Abstract
Alcohol fuels are expected to become an economic/strategic alternative to oil over the next decade as oil reserves are depleted and countries seek to become more energy self-sufficient. Methanol, produced from natural gas deposits, and ethanol, produced locally by distillation of biomass, offer easily transportable alternatives. The use of a wider range of fuels in spark-ignition engines and the quest for fuel economy whilst meeting exhaust emissions legislation are important issues in engine design. The performance of current and proposed combustion chamber designs needs to be assessed with lean mixtures of both conventional and alternative fuels. The parameters defining combustion chamber performance, initial flame development and cycle-to-cycle variations in combustion may be readily determined using computer in-cylinder combustion models in a diagnostic manner to reduce experimentally acquired cylinder pressure data. This thesis develops and applies two analysis techniques to the study of the combustion of methanol in the lean burning regime with experimental results from three engines. The pressure increment technique, in which the pressure rise owing to combustion at constant volume is computed, is suitable for use directly on microcomputer systems. The two-zone equilibrium theory model, in which the mass burnt to give the measured pressure rise is evaluated, provides a more comprehensive analysis but is demanding in computer power. Higher burning rates were achieved using highly turbulent combustion chambers with methanol and equivalence ratios could be leaned to about 0.8 before cycle-to-cycle variations in combustion limited stable operation. The results obtained indicated the significant phases of initial flame development, the influence of early flame development on subsequent burning rates, and the influence of differing chamber geometries on performance. The combustion process was modelled for use in parametric studies of engine performance based on empirical data.