A Fundamental Numerical Analysis on High Thermal Efficiency in a Spark Ignition Gasoline Engine with Fuel Reforming

Abstract

The authors investigated the effects of a fuel reforming system installed in an EGR line on engine thermal efficiency in a spark ignition gasoline engine using a numerical simulation. Specifically, we proposed an engine system called Dedicated-Reforming which combines lean combustion in three cylinders and stoichiometric combustion in one cylinder, the exhaust gas from which was utilized to produce hydrogen, CO and other combustible gases by means of a fuel injector and the reforming system. The numerical results indicate that D-Reforming system can achieve higher overall brake thermal efficiency compared with that of a usual lean combustion engine system.