/methanol dual fuel engine using global sensitivity analysis and multi-objective optimization," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 237(PB).
    6. Song, Yue & Zhou, Yu & Li, Xueyu & Zhong, Zhiming & Yan, Huansong & Xu, Zheng & Ding, Shuiting, 2025. "Investigation on cycle modes and energy distribution strategies of a novel combined cycle aviation engine," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 319(C).
    7. Ding, Rui & Li, Yaopeng & Li, Haoran & Duan, Huiquan & Jia, Ming & García, Antonio & Monsalve-Serrano, Javier, 2025. "Experimental optimization toward high efficiency and low emissions in an ammonia-fueled RCCI engine with various reactivity enhancements," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 333(C).
    8. Nikolaos Rizopoulos & Roussos Papagiannakis, 2025. "Comparative Evaluation of the Effect of Exhaust Gas Recirculation Usage on the Performance Characteristics and Emissions of a Natural Gas/Diesel Compression-Ignition Engine Operating at Part-Load Conditions," Energies, MDPI, vol. 18(3), pages 1-31, February.
    9. Navid Kousheshi & Mortaza Yari & Amin Paykani & Ali Saberi Mehr & German F. de la Fuente, 2020. "Effect of Syngas Composition on the Combustion and Emissions Characteristics of a Syngas/Diesel RCCI Engine," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(1), pages 1-19, January.
    10. D.F. Chuahy, Flavio & Kokjohn, Sage L., 2019. "Solid oxide fuel cell and advanced combustion engine combined cycle: A pathway to 70% electrical efficiency," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 235(C), pages 391-408.
    11. Chen, Zhanming & Zhao, Pengyun & Wang, Xiaochen & He, Haibin & Wu, Jie & Chen, Hao, 2026. "An optical study the spray and combustion characteristics of green and renewable ammonia with diesel pilot ignition under dual direct injection," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 256(PG).
    12. Chen, Leiming & Xu, Zhaoping & Liu, Shuangshuang & Liu, Liang, 2022. "Dynamic modeling of a free-piston engine based on combustion parameters prediction," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 249(C).
    13. Yang, Kang & Zhao, Kai & He, Zhixia & Guo, Genmiao & Jin, Yu & Shen, Yuhang & Gao, Zhang & Qi, Haotian, 2025. "Visualization study on the ignition and combustion characteristics of highly reactive fuel under methane atmosphere," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 318(C).
    14. Ahmadi, Rouhollah & Hosseini, S. Mohammad, 2018. "Numerical investigation on adding/substituting hydrogen in the CDC and RCCI combustion in a heavy duty engine," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 213(C), pages 450-468.
    15. Pedrozo, Vinícius B. & Zhao, Hua, 2018. "Improvement in high load ethanol-diesel dual-fuel combustion by Miller cycle and charge air cooling," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 210(C), pages 138-151.
    16. Kim, Seongsu & Kim, Junghwan, 2023. "Assessing fuel economy and NOx emissions of a hydrogen engine bus using neural network algorithms for urban mass transit systems," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 275(C).
    17. Li, Zilong & Zhang, Yaoyuan & Huang, Guan & Zhao, Wenbin & He, Zhuoyao & Qian, Yong & Lu, Xingcai, 2020. "Control of intake boundary conditions for enabling clean combustion in variable engine conditions under intelligent charge compression ignition (ICCI) mode," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 274(C).
    18. Zhang, Xinyue & Song, Enzhe & Yan, Yongan & Han, Zhongyi & Zhao, Xuchun, 2025. "Emission-constrained LPV-MPC control for marine RCCI engines based on hybrid grey-box modeling," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 338(C).
    19. Pachiannan, Tamilselvan & Zhong, Wenjun & Rajkumar, Sundararajan & He, Zhixia & Leng, Xianying & Wang, Qian, 2019. "A literature review of fuel effects on performance and emission characteristics of low-temperature combustion strategies," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 251(C), pages 1-1.
    20. Giglio, Veniero & di Gaeta, Alessandro, 2020. "Novel regression models for wiebe parameters aimed at 0D combustion simulation in spark ignition engines," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 210(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:energy:v:339:y:2025:i:c:s0360544225045840. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/energy .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.