Numerical study on mixture formation characteristics in a direct-injection hydrogen engine

Numerical modeling of direct hydrogen injection and in-cylinder mixture formation is performed in this paper. Numerical studies on direct-injection hydrogen engines are very limited due mainly to the complexity in modeling the physical phenomena associated with the high-velocity gas jet. The high injection pressure will result in a choked flow and develop an underexpanded jet at the nozzle exit, which consists of oblique and normal shock waves. A robust numerical model and a very fine computational mesh are required to model these phenomena. However, a very fine mesh may not be feasible in the practical engine application. Therefore, in this study a gas jet injection model is implemented into a multidimensional engine simulation code to simulate the hydrogen injection process, starting from the downstream of the nozzle. The fuel jet is modeled on a coarse mesh using an adaptive mesh refinement algorithm in order to accurately capture the gas jet structure. The model is validated using experimental and theoretical results on the penetrations of single and multiple jets. The model is able to successfully predict the gas jet penetration and structure using a coarse mesh with reasonable computer time. The model is further applied to simulate a direct-injection hydrogen engine to study the effects of injection parameters on the in-cylinder mixture characteristics. The effects of the start of fuel injection, orientation of the jets, and the injector location on the mixture quality are determined. Results show that the hydrogen jets impinge on the walls soon after injection due to the high velocity of the gas jet. The mixing of hydrogen and air takes place mainly after wall impingement. The optimal injection parameters are selected based on the homogeneity of the in-cylinder mixture. It is found that early injection can result in more homogeneous mixture at the time of ignition. Results also indicate that it is more favorable to position the injector near the intake valve to take advantage of the interaction of hydrogen jets and the intake flow to create a more homogeneous mixture.