Parametric study of a turbocompound diesel engine based on an analytical model

Turbocompounding is an important technique to recover waste heat from engine exhaust and reduce CO₂ emission. This paper presents a parametric study of turbocompound diesel engine based on analytical model. An analytical model was developed to investigate the influence of system parameters on the engine fuel consumption. The model is based on thermodynamics knowledge and empirical models, which can consider the impacts of each parameter independently. The effects of turbine efficiency, back pressure, exhaust temperature, pressure ratio and engine speed on the recovery energy, pumping loss and engine fuel reductions were studied. Results show that turbine efficiency, exhaust temperature and back pressure has great influence on the fuel reduction and optimal power turbine (PT) expansion ratio. However, engine operation speed has little impact on the fuel savings obtained by turbocompounding. The interaction mechanism between the PT recovery power and engine pumping loss is presented in the paper. Due to the nonlinear characteristic of turbine power, there is an optimum value of PT expansion ratio to achieve largest power gain. At the end, the fuel saving potential of high performance turbocompound engine and the requirements for it are proposed in the paper. - Highlights: • An analytical model for turbocompound engine is developed and validated. • Parametric study is performed to obtain lowest BSFC and optimal expansion ratio. • The influences of each parameter on the fuel saving potentials are presented. • The impact mechanisms of each parameter on the energy tradeoff are disclosed. • It provides an effective tool to guide the preliminary design of turbocompounding.