Kinetic models of natural gas combustion in an internal combustion engine

In this study, combustion of methane was simulated using four kinetic models of methane in CHEMKIN 4.1.1 for 0-D closed internal combustion (IC) engine reactor. Two detailed (GRIMECH3.0 & UBC MECH2.0) and two reduced (One step & Four steps) models were examined for various IC engine designs. The detailed models (GRIMECH3.0, & UBC MECH2.0) and 4-step models successfully predicted the combustion while global model was unable to predict any combustion reaction. This study illustrated that the detailed model showed good concordances in the prediction of chamber pressure, temperature and major combustion species profiles. The detailed models also exhibited the capabilities to predict the pollutants formation in an IC engine while the reduced schemes showed failure in the prediction of pollutants emissions. Although, there are discrepancies among the profiles of four considered model, the detailed models (GRIMECH3.0 & UBC MECH2.0) produced the acceptable agreement in the species prediction and formation of pollutants.