Session: 01-01 Advanced Concepts I

Paper Number: 81603

81603 - Investigation of the Performance of Hydrogen-Fueled Wankel Rotary Engine Using 0-D Model 

With the urgent demand of carbon dioxide emission reduction in aviation industry, the green hydrogen is an ideal fuel as an alternative to fossil fuels. The Wankel rotary engine using fossil fuels with the advantages of compactness and high power to weight ratio has been widely applied as the power unit in the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). However, the application of hydrogen-fueled Wankel rotary engine, which not only supplies power for UAV but also has an almost zero carbon footprint, need to be further exploited. This paper establishes a 0-D model based on the real gas properties to predict the performance of a hydrogen-fueled Wankel rotary engine. The performance comparative analysis between hydrogen-fueled and gasoline-fueled Wankel rotary engines is conducted under the constant total fuel input heat value. Furthermore, the effects of combustion duration on the average effective cylinder pressure, power output, specific fuel consumption and indicated thermal efficiency of hydrogen-fueled Wankel rotary engine with different engine rotational speeds are evaluated. The results show that with the increasing combustion duration, the effective power output and indicated thermal efficiency firstly increases and then drops. It is found that the optimal combustion duration is 35° crank angle at nominal rotational speed of 7000rpm, in which the maximum indicated thermal efficiencies of hydrogen-fueled and gasoline-fueled Wankel rotary engines are 31.29% and 34.48%，respectively. As the gasoline is replaced by hydrogen with the equal total input heat value, the effective power output of rotary engine is reduced by 9.3% and the carbon dioxide emission is declined by 1138.9g/kW·h.

Presenting Author: Yang Du Xian Jiao Tong University

Presenting Author Biography: Yang Du is an assistant professor from Xi'an Jiaotong University, the research areas include novel power system and rotary engine.

Authors:

Yang Du Xian Jiao Tong University
Zhenghao Yang Air Force Engineering University
Qi Geng Air Force Engineering University
Rui Wang Xian Jiao Tong University
Guangyu He Air Force Engineering University