Computational Study on the Impact of Gasoline-Ethanol Blending on Autoignition and Soot/NOx Emissions under Gasoline Compression Ignition Conditions

Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations of a single-cylinder gasoline compression ignition engine are performed to investigate the impact of gasoline-ethanol blending on autoignition, nitrogen oxide (NOx), and soot emissions under low-load conditions. A four-component toluene primary reference fuel (TPRF) + ethanol (ETPRF) surrogate (with 10% ethanol by volume; E10) is employed to represent the test gasoline (RD5-87). A 3D engine CFD model employing finite-rate chemistry with a skeletal kinetic mechanism, adaptive mesh refinement (AMR), and hybrid method of moments (HMOM) is adopted to capture in-cylinder combustion and soot/NOx emissions. The engine CFD model is validated against experimental data for three gasoline-ethanol blends: E10, E30 and E100, with varying ethanol content by volume. Model validation is carried out for multiple start-of-injection (SOI) timings (-21, -27, -36, and -45 crank angle degrees after top-dead-center (aTDC)) with respect to in-cylinder pressure, heat release rate, combustion phasing, NOx and soot emissions. For late injection timings (-21 and -27oaTDC), E30 yields higher soot than E10; while the trend reverses for early injection cases (-36 and -45oaTDC). E100 yields the lowest amount of soot among all fuels irrespective of SOI timing. Further, E10 shows a non-monotonic trend in soot emissions with SOI timing: SOI-36>SOI-45>SOI-21>SOI-27, while soot emissions from E30 exhibit monotonic decrease with advancing SOI timing. NOx emissions from various fuels follow a trend of E10>E30>E100. NOx emissions increase as SOI timing is advanced for all fuels, with an anomaly for E10 and E100 where NOx decreases when SOI is advanced beyond -36oaTDC. Detailed analysis of the numerical results is performed to investigate the emission trends and elucidate the impact of chemical composition and physical properties on autoignition and emissions characteristics.