Experimental and numerical investigation of the impact of the pure hydrogen fueling on fuel consumption and NOx emissions in a small DI SI engine

In the last few years, car manufacturers are moving toward electrified powertrains, like Battery Electric Vehicles (BEV) and Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEV), to reduce the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. A promising alternative to BEVs to reduce CO2 emissions, while maintaining an existing and well-developed technology, could be the use of hydrogen for internal combustion engines (ICEs). Particularly, the zero-carbon content of hydrogen allows for guaranteeing very clean combustion and near-zero carbon footprint. Within this context, the present study aims to deeply investigate the effects of pure hydrogen fueling of Spark Ignition (SI) engines, especially on specific fuel consumption and NOx emissions. Particularly, the benefits of pure hydrogen fueling were assessed in a production small Direct Injection (DI) SI engine. The engine is intended to operate in steady state conditions as an Auxiliary Power Unit (APU) for a series hybrid powertrain. The effects of pure hydrogen fueling were investigated at two engine speeds, namely 2000 and 3000 rpm. All tests were carried out at unthrottled conditions and lean mixture. A 1-D engine model was developed within a commercial software. Combustion, heat transfer, and NOx emissions embedded sub-models were tuned based on the experimental data, to accurately reproduce the engine behavior in a wide range of operating conditions. Both experimental and simulation results demonstrated that hydrogen fueling, together with lean mixture operation, allow for significantly improving engine thermal efficiency. The results of 1-D model simulations supported the energy management strategies of the hybrid powertrain in selecting the most suitable ICE operating condition. Particularly, the best engine operating conditions in terms of fuel consumption are achieved at 2500 rpm, with ? = 2.0, while the lowest NOx emissions are reached when ? is increased up to 2.4.