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The arguments are given for the application of a 1.3 litre turbocharged spark ignition engine, as a substitute for a 2 litre normally aspirated engine as the power plant for a compact-sized car in the late 80’s. Three stages of the project leading to an optimised engine-turbocharger package are outlined. Achievement of Stage 1, leading to evaluation of a non-optimised configuration, will be reported. Description includes the use of a separately driven supercharger to define operating limits in the experimental variable matrix comprising compression ratio, boost pressure, EGR rate and spark retard at the knock limit. Computer programs for the optimising stages of the project are outlined. The current status of the project is reported, where, even at this early stage, fuel consumption reductions of 11-22% have been achieved under simulated urban driving conditions.

A high speed research engine has optical access to over 80% of the combustion chamber volume through a piston with a quartz window. The engine has been used to study the effect of swirl on the spark-ignited combustion by means of high speed photography and analysis of combustion-time data. Results over the speed, swirl and mixture strength range show the flame travel derived from the pressure to agree with the measured flame travel to within 3% on average. Turbulent to laminar flame speed ratios as high as 45 occur under high swirl conditions. However it was not possible to find a predictive model which could explain the turbulent flame speed in terms of engine design variables.

A thermodynamic model has been employed to study the effect of changing injection timing, spray angle, fuel density, fuel viscosity, chemical reaction rate constants and air entrainment on the combustion performance of seed oils and their methyl esters in an open chamber diesel engine. It is shown that the most important valuables affecting the performance are fuel density and fuel viscosity. It is deduced that modification of these physical properties can lead to substantial improvement in the combustion performance of the seed oils.

HAJI, or Hydrogen Assisted Jet Ignition, is an ignition system which uses a hot gaseous jet to initiate and stabilise combustion. HAJI allows a dramatic reduction of cyclic variability, and an extension of the lean limit of the engine to lambda 5. Improvements in cyclic variability lead to increased power output, reduced noise, wear on components and emissions. The ability to operate ultra lean gives 25% improvements in efficiency and extremely low emissions, particularly of NOx. Combustion analysis based on the fractal dimensions of the propagating flame fronts, obtained from optical flame data, support the hypothesis of enhancement of flame speeds through the presence of active chemical species. However, the relative contributions of turbulence and active species to the mechanisms of combustion enhancement realised with HAJI are not well defined. HAJI ignition has also been simulated with a comprehensive three dimensional combustion code, KIVA3.

Compressed natural gas (CNG) is an attractive, alternative fuel for spark-ignited (SI), internal combustion (IC) engines due to its high octane rating, and low energy-specific CO2 emissions compared with gasoline. Directly-injected (DI) CNG in SI engines has the potential to dramatically decrease vehicles’ carbon emissions; however, optimization of DI CNG fueling systems requires a thorough understanding of the behavior of CNG jets in an engine environment. This paper therefore presents an experimental and modeling study of DI gaseous jets, using methane as a surrogate for CNG. Experiments are conducted in a non-reacting, constant volume chamber (CVC) using prototype injector hardware at conditions relevant to modern DI engines. The schlieren imaging technique is employed to investigate how the extent of methane jets is impacted by changing thermodynamic conditions in the fuel rail and chamber.

This paper presents a numerical study of trace knocking combustion of ethanol/gasoline blends in a modern, single cylinder SI engine. Results are compared to experimental data from a prior, published work [1]. The engine is modeled using GT-Power and a two-zone combustion model containing detailed kinetic models. The two zone model uses a gasoline surrogate model [2] combined with a sub-model for nitric oxide (NO) [3] to simulate end-gas autoignition. Upstream, pre-vaporized fuel injection (UFI) and direct injection (DI) are modeled and compared to characterize ethanol's low autoignition reactivity and high charge cooling effects. Three ethanol/gasoline blends are studied: E0, E20, and E50. The modeled and experimental results demonstrate some systematic differences in the spark timing for trace knock across all three fuels, but the relative trends with engine load and ethanol content are consistent. Possible reasons causing the differences are discussed.

This paper presents experimental and computational results obtained on an in line, six cylinder, naturally aspirated, gasoline engine. Steady state measurements were first collected for a wide range of cam and spark timings versus throttle position and engine speed at part and full load. Simulations were performed by using an engine thermo-fluid model. The model was validated with measured steady state air and fuel flow rates and indicated and brake mean effective pressures. The model provides satisfactory accuracy and demonstrates the ability of the approach to produce fairly accurate steady state maps of BMEP and BSFC. However, results show that three major areas still need development especially at low loads, namely combustion, heat transfer and friction modeling, impacting respectively on IMEP and FMEP computations. Satisfactory measurement of small IMEP and derivation of FMEP at low loads is also a major issue.

The arguments are given for the use of a 1.3 litre turbocharged spark ignition engine as a substitute for a 2 litre normally aspirated engine for late-80's compact cars. Descriptions of the three stages leading to an optimised engine-turbocharger package are described, together with details of the prototype TC engine manufacture and testing including supercharger tests to define operating limits. An outline of the optimising computer program is given, together with examples of computed camshaft designs giving significantly improved performance at low engine speeds. Some experimental results are given, including those of in-car testing which showed fuel consumption reductions of 12-22% over urban driving cycles.