Investigation of ammonia and hydrogen as CO2-free fuels for heavy duty engines using a high pressure dual fuel combustion process

This work is a numerical study of the use of ammonia and hydrogen in a high-pressure-dual-fuel (HPDF) combustion. The main fuels (hydrogen and ammonia) are direct injected and ignited by a small amount of direct injected pilot fuel. The fuels are injected using a dual fuel injector from Woodward L’Orange, which can induce two fuels independently at high pressures up to 1800 bar for the pilot fuel and maximum 500 bar for the main. The numerical CFD-model gets validated for of hydrogen-HPDF with experimental data. Due to safety issues at the test rig it was not possible to use ammonia in the experiments, so it is modelled using the numerical model. It is assumed that the CFD-model also gives qualitative correct results for the use of ammonia as main fuel, so a parameter study of ammonia-HPDF is made.

The results for the hydrogen-HPDF show, that hydrogen can be used in the engine without any further modifications. The combustion is very stable, and the hydrogen ignites almost immediately when it enters the combustion chamber. The results of the ammonia combustion indicate, that the HPDF combustion mode can handle ammonia effectively. It seems beneficial to inject the ammonia at higher pressures than hydrogen. Also pre-heating the ammonia can increase the combustion efficiency.