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The influence of varying hydrogen-methane-diesel mixture ratio on the

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 Fuel 190 (2017) 281–291

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Fuel
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/fuel

The influence of varying hydrogen-methane-diesel mixture ratio on the

combustion characteristics and emissions of a direct injection diesel
engine
Mohd Radzi Abu Mansor a,b, Mahmood Merzah Abbood a, Taib Iskandar Mohamad b,c,⇑
a
Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600 Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia
b
Centre for Automotive Research, Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600 Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia
c
Yanbu Research Center, Royal Commission of Yanbu Colleges and Institute, Department of Mechanical Engineering Technology, Yanbu Industrial College, P.O. Box 30436, 41912 Yanbu
Alsinaiyah, Saudi Arabia

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The influence of diesel enrichment with hydrogen and methane (H2/CH4) blend in a direct injection com-
Received 11 July 2016 pression ignition (DICI) engine were computationally studied. Numerical results by using ANSYS FLUENT
Received in revised form 26 September software are obtained for 40%, 50% and 60% diesel (by mass) with remaining fraction by various blend of
2016
H2/CH4 (0%/100%, 30%/70%, 50%/50%, 70%/30% and 100%/0%). Combustion analysis are presented as pres-
Accepted 2 November 2016
Available online 10 November 2016
sure and temperature behavior as well as rate of heat release. Increasing diesel fraction reduces peak
cylinder pressure but shorten ignition delay. Methane-only presence in diesel mix increases ignition
delay but as hydrogen content builds up, ignition delay is shorten and peak pressure increase linearly
Keywords:
CFD simulation
and significantly. Similarly, in-cylinder temperature increases with gaseous fuel presence and directly
Direct injection compression ignition engine influenced by hydrogen portion. Highest in-cylinder pressure and temperature are found with
Multi-fuel hydrogen-diesel mix at 40% diesel. Heat release rate (HRR) is highly influence by gas fuel presence.
HCNG Peak HRR increases with decreasing diesel fraction but the behavior is less predictable compared to pres-
Combustion and emissions sure and temperature behavior. Elevated combustion temperature due to increasing hydrogen percent-
age in the mixture is proportionally evidence in NO formation. While increasing diesel fraction
suppresses NO formation, increasing hydrogen content linearly increase NO. Formation of CO is mainly
dominated by methane content but increasing hydrogen fraction reduces CO to the level similar to diesel
only operation. Formation of NO at different mixture ratio were spatially illustrated showing direct rela-
tion to higher temperature spots. Based on the pressure and HRR analysis, it can be inferred that in all
fractions of diesel, the mixture of 70% hydrogen and 30% methane yield optimal balance between com-
bustion, resulting cylinder work and emission characteristics. However, to maintain low combustion
temperature, higher diesel content are preferable in order to gain higher thermal efficiency by avoiding
excessive heat loss.
Ó 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction significant challenge to diesel combustion [2]. Among others,

Ground transportation is the main consumer of diesel and gaso-
line fuels and is a significant contributor to environmental pollu-
tion [1]. Diesel is particularly used in compression ignition (CI)
engine with benefit from higher fuel efficiency and lower emis-
sions of carbon dioxide (CO2) compared to gasoline. However, par-
ticulate matter (PM) and nitric oxides (NOx) emissions pose
⇑ Corresponding author at: Centre for Automotive Research, Faculty of Engineer-
ing and Built Environment, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600 Bangi, Selangor,
Malaysia.
E-mail address: mohamadt@rcyci.edu.sa (T.I. Mohamad).
selective catalytic reduction (SCR) as well as diesel particulate filter
(DPF) have been installed so engines can meet ever stringent emis-
sion regulations. Unfortunately, the dependence on costly metal
catalysts and high expenses of post-treatment devices limited their
use. Other compromised strategies including ‘‘dual-fuel diesel
engine” have been developed [3]. A comparative study on an
engine powered with both pure diesel and biodiesel revealed that
the torque and power outputs of biodiesel fuel driven engine are
usually lower than those operate with pure diesel [4].
Natural gas (NG) is capable to forming suitable blends to oper-
ate with diesel in CI engines. The high knock resistance, thus high
octane number of NG (RON > 120) allows engines to operate at

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.fuel.2016.11.010
0016-2361/Ó 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
282 M.R.A. Mansor et al. / Fuel 190 (2017) 281–291
higher compression ratio leading to higher thermal efficiency. Con-
verting any diesel or petrol engine to bi-fuel or dual-fuel with NG
operation require minimal mechanical alterations and clearly evi-
dent itself in the steady rise of natural gas vehicles resulting from
conversion into CNG engines [5–16]. Studies on the operational
features of diesel-NG dual-fuel single-cylinder diesel engine dis-
covered the diesel-NG dual-fuel operation results in longer ignition
delay than diesel-only operation [17,18]. In-cylinder pressure and
maximum heat release rate are lower at part loads as NG contents
increased. Conversely, they are enhanced at high load. The use of
diesel-NG dual-fuel engine displayed remarkable increase of CO,
HC and PM emissions [19]. However, CO emission can be reduced
through the intake of pre-heated air and enhanced quantity of pilot
diesel fuel as well as a slight decrease of NO emission is noticed
[20]. When a dual-fuel (NG-diesel) engine is operated at various
compression ratio and engine speed, increased thermal efficiency
and reduced CO emission were discovered at increased compres-
sion ratio and elevated engine speed, but thermal efficiency
appeared poor at low engine load [21].
Hydrogen is proven to be very efficient and clean fuel [1]. It pos-
sesses high specific energy, low ignition energy requirement, supe-
rior flame speed and broad flammability range. However, engine
run solely with hydrogen requires expensive hydrogen generation
which limits its use. Blending hydrogen with other fuels seems to
be more practical to gain its advantages. An investigation on the
combustion behavior of a diesel-hydrogen engine revealed optimal
peak in-cylinder pressure enhancement at 70% load, which is pre-
requisite for safer and durable engine performances [22]. Also peak
heat release rate coupled with CO and smoke emissions reduction
were recorded [23]. The combustion efficiency is determined to be
relatively lower with high fraction of hydrogen. The efficiency of
hydrogen combustion is found to depend on the engine load and
it is suggested that in order to obtain superior energy conversion
efficiency, hydrogen should be inserted at higher load [24].
Increasing hydrogen content reduces emissions of HC, CO, CO2
and PM almost linearly [22,25]. On the other hand, NOx emission
is decreased at lower part loads but increased at high loads [26].
High combustion temperature which enhanced NOx formation
due to high combustion rate of hydrogen is the reason. Thermal
efficiency of an engine is decided by its load, speed and the amount
of incorporated hydrogen [27]. Increasing hydrogen content tend
to reduce thermal efficiency while increase specific fuel consump-
tion [28].
The ignition processes of spark-ignition engine containing NG-
hydrogen blend as fuel are extensively analyzed and certain limita-
tions associated with the efficiency and emissions are removed
[29]. Ignition delay reduction has been achieved with adjustment
of partial oxygen pressure in air [30]. This influences the normal
diesel combustion. Hydrogen is use to expand methane lean-
limit of and also enhance the combustion rate [31]. Increasing
hydrogen fraction in a hydrogen-methane engine linearly
enhances the laminar flame speed of the mixture [32]. The advan-
tage of mixing hydrogen with was also found to shorten ignition
delay [33].
Lately, the notion of tri-fuel engines is introduced to extend the
performance of conventional dual-fuel engines. Theoretical and
experimental investigation on a diesel engine performance mixed
with LPG-hydrogen has been carried out, showing significant effi-
ciency improvement particularly at low and part loads when
hydrogen is introduced to the LPG-diesel mix [34]. Blending of
hydrogen with methane is thought as alternative route for com-
bustion improvement which could lead to higher flexibility of die-
sel engine operations. However, in the hydrogen-diesel
combustion, combustion instability were found at high engine
loads with some knocking effect due to inherit hydrogen properties
(high diffusivity, low energy required for ignition and superior
burning rate). Addition of methane makes combustion of hydrogen
more stable by avoiding unusual ignition. Nevertheless, methane
presence reduces the combustion temperature of hydrogen and
suppresses NOx emission [35]. A study on various energy content
ratio of hydrogen-methane-diesel blend on the performance on a
CI engine revealed that medium ratio of gas fuel in the mix is more
beneficial [36].
Despite the introduction of several alternative fuels, petroleum-
based fuel still remains economic and practical. However, rapid
industrialization and motorization of modern world poses serious
concern regarding these conventional fuels mainly for two reasons:
non-renewability and also environmental worsening. Intensive
efforts must be dedicated to lessen the use of fossil fuels in trans-
port vehicle. In this view, we computationally investigated the
effect of tri-fuel direct injection CI engine operation with
hydrogen-methane mix with diesel in a broader mixture ratio
range. The focus were on the combustion and emission character-
istics. From the previous works described in the preceding para-
graphs, the benefits of adding methane and hydrogen onboard
vehicle in terms of reducing emissions and long-term fossil fuel
sustainability can surpass the concerns of adding weight, volume
and cost to vehicles provided that the system is calibrated accord-
ingly. This tri-fuel application is more practical with heavy duty
engines and vehicles.
2. Numerical model setup
The investigation was performed using ANSYS-Fluent 14.5. The
geometry of the combustion chamber was prepared in ANSYS-
Design Modular. The mathematical model in CFD starts with con-
struction of computational domain. The simulation starts at
53°CA ABDC and ends at 53°CA BBDC (IVC ? EVO) i.e. only part
of compression and expansion strokes were considered. Computa-
tional domain consists of combustion chamber geometry without
any valves or ports. The injector is inclined at 15° to vertical. This
non-uniformity required a full 360° model. The combustion cham-
ber is bowl-in-piston type. Table 1 summarizes key parameters of
the engine under investigation. The cylinder is divided into two
zones: zone 1 consists of clearance volume and swept volume
and zone 2 have piston bowl volume. Zone 1 is meshed with
quad-mesh while zone 2 which is meshed with tri-mesh. The
meshed domain consist of 80,020 elements.
In FLUENT, the mixing and transport of chemical species are
simulated by solving the equations of conservation which include
diffusion, convection and reaction sources of every individual spe-
cies. Reactions occurring was used to model multi chemical reac-
tions. Finite-Rate/Eddy-Dissipation model was used to simulate
the turbulent species transport combustion [37]. 1-step and 4-
step chemical reactions were adopted in combustion process. In
the 1-step reaction, combustion of 5 species (CH4, CO2, H2O, O2
and N2) refer to Westbrook and Dryer global chemical kinetics
scheme, while in the 4-step reaction, combustion of 7 species
Table 1
Key parameters of the single-cylinder Yanmar L100AE-D engine.
Engine parameter Value Unit
Bore 86 mm
Stroke 70 mm
Displacement volume 406 cm3
Compression ratio 19.3:1 –
Intake valve open-IVO 20 BTDC
Intake valve close-IVC 53 ABDC
Exhaust valve open-EVO 53 BBDC
Exhaust valve close-EVC 20 ATDC
Maximum power output (3600 rpm) 7.4 kW
 M.R.A. Mansor et al. / Fuel 190 (2017) 281–291 283

(CH4, CO2, H2O, O2, CO, H2 and N2) refer to Jones and Lindstedt
reduced chemical kinetics [38]. N2 are treated as inert in both
cases. Model modifications are required to simulate dual and tri
fuel. Combustion starts with diesel auto-ignition. For solution ini-
tialization, FLUENT sets 0.01 as product mass fractions, which
was sufficient to generate reactions. The mole fraction of species
m, Ym for every species is determined by solving convection–diffu-
sion relation given by [39],
@ðqY m Þ
þ rðqtY M Þ ¼ rJ m þ Rm þ Sm
@t
where R is the net rate of production, and S is the rate of formation.
This equation is solved for N  1 species (N is the number of species
in fluid phase). For primary break-up, model used for the modeling
of injection and a wave model is employed for secondary break-up
event [40]. The droplet particle type is used for pure diesel fuel. In
all cases, constant B0 and B1 for the wave model are fixed at 0.61
and 5, respectively. The present value of B1 made reasonably good
prediction on the magnitude and timing of peak pressure. The
multi-body and multi-dimensional collisions are modeled with
stochastic collision–coalescence. In-cylinder turbulence is simu-
lated with RNG k-e model, while combustion simulation adopted
finite rate or eddy dissipation model. Reaction rates are controlled
by the turbulence, thus avoiding expensive Arrhenius chemical
kinetic [41]. Therefore, a single step reaction mechanism needs to
be adopted. It is assumed that all hydrogen is completely burnt pro-
ducing water vapor and combustion products are CO2, CO and H2O
[42]. Hardenburg auto-ignition model was used as it is most suit-
able for direct injection diesel engine combustion simulation [43].
Eq. (2) gives the transport relation of species, Yig.


@ qY ig lt
þ r  ðqmY ig Þ ¼ r  rY ig þ qSig
@t Sct
Ignition delay (sid ) calculation is described in Eq. (3).
! baseline case is a lean mixture with equivalence ratio of 0.8. Add-


ep 
C 1 þ 0:22Sp 1 1 21:2
sid ¼ exp Ea  þ
6N RT 17; 190 p  12:4
C1 is set to be 0.36 and N is engine speed in rpm. Ea represents
effective activation energy while ep is exponent of pressure.
The boundary conditions are based on the test engine running
at 1500 rpm and at full load with compression ratio (CR) of 19.3.
Following the experimental study of by Adnan et al. the values of
initial temperature and pressure are selected, where the wall tem-
perature measurement was not indicated [44]. Therefore, the wall
temperature is maintained to be at the initial in-cylinder mixture
temperature at 380 K. The injector discharges fuel at a rate of
3.852 kg/h, starting at 13°CA BTDC and ending at 0°CA TDC. Fuel
temperature is set as 341 K. Injector nozzle diameter is 0.22 mm
with spray cone angle fixed at 15°.
The blend of methane and hydrogen is defined by mass fraction
of the two representative species. Calculations started at 53° ABDC
(when the intake valve is closed) and finished at 53° ATDC (when
the exhaust valve is open). This covers the compression stroke, fuel
ð1Þ injection process, combustion process, and power stroke. The ini-
tial conditions are set at 1.05 bar and 380 K respectively.
For emission modeling, it is assumed that the concentration of
CO and NO emerge from carbon dioxide dissociation and extended
Zeldovich mechanisms [45]. CO emission is modeled to achieve
complete mass fraction of every species from the chemical reac-
tion. The values are maintained for all time steps. Conversely, NO
is generated during the ignition process and formation rate is
highly dependent to combustion temperature.
Diesel is injected at 190 bar while gaseous fuels are modeled as
induction through the air intake manifold at pressure slightly
above atmospheric. Diesel acts as primary fuel and combustion is
controlled by the incorporation of HCNG. CNG is modeled as pure
methane (CH4). To determine the intake charge condition, the
equivalence ratio of the premixed air-gas fuel mixture and the
overall equivalence ratio are computed [32]. The equivalence ratio
for the blend is calculated using the expression,
mair
k¼  ð4Þ
mD  AFRDðstÞ þ mG  AFRGðstÞ
where mair, mD and mG are the mass flow rates of air, diesel and gas-
eous fuel in (kg/h), AFRDðstÞ and AFRGðstÞ are the stoichiometric air-
ð2Þ fuel ratio of diesel and gaseous fuels which are listed in Table 2 [32].
In Table 3, the equivalence ratio of different mix of diesel-
methane-hydrogen blends are calculated based on Eq. (4). The
ing methane and hydrogen changes the values to be richer up to
ð3Þ 0.953 at 50% hydrogen and 50% methane with 40% diesel. To fur-
ther described the effects of varying mixture ratio by mass, Fig. 1
shows the normalized energy content based on the equivalence
ratio shown in Table 3. Adding gaseous fuels to the mixture in mass
basis has significant effect on the energy content. As hydrogen has
the highest specific energy (80 MJ/kg), followed by methane
(50 MJ/kg), the increase in hydrogen content increases energy con-
tent more significantly. With baseline case of 100% diesel operation
equals to 1 as normalized energy content, maximum increase in

Table 2
Properties of various gaseous fuels (20 °C, 1 bar).

Diesel-CH4 H30-M 70 H 50-M50 H70-M30 Diesel-H2

Density (kg/m3) 0.65 0.48 0.37 0.25 0.0837
LHV (MJ/Kg) 50.02 53.57 57.79 65.81 119.93
Stoichiometric AFR (kg air/kg fuel) 17.25 22.39 25.82 29.25 34.39
Flammability limits (vol% in air) 5.0–15.0 – – – 4.0–75.0
Flammability limits (AFR) 11.2–37.7 – – – 5.1–369.9
Thermal conductivity ð102 W=mKÞ 2.42 – – – 4.97
Laminar burning velocity (m/s) 0.27 – – – 28
Auto ignition temperature (K) 813 – – – 858

Table 3
Cylinder mixture equivalent ratio.

Substitution ratio Baseline Diesel-CH4 H30-M70 H50-M50 H70-M30 Diesel-H2

40% diesel 0.8 0.867 0.938 0.953 0.951 0.887
50% diesel 0.8 0.855 0.91 0.928 0.918 0.87
60% diesel 0.8 0.845 0.892 0.904 0.898 0.858
284 M.R.A. Mansor et al. / Fuel 190 (2017) 281–291

Fig. 1. Normalized energy content.

energy of 65% was found at 40% diesel with 60% hydrogen by mass.
The lowest is found in the 60% diesel and 40% methane mix where
energy content increases by 14%. The average energy content
increase across all mixture ratios is 45%. Energy content almost lin-
early increased with the increase of gaseous fuel in the mixture.
ical species considered for the CFD calculation are O2, CO2, H2O, N2,
H2, CO and NO in which the natural gas is 100% methane (CH4)
[49].
3.1. Grid dependency

3. Reaction mechanism
The eddy break up (EBU) is use as the basis of combustion mod-
eling. Diesel combustion involves huge number of chemical species
and reaction steps, which mechanism has been devised, based on
the reduced alkanes combustion mechanism of Jones and Lindstedt
[46]. Diesel (C12H23) reaction involves four global reaction
sequences described by Eqs. (5–8).
C12 H23 þ 6O2 ! 12CO þ 11:5H2
Grid dependency test was carried out using the medium mesh
configuration (80,020 cells) and a refined mesh (99,182 cells).
Results show that the finer mesh did not give any noticeable differ-
ence in in-cylinder pressure as results shown in Fig. 2. However,
the CPU costs are nearly tripled in the case of the refined mesh.
ð5Þ

C12 H23 þ 12H2 ! 12CO þ 23:5H2 ð6Þ

H2 þ 0:5O2 $ H2 O ð7Þ

CO þ H2 O $ CO2 þ H2 ð8Þ
Methane and reaction mechanism involve the three global reac-
tion steps and The CNG combustion is approximated by a 100%
methane oxidation [47].
H2 þ 0:5O2 ! H2 O ð9Þ
Fig. 2. In-cylinder pressure for typical grid dependency test.

CH4 þ 0:5O2 ! CO þ 2H2 ð10Þ

CO þ 0:5O2 ! CO2 ð11Þ

Hydrogen and reaction mechanism involve one global reaction
step [39].
H2 þ 0:5O2 ! H2 O ð12Þ
It is assumed that the mixtures obey the ideal gas law. The com-
putation of the thermal conductivity, viscosity as well as the speci-
fic heat of the mixture as functions of temperature are all based on
the properties of each of the species. It is further assumed that the
mass fractions of the combustion products followed both the local
and the instantaneous thermodynamic equilibrium values. The
pressure, temperature, and the equivalence ratio are strongly influ-
enced the equilibrium composition of the cylinder [48]. The chem- Fig. 3. Simulation validation of cylinder pressure at 1500 rpm with 100% diesel.
 M.R.A. Mansor et al. / Fuel 190 (2017) 281–291 285

Therefore, the medium mesh is sufficient to obtain the numerical sel operation, the peak in-cylinder pressure is enhanced from 5.55
stability and accuracy for the present in-cylinder flow analysis. up to 10.52 MPa (89.5% increase) as the fractions of hydrogen
The cylinder pressure results at 1500 rpm obtained computation- increase in the blends. For the 50% diesel operation, in-cylinder
ally were compared with the experimental results by Taghavifar peak pressure increase from 5.55 MPa up to 9.99 MPa (80%
el al. [50]. Fig. 3 exhibits the close correspondence between com-
putational and experimental results. Maximum pressure difference
between the computation and experimentation was 7.06%. The
average discrepancies was within less than 1% with that of exper-
imental data.

4. Results and discussion

Computational analysis were performed on a tri-fuel engine

fueled with various mix of diesel, hydrogen and methane at
1500 rpm. The equivalence ratio of cylinder mixture were main-
tained at a lean range between 0.8 and 0.953. Results obtained
for combustion and emission characteristics are presented in the
forms of cylinder pressure, cylinder temperature, heat release rate,
NO emission and CO emission at crank angle range of 340–400°CA.

4.1. In-cylinder pressure

Fig. 4 shows the in-cylinder pressure for 40%, 50% and 60% die- Fig. 5. Peak in-cylinder pressure variation against different diesel-hydrogen-
methane mixture blend.
sel added with various mix of hydrogen and methane. For 40% die-

Fig. 4. In-cylinder pressure with various diesel content. Fig. 6. In-cylinder temperature with various diesel content.
286 M.R.A. Mansor et al. / Fuel 190 (2017) 281–291
increase). For 60% diesel operation, the peak in-cylinder pressure
increased from 5.55 up to 9.39 MPa (69.2% increase). It is obvious
that increasing hydrogen fraction the fuel blend results in the
increase of in-cylinder pressure and also lead to advancing the
occurrence of peak pressure. On the other hand, as the fraction of
diesel increases, the peak in-cylinder pressure decreases. Methane
only addition to diesel increases ignition because of high ignition
energy of methane compared to diesel. However, as the presence
of hydrogen increase in the mixture, ignition delays are shorten
to the value lower than diesel alone. Fig. 5 sums up the effects of
different blend on in-cylinder peak pressure. Enhancement of
Fig. 7. Peak in-cylinder temperature variation against different diesel-hydrogen-
methane mixture blend.
Fig. 8. In-cylinder temperature distribution at 20°ATDC.
cylinder pressure in the presence of hydrogen is due to high speci-
fic energy content and significantly faster flame.
Hydrogen combustion generally intensifies diesel burning rate
when mixed together [51]. The extensive pre-mixed combustion
stage signifies that the hydrogen combustion occurs during the
diesel premixed combustion phase. Consequently, a longer com-
bustion period premixed and shorter diffusion combustion phase
is achieved. A rapid drop in ignition delay for diesel-H2 combustion
is observed which agreed with previous work by Szwaja and Grab-
Rogalinski [52]. The observation of shortened ignition delay in the
present study is explained via two possible mechanisms. First,
auto-ignition of hydrogen under extreme conditions or pre-
ignition of hydrogen by the hot spot surface might occur [53]. Sec-
ond, a large amount of hydrogen addition probably modifies the
diesel oxidation chemistry and ignition delay that would accord-
ingly increase at high temperature as reported previously [54].
As observed in the diesel-CH4 combustion, the increase in peak
in-cylinder pressure was far lower than those of diesel-hydrogen
mix. In this case, diesel imparts the ignition source and the subse-
quent flame propagation relies on combustion of the pre-mixed
gaseous fuel-air mixture. Another important cause for this is the
difference in flame propagation speeds between hydrogen and
methane. Methane having much lower flame propagation speed
leads to reduced effect on in-cylinder pressure and consequently
the heat release rate. The longer CH4 ignition delay is found to
affect the initial stage of pressure rise in all cases.
4.2. In-cylinder temperature
Fig. 6 shows the in-cylinder temperature for the same operating
regions and mixture blend described. In-cylinder temperature is
 M.R.A. Mansor et al. / Fuel 190 (2017) 281–291
enhanced with the presence of each gaseous fuel and is more
apparent with higher hydrogen fraction. The peak in-cylinder tem-
perature with 40% diesel were found to increase from 1220 K to
2095 K (71.7% increase) and 2583 K (112% increase) with the incor-
poration of CH4 and H2, respectively. At 50% diesel operation, the
peak in-cylinder temperature begins to exceed that of diesel fuel
operation from 1220 K to 1956 K (60.3% increase), and 2357 K
(107% increase) for CH4 and H2 respectively. And with 60% diesel
in the mix, peak temperature increased from 1220 K to 1814 K
(48.6% increase), 2144 K (75.7% increase) for CH4 and H2, respec-
tively. It was also noted that the higher percentage of diesel in
the fuel mix reduces peak in-cylinder temperature which is mainly
due to lower flame temperature of diesel combustion.
Fig. 7 depicts the effect of different mixture blends on the in-
cylinder temperature. The difference in the combustion of diesel-
H2 and diesel-CH4, under the same energy substitution ratio, is lar-
gely because of different flame propagation speeds of hydrogen
and methane. The flame propagation speed of methane is much
lower, leading to its smaller impact on in-cylinder pressure and
temperature rate. In addition, for diesel-CH4, longer ignition delay
is observed at all engine operation conditions. The combustion of
low hydrogen content diesel-H2CH4 is observed to be near to that
of diesel-CH4, similar to results by Tunesta, therefore the in-
Fig. 9. Heat release rate with various diesel content.
287
cylinder temperature at 1500 rpm increase almost linearly with
hydrogen fraction in methane [31]. For diesel-H70-M30, compared
with diesel fuel operation, the peak in-cylinder temperature is
2439 K and compared with diesel-CH4 operation, the correspond-
ing increases is 343 K. The advantage with methane presence is
to improve hydrogen combustion by avoiding uncontrolled com-
bustion, such as the sharp increase of peak in-cylinder pressure
and temperature. Fig. 8 shows the temperature contours of differ-
ent blends under engine speeds of 1500 rpm at 380°CA (20°ATDC).
Higher hydrogen content resulted in bigger fraction of higher tem-
perature concentration zone (red). This is further extended
towards the squish zone of a cylinder. Similarly but at reduced
magnitude, diesel–methane combustion achieved higher tempera-
ture compare to the diesel fuel combustion engine.
4.3. Heat release rate
Heat release rate (HRR) is a better presentation of combustion
behavior when combined with pressure, temperature and emission
data. Fig. 9 shows the trend of heat released in the engine when
various mix of gaseous fuels blend with 40% (up to 800% increase),
50% (up to 700% increase) and 60% (up to 600% increase) diesel. The
events of accelerating HRR is mainly influenced by the hydrogen
content. As hydrogen percentage increases, the first increase of
HRR happen at earlier crank angle which can be described by the
Fig. 10. NO emission with various diesel content.
288 M.R.A. Mansor et al. / Fuel 190 (2017) 281–291
fact that hydrogen flame speed is faster than methane and its effect
is clearly represented as premixed-like on combustion. This pat-
tern appears linearly with the increase of hydrogen in all cases.
Diesel percentage has significant effects on the HRR with respect
to gaseous fuel content. As diesel content increases, the advance-
ment of HRR leap is bigger with increasing gaseous fuel content,
and is mainly dominated by hydrogen content.
The presence of methane also advance the set point of HRR
increase but not as high as hydrogen. Even though the advance-
ment of HRR peaking is evident with increasing methane content,
the relation with peak HRR is not linear. The presence of methane
with hydrogen has utmost effect on maximum HRR. With all diesel
fractions, peak HRR were achieved in the presence of methane, and
Fig. 11. Peak NO emissions against different diesel-hydrogen-methane mixture
blend.
Fig. 12. In-cylinder NO distribution at 20OATDC.
this is obvious at lowest diesel content. One last note about this is
the values of maximum HRR decrease with increasing diesel
content.
4.4. Emissions
Emission results are presented in terms of NO and CO forma-
tion during the major part of the combustion. They are the precur-
sor for high temperature combustion and incomplete burning
respectively.
4.4.1. NO emission
Fig. 10 shows the NO emission of gaseous fuels with different
diesel contents. For diesel-CH4 operation NO emission is slightly
increased in comparison to diesel fuel operation. Higher hydrogen
presence in the mixture results in higher NO emission and its peak
values occurs with diesel-H2 operation. Higher NO formation than
diesel-CH4 operation are evidenced. The reduction of NO formation
can be explained following Law and Kwon [55]. A significant reduc-
tion of the combustion temperature of hydrogen-air flame is
occurred due to the presence of methane. Peak NO emission
increase was found to be 1500% with 40% diesel, 400% with 50%
diesel and 100% for 60% diesel.
The observed decrease of NO emission is a result of increasing
methane fraction in the mixture, as previously discovered [51].
The mixture containing highest amount, medium and lowest pro-
portion of methane in hydrogen revealed the best effect towards
NO emission reduction. Moreover, NO emission was found to be
lower for diesel-H30-M70 operation than diesel-H2. Fig. 11 sum-
marize the effects of varying diesel and gaseous fuel content on
the in-cylinder formation of NO. Increasing diesel content sup-
presses NO formation due to low combustion temperature of die-
 M.R.A. Mansor et al. / Fuel 190 (2017) 281–291
sel, while increasing hydrogen content inhibits NO formation due
to higher flame temperature.
Fig. 12 shows the NO mass fraction formation contours under
engine speeds of 1500 rpm at 380°CA. Diesel-H2 fuel operation,
also revealed higher concentration zone (red) in the NO distribu-
tion. The extent of NO formation in the case of diesel-CH4 fuel is
more than that with the original diesel fuel operation because of
the diesel–methane fuel combustion achieved higher temperature
compare to the diesel fuel combustion engine. This is further
extended towards the squish zone of a cylinder, and the maximum
NO distribution is developed at both swirl and squish zones for
380°CA. However increasing diesel content reduces the formation
of NO as can be seen.
Another contributing factor for NO formation is the equivalence
ratio, where at stoichiometric value NO is highest. But looking into
the results, even though the highest equivalence ratios are found
with H50-M50, the temperature effects appeared to be the domi-
nating factor.
4.4.2. CO emission
Fig. 13 displays the CO emission for 40%, 50% and 60% diesel
mixed with gaseous fuels. The peak increase in CO formation were
Fig. 13. CO emission with various diesel content.
289
Fig. 14. Peak CO emissions against different diesel-hydrogen-methane mixture
blend.
found to be 800% for 40% diesel, 660% for 50% diesel and 520% for
60% diesel. For diesel-CH4 operation, CO is considered to be one of
the byproducts of incomplete combustion of methane. CO emission
is found to increase sharply when gaseous fuels present with
methane content but decreases with higher hydrogen content.
These results are similar to that of Gatts et al. experimental study,
where completion of methane combustion in a dual-fuel diesel-
methane operation is examined [56]. In their study, unburned CO
emission is used to determine the combustion efficiency of
methane, which is observed to be decided by the engine speed
and methane contents. Fig. 14 sums up the effects of different fuel
blends on the peak value of CO. The fact that higher methane pres-
ence increase the peak value of CO can be attributed to its rela-
tively slow flame speed that leads to incomplete combustion. The
incorporation of hydrogen into methane broadened the flammabil-
ity of methane [57,58]. They observed an increasing concentration
of OH, H, and O radicals and this increased some of the key reaction
rates and responsible for improving the methane-lean combustion
stability with reduced CO emission. It is quite established that die-
sel combustion results in low CO2 and CO combustion. With the
introduction of H2 in diesel, the reduction is further reduced. But
in the case of decreasing CO emission when diesel fraction is
increased is possibly the indicator that high H2 content causes
CO2 dissociation to CO. Thus at higher diesel fraction CO is further
reduced.
5. Conclusion
The potentials of hydrogen-methane blend as fuel for internal
combustion engine to improve performance and to reduce emis-
sion have been demonstrated. In this paper the influence of blend-
ing hydrogen and methane with diesel at various mixture ratio on
a DICI engine were investigated numerically using a CFD tool. From
the simulation results, following conclusions are drawn.
 Dual-fuel and tri-fuel operations influence the engine emission
considerably. However, compared to pure diesel fuel operation,
diesel-CH4 operation augments the CO emission and diesel-H2
operation increases the NO emission.
 Fuel with high hydrogen-to-methane ratio (H70- M30) is useful
to improving the engine performance with reduced CO emission
by improving the methane combustion may be useful in terms
of environmental friendliness of the fuel. Conversely, the low
hydrogen-to-methane ratio (H30-M70) lowers NO emission.
 The enhancement of in-cylinder pressure (by up to 89.5% at 40%
diesel) and temperature (by up to 112% at 40% diesel) at
290 M.R.A. Mansor et al. / Fuel 190 (2017) 281–291
1500 rpm is observed for all of gaseous fuel addition compared
to diesel-only fuel operation. The enhancement are proportional
to the increase of hydrogen fraction.
 The combustion is significantly affected by the addition of gas-
eous fuel. Incorporation of gaseous fuels enhanced the combus-
tion characteristics. In diesel-H2-CH4 tri-fuel operation,
hydrogen addition can improve methane’s combustion weak-
ness with respect to flame speed and ignitability but with the
penalty of higher combustion temperature which can increase
heat loss, thus reduced efficiency.
 The results suggested that the best case of diesel fuel content
was found to be 60% according to its improvement results in
the combustion process characteristics (in-cylinder pressure
and temperature) and slightly increment in the combustion
emissions compared with the original diesel fuel operation.
Acknowledgement
The authors are indebted to the Ministry of Education Malaysia
for sponsoring this research work under Grants GGPM-2013-093
and FRGS/2/2013/TK01/UKM/02/1.
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