• News item 20

CoMo Group in Pan-European Research Network

23 October 2007
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Attendees at the 'Sustainable Fuelube' Conference hosted by Shell in March, 2007

For the last year, the CoMo group has been involved with Shell Global Solutions and other European academic institutions as part of a Marie Curie FP6 initiative entitled "Sustainable Fuelube". The purpose of the Marie Curie Transfer of Knowledge (ToK) activities is to foster pan-European academic- and industrial- relationships in order to enhance current- and future- research.

Fellows from the universities and institutions spend two years at Shell's Technology Centres in either Chester or Hamburg where they work on projects related to the overarching theme. CoMo Group research fellow Neal Morgan started working on the Sustainable Fuelube initiative in September 2006 with his project entitled "Optimisation of Fuels for Future Engine Technologies via Mixture Inhomogeneity Modelling". The project covers many aspects of fuel ignition quality from the reduction of highly detailed reaction mechanisms to the nature of the RON and MON numbers and engine cycle simulations carried out with the bespoke code of the CoMo Group.

In March 2007, Shell hosted the second workshop under the "Sustainable Fuelube" and "Engine Efficiency" projects at their site in Thornton, Cheshire. During the workshop the fellows and representatives from the academic institutions presented their work on the project and related research of their respective groups. Neal Morgan Presented his work on chemical mechanism optimisation and reduction, while Sebastian Mosbach represented the CoMo Group and gave a presentation on some of the latest results and techniques employed by the group in the field of engine simulation. Both presentations may be downloaded by following the links below:

Research figure showing numerical results of an engine simulation produced by Neal Morgan

An article about the project and Fuelube workshop appeared in the June edition of 'The Parliament Magazine'. This article may be downloaded from the CoMo Group website.

The project will continue for another two years, and will see Neal return to Cambridge for the third year in order to complete his Transfer of Knowledge activities.

The figure shows comparisons of temperature profiles in an engine when simulated using full- and semi-detailed chemistry.