Numerical Modeling of Energy Assisted Compression Ignition Engines for Aerial Operations

Energy Assisted Compression Ignition (EACI) has garnered significant attention in recent years due to its potential application at aerial conditions. To enhance combustion and facilitate ignition with low cetane number jet fuels, a ceramic-based glow plug is utilized as an ignition assistant. However, accurately modeling the ignition assistant (IA) numerically poses challenges, particularly in scenarios where fuel-air mixtures entering the region near the high-temperature glow plug region. In this study, we tackle this challenge by numerically modeling the Ignition Assistant (IA) as a heat source through temperature boundary condition appropriate to the glow plug power without any artificial energy sources. We compared various combinations of sub models such as secondary break up model, turbulence models, mixing models, heat transfer model, and reported the influence of those models on the engine performance. The choice of secondary break up model and heat transfer model play a crucial role in the prediction of combustion in complex IC operations. The validated models closely reproduce the experimental results for various cases.