Numerical investigation of soot mass concentration in compression ignition diesel engine

Soot particles, carbon monoxide, oxides of nitrogen, oxides of sulphur, and hydrocarbon are the emissions produced from diesel engine combustion. Those emissions species are undesirable since they give detrimental impacts to the atmosphere and human well-being. Several numerical investigations conducted by various researchers provide different soot mass concentration values. As an alternative, this study was carried out to investigate the soot mass level produced by a single cylinder diesel engine, using a commercial multidimensional computational fluid dynamic software. The result obtained from simulation effort was then validated by experimental testing during the same engine condition (engine speed of 1600 rpm at 40% load). Soot mass predicted by simulation gives a value of 3.43 x 10(-8) kg at end of simulation, while measured soot mass via experimental testing gives a value of 1.52 x 10(-8) kg. Both results differ by 56% thus indicating that the simple soot model applied was not sufficient to represent the actual soot mass emitted through exhaust manifold. This leads to the conclusion that more detailed soot model is needed to make the simulation results more meaningful and comparable to the experimental testing.