Research Projects

Hydrogen is an attractive zero carbon energy carrier that can become the energy source of the future in industrial, heating and propulsion applications where electrification is difficult to achieve. Heavy road, rail and maritime transportation technologies (like heavy trucks, cargo trains and ships) are particularly attractive in this regard as using EV battery backs are likely to incur high weight penalties for such high brake horsepower requirements. Thus, CI engines running primarily on zero carbon fuels like Hydrogen could provide an attractive and technologically simpler solution to decarbonize the heavy-duty transportation sector. However, storage of compressed hydrogen in sufficient amounts in a safe manner is a significant challenge. In contrast, a hydrogen carrier like Ammonia (NH3), a dense gas with propane-like properties would be significantly easier to store and transport and could be a simple like-for-like replacement of the current CNG-Diesel dual fuel CI engine systems. Our work seeks to establish the feasibility of Ammonia-Diesel dual fuel CI engines where Ammonia replaces Methane (ie Natural Gas) as the low-reactivity fuel in the combustion chamber. Scientific Objectives:- i) Development of a well-validated and compact chemical kinetic combustion model that can predict the ignition, combustion, extinction and emission properties of ammonia-methane-diesel ternary fuel blends using fundamental speciation and flame speed studies in a laminar flat flame burner facility ii) Development and validation of a CFD model of a dual injection CI engine combustion for various injection timings, load percentages and ternary fuel blend ratios in order to optimize the engine for efficient and low emission operation. The validation tests will be run in an in-house CI engine test bed while the simulations will be run in a commercial CFD software using the validated chemical kinetic mechanism and a spray model. Significance:- A successful demonstration would pave the way for a low carbon heavy transportation infrastructure based on renewable hydrogen as the primary energy source. The envisaged hydrogen economy will begin with production of hydrogen from renewable electricity, the conversion of green hydrogen into green ammonia through the Haber-Bosch process followed by the transport, storage and utilization of green ammonia in dual fuel CI engines in ships, buses, trucks and trains. Future work will also look at the replacement of diesel with biodiesel in order to achieve complete carbon neutrality.