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The CO2 reduction request for automotive industry promotes the efforts on the engine thermal efficiency improvement. The goal of this research is to improve the thermal efficiency on an extremely downsized 3-cylinder 1.0 L turbocharged gasoline direct injection engine. Effects of compression ratio, exhaust gas recirculation (EGR), valve timing and viscosity of oil on fuel economy were studied. The results show that increasing compression ratio, from 9.6 to 12, can improve fuel economy at relative low load (below 12 bar BMEP), but has a negative effect at high load due to increased knock intensity. EGR can significantly reduce the pumping loss at low load, optimize combustion phase and reduce exhaust gas temperature. Therefore, the fuel consumption is reduced at all test points. The average brake thermal efficiency (BTE) benefit percentage is 3.47% with 9.6 compression ratio and 5.33 % with 12 compression ratio.

Ammonia is a new type of carbon-free fuel with low cost, clean and safe. The research and application of zero-carbon fuel internal combustion engines has become the mainstream of future development. However, there still exist problems should be solved in the application of ammonia fuel. Due to the lower flame laminar speed and higher ignition temperature, ammonia may have unstable combustion phenomena. In this work, the characteristics of ammonia combustion have been investigated, based on controllable thermal activated atmosphere burner. The ignition delay has been used to analyze the ammonia combustion characteristics. With the increase in co-flow temperature, the ignition delay of ammonia/air has an obvious decline. In order to investigate the emission characteristics of ammonia, CHEMKIN is used to validate the different chemical reaction mechanisms and analyse the ammonia emissions.

This paper presents an experimental study of the emission characteristics of a small Spark-Ignited, LPG engine. A single cylinder, four-stroke, water-cooled, 125cc SI engine for motorcycle is modified for using LPG fuel. The power output of LPG is above 95% power output of gasoline. The emission characteristics of LPG are compared with the gasoline. The test result shows that LPG for small SI engine will help to reduce the emission level of motorcycles. The HC and CO emission level can be reduced greatly, but NOx emissions are increased. The emission of motorcycle using LPG shows the potential to meet the more strict regulation.

An air-cooled, four-stroke, 125 cc electronic gasoline fuel injection SI engine for motorcycles is altered to burn ethanol fuel. The effects of nozzle orifice size, fuel injection duration, spark timing and the excess air/ fuel ratio on engine power output, fuel and energy consumptions and engine exhaust emission levels are studied on an engine test bed. The results show that the maximum engine power output is increased by 5.4% and the maximum torque output is increased by 1.9% with the ethanol fuel in comparison with the baseline. At full load and 7000 r/min, HC emission is decreased by 38% and CO emission is decreased 46% on average over the whole engine speed range. However, NOx levels are increased to meet the maximum power output. The experiments of the spark timing show that the levels of HC and NOx emission are decreased markedly by the delay of spark timing.

As a novel ignition technology, pre-chamber ignition can enhance ignition energy, promote flame propagation, and augment turbulence. However, this technology undoubtedly faces challenges, particularly in the context of emission regulations. Of this study, the transient characteristics of combustion and emissions in a hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) gasoline engine with active pre-chamber ignition (PCI) under the first combustion cycle of quick start are focused. The results demonstrate that the PCI engine is available on the first cycle for lean combustion, such as lambda 1.6 to 2.0, and exhibit particle number (PN) below 7×107 N/mL at the first cycle. These particles are predominantly composed of nucleation mode (NM, <50 nm) particles, with minimal accumulation mode (AM, >50 nm) particles.

As an efficient hydrogen carrier, ammonia itself is also a promising zero-carbon fuel that is drawing more and more attention. As the combustion of pure ammonia is hard to achieve on SI engines, in this study, spark- ignited micro-gasoline-jet was utilized to ignite the premixed ammonia/air mixture in a constant volume combustible vessel at different premixed ammonia/air excess air coefficient and backpressure (represented by ammonia partial pressure). The flame image was captured by a high-speed camera and the transient pressure change in the vessel was measured by an engine cylinder pressure sensor.

An ion current sensor is employed in a 4 cylinder production SI engine for combustion diagnosis during combustion process, knock, and low speed pre-ignition (LSPI) detection. The results show that the ion current peak value and ion current peak phase have strong correlation with the cylinder pressure and pressure peak phase respectively. The COV of ion current integral value is greater than the COV of IMEP at the same operating condition. Results show that the ion current signal is sensitive to different lambdas. Using ion current signal, the knock in any given cylinder can be detected. Importantly, the ion sensor successfully detected the low speed pre-ignition (LSPI) about more than 20 °CA before spark ignition.

The work of this paper aimed at investigating the cyclic variations of argon power cycle engine with fuel of hydrogen at lean burn operating conditions. The engine had been modified based on a 0.402 L, single-cylinder diesel engine into spark ignition engine with a port fuel injection system. The influencing factors on the cyclic variations, such as ignition timing, engine speed and compression ratio, were tested in this study. In all tests, the throttle opened at 0%, and the excess oxygen coefficient was maintained at 2.3. The results showed that as the ignition timing retards, CoVPmax and CoV(dp/dφ)max of argon power cycle engine increased, while CoVIMEP decreased firstly and increased afterward. And there is an ignition timing to make the lowest CoVIMEP, which is not consistent with MBT.

According to the requirements of two-wheel vehicle's future market and the characteristic of urban road conditions in China, the advantages and disadvantages of three basic configurations for the Hybrid Electric Vehicle are compared, finally, the serial hybrid configuration is chosen to be applied to hybrid Electric Moped solution. The selection principle of main components of this hybrid powertrain system includes ICE, generator, battery and hub motor, and the optimal match for performance parameters of these components are introduced in this paper. Then, a hybrid system model is established based on AVL-CRUISE. The simulations of fuel efficiency and exhaust emissions for both serial hybrid moped and conventional motorcycle is offered.

This paper presents the development of an electronic control LPG gas injection system and its application in a small SI engine. The tests results show that the developed LPG gas injection system can meet the needs for the goal of high engine power output and low exhaust emissions based on the engine bench tests. With the LPG electronic gas injection system, the air-fuel ratio can be optimized based on the requirements and CO and NOx emission levels are decreased significantly compared with the LPG mechanical mixer fuel supply system, based on the same HC emission levels. With the new gas phase LPG electronic control injection system, the HC emission level is controlled below the 300 ppm under most engine conditions and under 200 ppm when the engine speed is over 3000 r/min. The NOx emission level is under 2600 ppm in the whole range of engine operation conditions and is decreased by 2000 ppm compared with the LPG mechanical mixer system.

The active components, such as OH and their concentrations in the coflow, have a strong effect on the combustion process of diesel fuel spray flames in the Controllable Active Thermo-Atmosphere (CATA), which then will affect the soot incandescence of the spray flames. CO2 and H2O2, the additives which have contrary effect on the concentration of the active components, were mixed separately into the thermo-atmosphere before the jet spray were issued into the coflow, which changed the boundary condition around the central jet and influenced the combustion characteristics and soot incandescence. The combustion characteristics such as ignition delay and flame liftoff height of the central spray flames are measured and the linkage between these two parameters is investigated at different coflow temperatures.

A Controllable Active Thermo-Atmosphere (CATA) Combustor enables the investigation of stabilization mechanisms in an environment that decouples the turbulent chemical kinetics from the complex recirculating flow. Previous studies on combustion of the low-pressure fuel jets in the Controllable Active Thermo-Atmosphere (CATA) showed non-linear effect of coflow temperature on autoignition delay and the randomness of autoignition sites. In this work, a diesel spray is injected into the CATA with the injection pressure at 20MPa from a single-hole injector and the autoignition and combustion process of the spray is recorded by a high-speed camera video. The multipoint autoignition of diesel spray is observed in the CATA and the subsequent combustion process is analyzed. The results show that autoignition phenomenon plays an important role in the stabilization of the lifted flames of diesel spray under low coflow temperature.

The present work aims at optimizing diesel engine combustion efficiency with optimized water injection strategy. The engine had been modified based on a two-cylinder mechanical pump diesel engine into common rail diesel engine with capability of direct water injection. The direct water injection system was designed and manufactured independently. An air-fluid booster was utilized to establish the water injection pressure up to 40MPa. Customized diesel injector was selected to be used as water injector in this study. Water injection strategy was optimized in detail with injection timing around TDC which ranges from 12°CA BTDC to -5°CA BTDC under 10 bar IMEP. The engine efficiency can be improved under selected water injection strategy due to the increment of work fluid in the combustion chamber. Moreover, the nitric oxides emissions show decrement around 10%.

In order to investigate the impacts of recirculated exhaust gas temperature on gasoline engine combustion and emissions, an experimental study has been conducted on a turbocharged PFI gasoline engine. The engine was equipped with a high pressure cooled EGR system, in which different EGR temperatures were realized by using different EGR coolants. The engine ran at 2000 r/min and 3000 r/min, and the BMEP varied from 0.2MPa to 1.0MPa with the step of 0.2MPa. At each case, there were three conditions: 0% EGR, 10% LT-EGR, 10% HT-EGR. The results indicated that LT-EGR had a longer combustion duration compared with HT-EGR. When BMEP was 1.0 MPa, CA50 of HT-EGR advanced about 5oCA. However, CA50 of LT-EGR could still keep steady and in appropriate range, which guaranteed good combustion efficiency. Besides, LT-EGR had lower exhaust gas temperature, which could help to suppress knock. And its lower exhaust gas temperature could reduce heat loss. These contributed to fuel consumption reduction.

Idle stopping is one of the most important fuel saving methods for hybrid electric vehicle (HEV). While the enriched injection strategy which was employed to ensure reliable ignition of first cycle will leads to even more fuel film stayed in the intake port, all of the liquid film will evaporate randomly and interfere the mixture air-fuel ratio of the followed cycles. The fuel transport of the first cycle should be enhanced to reduce the residual fuel film, and then the control of the cycle-by-cycle air-fuel ratio will become easier and the combustion and HC emissions will also be better. In this paper the mixture preparation characteristics of the unfired first cycle, as well as the combustion and HC emissions characteristics of the fired first cycle under various injection timing strategies such as close-valve injection, mid-valve injection, and open-valve injection were investigated.

Urea-SCR system is one of the after-treatment methods for diesel engines, which could effectively reduce the NOX emissions and enable diesel engines to meet increasingly stringent emission legislations. Within the urea-SCR system, characteristics of urea-solution spray, especially the distribution uniformity of spray droplets as well as gaseous NH₃ within the exhaust pipe, play an important role in the efficiency of catalytic reduction. In this paper, an SCR spray visualization test bench was set up. Urea-solution from a non-air-assist injector is injected into the steady stream of simulated exhaust gas flow. The transient characteristics of spray are recorded by high-speed photography. Specific spray characteristics in the original photographs, i.e., mixing distance and degree of uniformity are extracted. The influence of injection pressure and injection angle on spray characteristics are tested in different sets of experiments.

By changing the top-land radial clearance, this paper presents the effect of the piston crevice on the transient HC emissions of the first firing cycle at cold start on an LPG SI Engine. A fast-response flame ionization detector (FFID) was employed to measure transient HC emissions of the first firing cycle. At the same time, the transient cylinder pressure and instantaneous crankshaft speed of the engine were measured and recorded. The results show that increasing 50% crevice volume leads to 25% increase of HC emissions in the lean region and 18% increase of HC emissions in the rich region, however, the 50% increase of crevice volume contributes to 32% decease of HC emissions in the stable combustion region. For LPG SI engine, the HC emissions of the first firing cycle during cold start are relatively low in a wide range of the excess air ratio.

Argon power cycle hydrogen engine is an internal combustion engine that employs argon instead of nitrogen of air as the working fluid, oxygen as the oxidizer, and hydrogen as the fuel. Since argon has a higher specific heat ratio than air, argon power cycle hydrogen engines have theoretically higher indicated thermal efficiencies according to the Otto cycle efficiency formula. However, argon makes the end mixture more susceptible to spontaneous combustion and thus is accompanied by a stronger knock at a lower compression ratio, thus limiting the improvement of thermal efficiency in engine operation. In order to suppress the limitation of knock on the thermal efficiency, this paper adopts a combination of experimental and simulation methods to investigate the effects of port water injection on the knock suppression and combustion characteristics of an argon power cycle hydrogen engine.

Ion current sensing, which usually employs a spark plug as its sensor to obtain feedback signal from different types of combustion in SI engines, may be applied to HCCI combustion sensing instead of a prohibitively expensive piezoelectric pressure transducer. However, studies showed that the ion current detected by a spark plug sensor is a localized signal within the vicinity of the sensor's electrode gap, being affected by conditions around it. To find out better and feasible ion probe positions, a 3D-CFD model with a detailed surrogate mechanism containing 1423 species and 6106 reactions was employed to study the effect of stratification on ion distribution in HCCI combustion. The simulation results indicate that the monitor probe 1, 8 and 9 are more stable and reliable than the others. IONmax and dIONmax are more accurate to estimate CA50 and dQmax respectively.

Reducing the pumping loss, and thus, the fuel consumption of gasoline engine at part load, a two-stage intake valve lift system was implanted into a PFI engine. A corresponding engine model was set up with GT-power as well, which can simulate the effect of two-stage intake valve lift and different EGR rates on fuel economy performance and on combustion condition of a gasoline engine. Based on simulation results, the valve lift control strategy and EGR control strategy was studied in this paper. Results showed that at low engine speed, when SMALL LIFT was used, the tumble flow and the combustion process in cylinder was improved and burn time duration became shorter, resulting in higher indicated efficiency and lower fuel consumption than by LARGE LIFT. With the introduction of the exhaust gas recirculation (EGR), lower fuel consumption was acquired.