LIVERMORE, Calif. — Sandia National Laboratories engine researcher Charles J. Mueller will be presented with the 2009 SAE John Johnson Award for Outstanding Research in Diesel Engines at the 2010 SAE World Congress Awards Ceremony on April 13 in Detroit.
Mueller is being recognized for his paper “An Experimental Investigation of the Origin of Increased NOx Emissions when Fueling a Heavy-Duty Compression-Ignition Engine with Soy Biodiesel.” The paper addresses a key barrier to the broader use of biodiesel, an important emerging fuel that has the potential to enhance U.S. energy security while reducing carbon monoxide, unburned hydrocarbon, particulate matter and greenhouse-gas emissions from on- and off-highway engines.
Prof. André L. Boehman of Pennsylvania State University served as second author on the paper, while Glen C. Martin, a former postdoctoral student at Sandia now at Caterpillar Inc., served as third author.
The SAE John Johnson Award recognizes the author(s) of an original and outstanding technical paper presented at an SAE meeting on the subject of diesel engines in the on- or off-road industries. The paper must be published in SAE International’s journals and must address research advancements in diesel engines regarding efficiency and low emissions achieved by innovative experimental and modeling research of the engine, fuel and/or aftertreatment systems.
Mueller’s paper uses experiments and modeling to evaluate the various combustion-related mechanisms that have been proposed to explain the increase of biodiesel NOx (nitrogen oxides) often found when the fraction of biodiesel increases in blends with conventional diesel fuel. The paper concludes that, while many of the hypothesized processes could play roles, the primary mechanism appears to be that the in-cylinder ignition and combustion with biodiesel blends is closer to stoichiometric (i.e., less fuel-rich), which leads to higher in-cylinder temperatures via several pathways, and the higher temperatures lead to higher NOx emissions.
The SAE award, which includes an honorarium in the amount of $1,000 for the lead author, is funded through a contribution from Dr. John H. Johnson, an expert in the field of diesel engines. He is a presidential professor with the Department of Mechanical-Engineering Mechanics at Michigan Technological University (MTU).
Mueller is an engineer at Sandia’s Combustion Research Facility (CRF) in Livermore, California. He received a Ph.D. in aerospace engineering from the University of Michigan in 1996 and also holds a M.Sc.E. in aerospace engineering from the University of Michigan and B.Sc. degrees in aeronautics and engineering physics from Miami University. Mueller has authored or co-authored more than 40 technical papers in the field of combustion and fuels and is the recipient of a number of awards.