Computer simulations of a hydrogen fueled internal combustion engine

Ricardo WAVE was used to simulate the hydrogen internal combustion engine used in Texas Tech University’s FutureTruck Ford Explorer. Initially, a naturally aspirated gasoline engine was simulated, followed by the supercharged hydrogen engine. The objective of these simulations was to maximize power of the hydrogen engine, while minimizing the emissions and fuel consumption. Among the variables which were changed, were the equivalence ratio, compression ratio, throttle opening, camshaft timing, and exhaust size. The simulation results studied included the volumetric efficiency, fuel consumption, as well as NO emissions. Several results were compared to the gasoline baseline model.