The effects of diesel-OME1 blended fuel on combustion characteristics of a heavy-duty compression ignition engine by a numerical study

Diesel engines are playing an important role in the transportation system and regardless to their acceptable efficiency (near 40 %), the main problems are the amounts of CO2 and soot production of these engines. In this research, Oxymethylene ether is used as a blend with diesel by a numerical study, and engine performance, fuel economy, and emission analyses have been investigated. The OM355 engine with Euro II emission standard is selected as the base engine and the percentages of Soot, NOx, CO2, flame speed, flame surface density, brake specific fuel consumption, specific power, and specific torque has been studied from 0 to 60% of diesel-OME1 compounds. Overall results of this numerical investigation indicate that OME1 can be a suitable component due to positive effects on the exhaust emissions. Initial estimates show that engine soot and NOx emissions can be reduced more than 80% and CO2 also near to 66% reduced compared to pure paraffinic diesel. In fact, due to a lower combustion temperature of OME1, soot and NOx emissions would barely produce due to their formation limit temperature, hence the engine operates much cleaner. The main disadvantage of this synthetic fuel is the low amount of heating value and lower cetane number in comparison to diesel, which in turn leads to a performance loss and a higher amount of fuel consumption for producing a specific amount of power and torque output.