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This paper presents a study of the influence of intake valve closing (IVC) timing on the performance of the high-speed spark ignition (SI) engine, such as the output of torque and power, fuel consumption and emissions. An electrically controlled Variable Valve Timing (VVT) system based on the variable working position belt extender was developed and its pro-type was successfully set up in a 5-valve, double overhead cam (DOHC) SI engine. Test results showed that the IVC timing plays an important role in increasing the power output, decreasing the fuel consumption and CO and HC emissions under both high- and low-speed conditions as compared to the fixed IVC timing. The control of intake valve closing timing is a simple and effective means to improve engine's performance.

Pre-ignition may lead to an extreme knock (super-knock or mega-knock) which will impose a severe negative influence on the engine performance and service life, thus limiting the development of downsizing gasoline direct injection (GDI) engine. More and more studies reveal that the auto-ignition of lubricants is the potential source for pre-ignition. However, pre-ignition is complicated to study on the engine test bench. In this paper, a convenient test method is applied to investigate the influence of lubricants metal-additives on pre-ignition. 8 groups of lubricants are injected into a hot co-flow atmosphere which generated by a burner. A single-hole nozzle injector with a diameter of 0.2 mm at 20 MPa injection pressure is utilized for lubricants' injection and spray atomization. The ignition delays of lubricants with different additives of calcium, ZDDP (Zinc Dialkyl Dithiophosphates) and magnesium content under the hot co-flow atmosphere are recorded with a high-speed camera.

The conventional transistor coil ignition system with coil-out energy up to 100 mJ might not be sufficient to establish a self-sustained flame kernel under lean combustion with strong in-cylinder flow motion. Further increase of the discharge current will decrease the voltage across the spark gap, which will affect the calculation of the energy delivered to the spark gap. In this paper, the relationship between the discharge current and gap voltage is investigated, and it is discovered that the spark energy doesn,t increase monotonously with the increase of the discharge current. However, engine test results still indicate a positive impact of discharge current amplitude on the engine performance.

For internal combustion engine systems, lean and diluted combustion is an important technology applied for fuel efficiency improvement. Because of the thermodynamic boundary conditions and the presence of in-cylinder flow, the development of a well-sustained flame kernel for lean combustion is a challenging task. Reliable spark discharge with the addition of enhanced delivered energy is thus needed at certain time durations to achieve successful combustion initiation of the lean air-fuel mixture. For a conventional transistor coil ignition system, only limited amount of energy is stored in the ignition coil. Therefore, both the energy of the spark discharge and the duration of the spark discharge are bounded. To break through the energy limit of the conventional transistor coil ignition system, in this work, an adaptive spark ignition system is introduced. The system has the ability to reconstruct the conductive ion channels whenever it is interrupted during the spark discharge.

Gasoline homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) can achieve high efficiency and extremely low NOX emissions. However, the working condition range of HCCI is limited by knock occurring during engine operation. To achieve an expanded HCCI working condition range, it is necessary to explore a method predicting knock cases accurately to avoid knock occurring. Based on a DI-HCCI engine with ethanol/gasoline mixed fuel, the knock cases under different conditions have been investigated. In-cylinder pressure signals are used to identify the knock cases and the knock oscillations are extracted with fast Fourier transform (FFT). The effects of the ethanol proportion in the fuel and air/fuel ratio on the characteristics of knock have been studied. The results have shown that the knock parameters, such as maximum frequency, start point angle and the duration, have close relationship with the knock intensity.

The weight of an exhaust system on a modern vehicle is increasing because of all kinds of reasons, like engine power's increasing, more catalysts for emission control and more NVH (Noise, Vibration and Harshness) performance requirements. After the engine starting, the exhaust system was not only bearing a cyclical load from the engine, which mainly causing the vibration of the exhaust system, but also the loads from the road, which was transferred through the wheels, the suspension system and the body. Because the exhaust system always worked in these bad conditions, its structural strength, durability and life-time were analyzed in the paper, by numerical simulation and physical correlation. By discretizing the exhaust system's CAD model, a finite element model was built. After restrict the finite element model as it in a real load condition, complete the structure stress analysis and Fatigue analysis of exhaust system's hanger with FEA analysis tools.

A segment of steel tube with the inner diameter of 60 mm and length of 100 mm was fixed between the intake manifold and cylinder head in a direct injection natural aspirated diesel engine. The surface of the tube could be heated to be above 400 °C by the heater enwrapped outside within several minutes under the power less than 600 W. The tip of an injector traditionally used for in-cylinder diesel direct injection was extended to the axis of the tube. The diesel sprays could impinge onto the hot inner surface of the tube and atomize quickly if the temperature of the tube was high enough. Then the fuel-air mixture would be sucked into the cylinder, and HCCI combustion could be fulfilled. The vaporization ratio of the impinged diesel sprays was estimated by fuel consumption, intake air flux and excess air coefficient (λ) calculated from the volumetric concentration of O2, CO2 and CO emissions. The NOx emission was always very low.

This paper presents an investigation of cold starts based on a cycle-by-cycle control strategy in an LPG EFI engine. Experiments were carried out in a four-stroke, water-cooled, single cylinder, 125cc SI engine with an EFI system. Effects of the first injection pulse width and the first combustion cycle on the characteristics of the cold-start were analyzed based on the histories of transient engine speeds and cylinder pressures. The study focuses on how to realize the controllable ignition cycle and the single-cycle and multi-cycle combustions were tested based on the single starting injection pulse width. Test results show that the first combustion cycle has an important effect on HC emission and combustion stability of following cycles at cold-start. The injection pulse width is the key factor determining the characteristics of an ignition cycle during the cold-start.

Based on a 125cm3 single cylinder SI engine, the designated idle speed was controlled by adjusting of cycle ignition advance angle. By analyzing the effects of different idle speed and throttle open position on three way catalyst (TWC) light-off time and conversion efficiency of HC and CO emissions, combined with the corresponding total HC and CO emissions level, the optimum idle speed and throttle open position at engine's warm-up phase were found by the matching optimum. The present method for engine control strategy is helpful to optimize the warm-up phase emission levels in SI engine with LPG fuel.

The effects of biodiesel on the swelling of the elastomers and plastics and the corrosion of metals are studied by the immersion tests. The results indicate that biodiesels make little corrosion effect on aluminum, steel and little swelling impact on plastics, but a significant corrosion may be taken place on cooper and brass for some sourced biodiesels. For nitrile-butadiene rubber, the variation of swelling properties in biodiesels is slightly higher than that in diesel. For the non-diesel-resistant elatomers, the variation of swelling properties is lower than those in diesel. The production process and biodiesel source have an influence on the result of elastomer swelling and corrosion. The relationship between the impact of biodiesel on materials and biodiesels properties are also discussed.

In this paper a method of misfiring control in current cycle at engine start is presented. With this novel method, the high HC emissions of gasoline engine employed in traditional or hybrid electrical vehicles will be avoided. By the feedback of ion current signal, misfire phenomenon is identified within 30 degrees crank angle after spark plug ignited. Then, the ignition coil will be recharged and the plug sparked again to promote air fuel mixture oxidation and deplete the unburned hydrocarbon produces in exhaust gas. On the other hand, too late ignition will not always result in normal combustion, a kind of reaction similar with slow oxidation also occurs in such case.

Low heat rejection (LHR) combustion has been recognized as a potential technology for further fuel economy improvement. This paper aims to simulate how the piston top’s thermal barrier coating affects the engine’s thermal efficiency and emissions. Accordingly, a Thin-wall heat transfer model in AVL Fire software was employed. The effects of increasing the piston top surface temperature, comparing different thermal barrier coating material, were simulated at the engine’s rated power operating point, so as the piston top’s surface roughness. In comparison to a standard diesel engine, the indicated thermal efficiency (ITE) could increase by 0.4% when the surface temperature of the piston top changed from 575K to 775K.

The argon power cycle engine, which uses hydrogen as fuel, oxygen as oxidant, and argon other than nitrogen as the working fluid, is considered as a novel concept of zero-emission and high-efficiency system. Due to the extremely high in-cylinder temperature caused by the lower specific heat capacity of argon, the compression ratio of spark-ignition argon power cycle engine is limited by preignition or super-knock. Compression-ignition with direct-injection is one of the potential methods to overcome this challenge. Therefore, a detailed flammability limit of H2 under Ar-O2 atmosphere is essential for better understanding of stable autoignition in compression-ignition argon power cycle engines.

In the ultra-lean combustion mode, the combustion temperature is relatively low, which is expected to avoid the high-temperature NOx generation. And it also can use excess air to fully oxidize CO, HC and Soot, to achieve cleaner combustion. But at the same time, ultra-lean combustion has difficulties in ignition and flame propagation. This paper used CONVERGE to simulate the combustion process and products of a new ultra-lean combustion mode, which ignited the ultra-lean premixed fuel/air mixture with the spark-ignited micro-fuel-jet, in a constant-volume vessel with a 6-hole GDI injector. The differences of combustion processes and products were simulated for two spark-ignition positions, including ‘on’ the micro-jet spray and ‘between’ two micro-jet sprays. It was found that the combustion duration (the time for burned-fuel-ratio from 10% to 90%) could be shortened by about 14.3% if igniting ‘on’ the micro-jet spray, but the amount of NOx generated would increase about 21.0%.

Ultra-lean combustion of GDI engine could achieve higher thermal efficiency and lower NOx emissions, but it also faces challenges such as ignition difficulties and low-speed flame propagation. In this paper, the sparked-spray is proposed as a novel ignition method, which employs the spark to ignite the fuel spray by the cooperative timing control of in-cylinder fuel injection and spark ignition and form a jet flame. Then the jet flame fronts propagate in the ultra-lean premixed mixture in the cylinder. This combustion mode is named Sparked-Spray Induced Combustion (SSIC) in this paper. Based on a 3-cylinder 1.0L GDI engine, a 3D simulation model is established in the CONVERGE to study the effects of ignition strategy, compression ratio, and injection timing on SSIC with a global equivalence ratio of 0.50. The results show it is easier to form the jet flame when sparking at the spray front because the fuel has better atomization and lower turbulent kinetic energy at the spray front.

Recently, it has been wildly recognized that active pre- chamber has a significant effect on extending the lean burn limit of gasoline engines. Ion current signals in the combustion is also considered as a promising approach to the engine knock detection. In this study, the feasibility of employing ion current in an active pre- chamber for combustion diagnosis was analyzed by three-dimensional numerical simulation on a single- cylinder engine equipped with active pre-chamber. The flow characteristics of charged species (NO+, H3O+ and electrons) in the main chamber and pre-chamber under knock conditions are investigated at different engine speeds, intake pressures and ignition timings. The results show that the ion current can theoretically be used for the knock detection of the active pre- chamber. The peak value of the electron or H3O+ mass fraction caused by knocking backflow can be used as knock indication peak.

In this study, a spray hot-impingement system was set up to analyze the spray characteristics when spray impinged onto a flat hot surface by high-speed photography technology. The angle between spray axis and normal line of the flat surface could be changed, and the surface temperature could exceed 400°C. The influences of surface temperature and heating power on spray atomization were investigated too. At atmospheric pressure, when the wall temperature was 340∼380°C, the impinging diesel spray was well atomized. In this experiment, the wall heating power could be set at 1∼25 Wcm-2. When the heating power was about 1.6 Wcm-2, the impinging spray atomized well, and when it was about 10.1 Wcm-2 the spray atomized better though the heating power requirement should be high.

This paper presents the simulation of in-cylinder stratified mixture formation, spray motion, combustion and emissions in a four-stroke and four valves direct injection spark ignition (DISI) engine with a pent-roof combustion chamber by the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code. The Extended Coherent Flame Combustion Model (ECFM), implemented in the AVL-Fire codes, was employed. The key parameters of spray characteristics related to computing settings, such as skew angle, cone angle and flow per pulse width with experimental measurements were compared. The numerical analysis is mainly focused on how the tumble flow ratio and geometry of piston bowls affect the motion of charge/spray in-cylinder, the formation of stratified mixture and the combustion and emissions (NO and CO₂) for the wall-guided stratified-charge spark-ignition DISI engine.

Internal combustion Rankine cycle (ICRC) engine uses oxygen instead of air as oxidant during the combustion process, therefore totally eliminates the emission of NOx. CO2 could be captured after separated from the exhaust gas, the latter are mainly water vapor and CO2, through condensation at a relatively low price, and thus an ultra-low emission working cycle is achieved. Moreover, water is heated up by exhaust gas and injected into the cylinder during the combustion process to control combustion temperature, and evaporation of the water mist would increase working fluid inside the cylinder, therefore enhance indicated thermal efficiency. This study investigates the combustion characteristics of a quasi ICRC on a single-cylinder SI engine fueled with propane. Gas mixture of O2/CO2 is employed to simulate EGR in order to control in-cylinder temperature.

The present work proposed to implement oxy-fuel combustion mode into a homogeneous charge compression ignition engine to reduce complexity in engine emissions after-treatment and lower carbon dioxide emission. The combination of oxy-fuel combustion mode with homogeneous charge compression ignition engine can be further optimized by the utilization of direct high temperature and pressure water injection to improve cycle performance. A retrofitted conventional diesel engine coupled with port fuel injection and direct water injection is utilized in this study. A self-designed oxygen and carbon dioxide mixture intake system with flexible oxygen fraction adjustment ability is implemented in the test bench to simulate the adoption of exhaust gas recirculation. Water injection system is directly installed in the combustion chamber with a modified high speed solenoid diesel injector.