Pre-Chamber Ignition Mechanism: Simulations of Transient Autoignition in a Mixing Layer Between Reactants and Partially-Burnt Products

The structure of autoignition in a mixing layer between fully-burnt or partially-burnt combustion products from a methane-air flame at ϕ = 0.85 and a methane-air mixture of a leaner equivalence ratio has been studied with transient diffusion flamelet calculations. This configuration is relevant to scavenged pre-chamber natural-gas engines, where the turbulent jet ejected from the pre-chamber may be quenched or may be composed of fully-burnt products. The degree of reaction in the jet fluid is described by a progress variable c (c = taking values 0.5, 0.8, and 1.0) and the mixing by a mixture fraction ξ (ξ = 1 in the jet fluid and 0 in the CH(4)-air mixture to be ignited). At high scalar dissipation rates, N(0), ignition does not occur and a chemically-frozen steady-state condition emerges at long times. At scalar dissipation rates below a critical value, ignition occurs at a time that increases with N(0). The flame reaches the ξ = 0 boundary at a finite time that decreases with N(0). The results help identify overall timescales of the jet-ignition problem and suggest a methodology by which estimates of ignition times in real engines may be made.