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A simple, cheap and effective way of measuring the pressure inside the cylinders of internal combustion engines is proposed in this paper. It is well known that the in-cylinder pressure is one of the most significant variables describing the combustion status in internal combustion engines; therefore, if the measured value of the actual pressure in the combustion chamber is used as a feedback variable for closed loop monitoring and control techniques, it will be possible both to improve engine performances and to reduce fuel consumptions and emissions. However, to date such a pressure-based control strategy has been limited by costs, reliability and lifetime of commercially available cylinder pressure sensors. To overcome these limitations, the present paper proposes a very simple and low cost experimental device for measuring the pressure inside the combustion chamber, developed for engine control and monitoring applications.

Due to the new challenge of meeting number-based regulations for particulate matter (PM), a numerical and experimental study has been conducted to better understand particulate formation in engines fuelled with compressed natural gas. The study has been conducted on a Heavy-Duty, Euro VI, 4-cylinder, spark ignited engine, with multipoint sequential phased injection and stoichiometric combustion. For the experimental measurements two different instruments were used: a condensation particle counter (CPC) and a fast-response particle size spectrometer (DMS) the latter able also to provide a particle size distribution of the measured particles in the range from 5 to 1000 nm. Experimental measurements in both stationary and transient conditions were carried out. The data using the World Harmonized Transient Cycle (WHTC) were useful to detect which operating conditions lead to high numbers of particles. Then a further transient test was used for a more detailed and deeper analysis.