Hydrogen Assisted Green Engines for Next Generation Advanced Vehicles

The transportation system has, during the last century, undergone a significant transformation. It is now dominated by fossil fuel based propulsion machinery with the cost of fuel accounting for a large proportion of the running costs of the light and heavy duty vehicles. Against this background, recent developments have led many in the automotive industry to question whether the present modes of vehicle propulsion are sustainable due to three main factors: rising fuel, environmental regulations and the potential introduction of carbon taxes. Hydrogen blended diesel dual fuel combustion is a viable option for future heavy duty propulsion systems as hydrogen is a clean low carbon fuel, and can be mass produced from both renewable and non-renewables sources such as water, wind, hydro-electric, biofuel, natural gas or nuclear.

This proposal will investigate potential impact on the performance and emissions of hydrogen enriched diesel engine combustion under new low temperature combustion technology. In order to achieve this multidisciplinary task, this project will employ a coupled approach which covers four distinct areas: understand fuel transport properties and optimise the chemical kinetic mechanisms for green combustion of hydrogen-diesel fuel blends, perform numerical simulations with detailed chemical kinetics mechanisms and obtain an accurate numerical data bases with respect to clean fuel variability, analyse the physical characteristics of emissions and their uncertainty quantification and finally provide an optimised set of guidelines for next generation hydrogen-diesel blended low temperature combustion based advanced propulsion systems.

The project will bring many direct and indirect social impacts. It will undoubtedly provide much-needed technical guidance for environmental performance, sustainability and durability improvements in fuel-flexible propulsion systems, which could help achieve the UK and EU’s short term and long term emission targets. In addition to exploring synergies among the fuels and en¬gines, found in today’s traditional propulsion systems, the initiative is also linking opportunities related to hybrid and plug-in hybrid propulsion technologies that will benefit medium- and heavy-duty engines.

Applicants should have a first-class degree in a relevant discipline of engineering, physics or mathematics, experience in programming, strong interest to work on state-of-the art simulation and to apply this to real-world problems. Furthermore, skills supporting communication across discipline boundaries are desired.

This PhD project will be funded as part of the UK governments new Industrial Strategy. The scholarship will cover full UK fees and a stipend of between £16k and £18k per year depending on academic qualifications.

If you wish to discuss any details of the project informally, please contact Dr. Ranga Dinesh Kahanda Koralage, Energy Technology research group (Email: [Email Address Removed], Tel: +44 (0) 2380 592872).