The natural gas usage as a vehicle fuel in the mining industry is one of the priority tasks of the state. The article pays special attention to the component composition of natural gas from the point of view of its thermal efficiency during combustion in the combustion chamber of a power plant on a heavy-duty vehicle in difficult quarry conditions. For this, domestic and foreign methods for determining the main indicator characterizing the knock resistance of fuel in the combustion process – the methane number – are considered. Improvement of technical and economic indicators will be carried out by changing the composition of the gas mixture based on methane to fit the design features of the gas power plant, the methane number will be the determining indicator. A theoretical analysis of the influence of the methane number on such engine parameters as the compression ratio and the maximum speed of the flame front propagation in the second phase of combustion in the engine cylinder, expressed through the angle of rotation of the crankshaft, is presented. Based on the results of theoretical and experimental studies, the dependences of the influence of the methane number on the efficiency of the working process of the engine and its external speed characteristic were obtained.
In order to increase the efficiency of using vehicles (VEH) in mining and quarrying conditions, it is necessary to improve the components of gas equipment (cryogenic tank, gas nozzles, fuel supply cryogenic tubes, etc.) for supplying liquefied natural gas to the engine, as well as storage of liquid methane in a cryogenic tank with a long service life. For this, it is necessary to consider the process of heat and mass transfer of liquefied natural gas in a two-phase liquid-gas medium, taking into account the phase transition in the closed volume of the cryogenic tank under consideration. The article presents a model of unsteady heat and mass transfer of a two-phase liquefied methane medium in a developed two-tank cryogenic tank using a Cartesian coordinate system with fractional control volumes in space. The experimental data confirm the efficiency of using a cryogenic tank on the VEH platform, in which the run on liquefied methane compared to standard fuels is tripled, the shelf life of liquefied gas in the proposed cryogenic tank is 2-2.5 times longer than in the standard one.
A comprehensive strategy for reviving the production of mining industry equipment and ensuring its competitiveness includes the wide use of gas engines for various purposes. Experimental studies of the working cycle of a gas engine are one of the main tasks in determining the heat generation characteristics. To this end, indicator charts were recorded in various modes, which were subjected to analysis in order to determine the key parameters characterizing intra-cylinder processes. According to the experimental program, the maximum cycle pressure, the rate of pressure build-up, the heat generation characteristic, the first heat generation phase, the duration of the second combustion phase, and the effect of the ignition advance angle for the ignition period were determined. The results of an experimental study of the influence of gas engine working process with allowance for the change in the ignition advance angle for the ignition period are described and the parameters of the maximum cycle pressure, the rate of pressure build-up, and the heat generation characteristics are determined. In the processing of data, integral charts are constructed, the working cycle parameters are calculated, and the dynamics of the engine heat generation is determined.
