ABOUT THIS POSITION

With IMO targets in place to decarbonize shipping, the maritime sector is looking for suitable low-carbon fuels. Methanol is a promising shipping fuel given its widespread availability and, despite some challenges, its excellent physicochemical properties. These properties also give rise to changing combustion behavior compared to conventional diesel mode. Over the years, TNO has developed a mean value engine model, including sub-models for combustion, mainly targeted at diesel engines. In this project, you will adapt and validate these models for methanol use.

You will conduct a literature survey on methanol combustion and modeling approaches. How is the combustion process characterized for different methanol combustion modes? What types of models exist, and how can TNO’s existing models be adapted to methanol use? In addition, using the experimental data from the TNO single-cylinder maritime engine, you will investigate the changes in combustion behavior for different operating parameter settings. Finally, you will adapt the combustion models, or if needed, construct new sub-models for the different modes of combustion (e.g., dual-fuel combustion, diffusion-limited combustion) and validate the models with existing data from TNO or literature.