Energy and Exergy Balances for Modern Diesel and Gasoline Engines

Abstract

The aim is here to evaluate the difference between the energy and exergy (or available energy) balances when heat recovery is considered in an internal combustion engine. In the first case, the entropy of the system is not taken into account so that, the maximum useful work recoverable from a system can not be estimated. Then, the second case is much more adapted to estimate heat recovery potential. In this paper, two modern engines are evaluated. First, an up-to-date gasoline engine: three-cylinder, downsized, low friction, then a modern common rail downsized Diesel engine. For each one, two energy and exergy balances are given for two different part-load operating points representative of the NEDC cycle using experimental data from steady state engine test benches. For the Diesel engine, it is shown that effective work represents around 30% and that around 55% of the energy introduced into the combustion chamber is lost (in the form of heat), especially in exhaust gas, in water coolant and oil. But when considering exergy balance, only 12% of the total exergy introduced through the fuel can be recovered, in order to produce useful work. Expecting a 25% exergy recovery efficiency, the effective engine efficiency could be increased by 10%. For the gasoline engine, the increase of the output work could be around 15%.