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Accurate individual cylinder Air Fuel Ratio (AFR) feedback provide opportunities for improved engine performance and reduced emissions in spark ignition engines. One potential measurement for individual cylinder AFR is in-cylinder ionization measured by employing the spark plug as a sensor. A number of previous investigations have studied correlations of the ionization signal with AFR and shown promising results. However the studies have typically been limited to single cylinders under restricted operating conditions. This investigation analyzes and characterizes the ionization signals in correlation to individual AFR values obtained from wide-band electrochemical oxygen sensors located in the exhaust runners of each cylinder. Experimental studies for this research were conducted on a 2.0L inline 4 cylinder spark ignited engine with dual independent variable cam phasing and an intake charge motion control valve.

A numerical simulation of autoignition of gasoline-ethanol/air mixtures has been performed using the closed homogeneous reactor model in CHEMKIN® to compute the dependence of autoignition time with ethanol concentration, pressure, temperature, dilution, and equivalence ratio. A semi-detailed validated chemical kinetic model with 142 species and 672 reactions for a gasoline surrogate fuel with ethanol has been used. The pure components in the surrogate fuel consisted of n-heptane, isooctane and toluene. The ethanol volume fraction is varied between 0 to 85%, initial pressure is varied between 20 to 60 bar, initial temperature is varied between 800 to 1200K, and the dilution is varied between 0 to 32% at equivalence ratios of 0.5, 1.0 and 1.5 to represent the in-cylinder conditions of a spark-ignition engine. The ignition time is taken to be the point where the rate of change of temperature with respect to time is the largest (temperature inflection point criteria).

The increase in regulatory demand to reduce CO2 emissions resulted in a focus on the development of novel combustion modes such as gasoline compression ignition (GCI). It has been shown by others that GCI can improve the overall engine efficiency while achieving soot and NOx emissions targets. In comparison with diesel fuel, gasoline has a higher volatility and has more resistance to autoignition, therefore, it has a longer ignition delay time which facilitates better mixing of the air-fuel charge before ignition. In this study, a GCI combustion system has been tested using a 2.2L compression ignition engine as part of a US Department of Energy funded project. For this purpose, a multiple injection strategy was developed to improve the pressure rise rates and soot emission levels for the same engine out NOx emissions.

Tumble motion plays a significant role in modern spark-ignition engines in that it promotes mixing of air/fuel for homogeneous combustion and increases the flame propagation speed for higher thermal efficiency and lower combustion variability. Cycle-by-cycle variations in the flow near the spark plug introduce variability to the initial flame kernel development, stretching, and convection, and this variability is carried over to the entire combustion process. The design of current direct-injection spark-ignition engines aims to have a tumble flow in the vicinity of the spark plug at the time of ignition. This work investigates how the flow condition changes in the vicinity of the spark plug throughout the late compression stroke via high-speed imaging of a long ignition discharge arc channel and its stretching, and via flow field measurement by particle imaging velocimetry.