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Stringent emission regulations on one hand and increasing demand for better fuel economy along with lower noise levels on the other hand require adoption of advanced common-rail direct-injection technologies in diesel engines. In the present work, a small 0.9-l, naturally aspirated, two-cylinder, common-rail direct-injection diesel engine is used for the analysis of combustion noise at different engine operating conditions. Experiments are conducted at different loads and engine speeds, incorporating both single and multiple (i.e. pilot and main) injections along with different injection timings. In the case of multiple injections, the influence of pilot injection quantity is also evaluated on the combustion noise while maintaining the same load. In-cylinder pressure was recorded with the resolution of 0.1 crank angle degree, and it was used for the quantitative analysis of noise assessed from the resulting cylinder pressure spectra, and sound pressure level.

An experimental study is performed to investigate the fuel impingement on cylinder walls and piston top inside a direct-injection spark-ignition engine with optical access to the cylinder. Three different fuels, namely, E85, E50 and gasoline are used in this work. E85 represents a blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline by volume. Experiments are performed at different load conditions with the engine speeds of 1500 and 2000 rpm. Two types of fuel injectors are used; (i) High-pressure production injector with fuel pressures of 5 and 10 MPa, and (ii) Low-pressure production-intent injector with fuel pressure of 3 MPa. In addition, the effects of split injection are also presented and compared with the similar cases of single injection by maintaining the same amount of fuel for the stoichiometric condition. Novel image processing algorithms are developed to analyze the fuel impingement quantitatively on cylinder walls and piston top inside the engine cylinder.

In many Asian countries a significant automobile market share is held by two and three wheelers. Generally, cost and simplicity considerations limit the performance and emission levels of small engines. Methanol is an excellent alternative fuel for SI engines due to its high-octane number, high flame speed, presence of oxygen in its molecule and thus can be used to enhance the performance of small engines. However, use of neat methanol in SI engines poses constraints due to low energy density and poor vaporization characteristics. Also, the effectiveness of methanol as a fuel has still to be thoroughly investigated in small-bore SI engines in order to assess its potential. In this work, a small-bore 200cc three-wheeler automotive engine was modified to operate in the port fuel injection mode with neat methanol as the fuel.

Gasoline direct-injection (GDI) engines have evolved as a solution to meet the current demands of the automotive industry. Benefits of a GDI engine include good fuel economy, good transient response, and low cold start emissions. However, they suffer from problems, like combustion instability, misfire, and impingement of fuel on in-cylinder surfaces. Therefore, to highlight the influence of fuel injection timing on in-cylinder flow, turbulence, mixture distribution and wall impingement, a computational study is conducted on a small-bore GDI engine. Results showed that air motion inside the engine cylinder is influenced by direct-injection of fuel, with considerable variation in turbulent kinetic energy at the time of injection. Due to charge cooling effect, mixture density and trapped mass were increased by about 10.8% and 9.5%, respectively.

For long time, the measurement of spatially and temporally varying quantities like in-cylinder flow, mixing, and burning in an internal combustion engine remained impossible due to the lack of access to the engine cylinder. Hence, for quite some time, in-cylinder pressure remained the only quantity that could be temporally measured during an engine cycle, and the variations of quantities like temperature, heat release deduced from it. However, to guide modern engine developments for improved fuel economy and reduced emissions, understanding the intricacies of in-cylinder processes are essential. The advent of optical engine in conjunction with laser-based diagnostic techniques enabled measurement of various in-cylinder processes and study their influences on the combustion process. This paper highlights some key design features of optically accessible engines for flow and combustion studies.

Nowadays, emission regulations and the requirement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions have escalated engine development efforts. In the present work, the effect of compression ratio on the performance, combustion and emission characteristics of a spark-ignition engine is evaluated at different operating conditions. A single-cylinder, water-cooled, spark-ignition engine (modified from a compression-ignition version) was used, with combustion chamber geometry consisted of flat cylinder head and a hemispherical bowl in the piston. Results showed that the brake thermal efficiency was increased from 9.8% to 12.9% when compression ratio was increased from 6.7:1 to 9.4:1 at low operating load of 5 N-m. Carbon monoxide emission was decreased when compression ratio was increased at all operating loads. However, as expected, nitric oxide emission was increased with the increase in compression ratio, with lower difference at low loads compared to medium and high loads.

The aim of this work is to study the combustion and gaseous emissions characteristics of a diesel engine dual-fueled with natural gas at different operating conditions (light to full load) for generator application. The electromechanical system was composed of a commercially available 18 liter, 6-cylinder diesel engine, coupled with the generator rated at 600 kWe at full-load. The flow of natural gas was electronically controlled using a throttle valve, and was inducted in the intake manifold before being introduced into the combustion chambers. Gaseous emissions of carbon monoxide (CO), hydrocarbons (HC) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) were measured under both diesel and dual fuel operations at different loads. This work also presents the effects of diesel oxidation catalyst to reduce HC and CO emissions under dual fuel operation. At each operating load, gas percentage was increased with corresponding decrease in diesel pilot while maintaining the same power output.