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The use of hydrogen as a possible fuel for internal combustion (IC) engines can help build a society with a clean transportation framework. Diluting the in-cylinder mixture can improve the efficiency of the engines. To prove the validity of lean burn in hydrogen IC engines, three different combustion modes are investigated in this study. The engine experiments are conducted in a spray-guided direct-injection (DI) spark-ignition engine with 10 MPa of hydrogen DI. When lean burn is applied to a hydrogen IC engine, the characteristics of pumping and heat transfer loss improve. The improvement in heat transfer loss is more significant than the reduction in negative pumping work for the indicated thermal efficiency. Among the three combustion modes, stratified charge combustion (SCC) develops the maximum indicated mean effective pressure. However, this mode deteriorates the combustion stability slightly. The nitrogen oxide emission is reduced when the excess air ratio is increased.

Lean stratified combustion shows high potential to reduce fuel consumption because it operates without the intervention of a throttle valve. Despite its high fuel economy potential, it emits large amounts of particulate matter (PM) because the locally rich mixture is formed at the periphery of a spark plug. Furthermore, the combustion phasing angle is not realized at MBT ignition timing, which can bring high work conversion efficiency. Since PM emission and work conversion efficiency are in a trade-off relation, this research focused on reducing PM emission through achieving high work conversion efficiency. Two intake air control strategies were examined in this research; throttle operation and late intake valve closing (LIVC). The experiment was conducted in a single cylinder spray-guided direct injection spark ignition (SG-DISI) engine with liquefied petroleum gas (LPG). The injected fuel amount was fixed so as to investigate the effect of each strategy.

Most internal combustion engine makers have adopted after-treatment systems, such as selective catalytic reduction (SCR), diesel particulate filter (DPF), and diesel oxidation catalyst (DOC), to meet emission regulations. However, as the emission regulations become stricter, the size of the after-treatment systems become larger. This aggravates the price competitiveness of engine systems and causes fuel efficiency to deteriorate due to the increased exhaust pressure. Dual-fuel premixed charge compression ignition (DF-PCCI) combustion, which is one of the advanced combustion technologies, makes it possible to reduce nitrogen oxides (NOx) and particulate matter (PM) during the combustion process, while keeping the combustion phase controllability as a conventional diesel combustion (CDC). However, DF-PCCI combustion produces high amounts of hydrocarbon (HC) and carbon monoxide (CO) emissions due to the bulk quenching phenomenon under low load conditions as a huddle of commercialization.

Knocking combustion limits the downsized gasoline engines’ potential for improvement with regard to fuel economy. The high in-cylinder pressure and temperature caused by the adaptation of a turbocharger aggravates the tendency of the end-gas to autoignite. Thus, the knocking combustion does not allow for further advancing of the combustion phase. In this research, the effects of the ignition and valve timings on knocking combustion were investigated under steady-state conditions. Moreover, the optimal ignition and valve timings for the transient operations were derived with the aim of a greater fuel economy improvement, based on the steady-state analysis. A 2.0 liter turbocharged gasoline direct injection engine with continuously variable valve timing (CVVT), was utilized for this experiment. 2, 10, and 18 bar brake mean effective pressure (BMEP) load conditions were used to represent the low, medium, and high load operations, respectively.

The effects of hydrogen ratio and exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) on combustion and emissions in a hydrogen/diesel dual-fuel premixed charge compression ignition (PCCI) engine were investigated. The control of combustion phasing could be improved using hydrogen enrichment and EGR due to the retarded combustion phasing with a higher hydrogen ratio. The indicated mean effective pressure (IMEP) was increased with a higher hydrogen ratio because the hydrogen enrichment intensified the high temperature reactions and thus decreased the combustion duration. Hydrocarbon (HC) and carbon monoxide (CO) emissions were reduced significantly in a hydrogen/diesel dual-fuel PCCI mode with a similar NOx emissions level as that of the diesel PCCI mode.

Transient tests in a 2.0 liter in-line 4 cylinder downsizing gasoline direct injection engine were conducted under various transient conditions in order to investigate effects of lower rotational inertia of titanium aluminide alloy (TiAl) turbine wheel on engine and turbocharger performances. As a representative result, fast boost pressure build up was achieved in case of TiAl turbocharger compared to Inconel turbocharger. This result was mainly due to lower rotational inertia of TiAl turbine wheel. Engine torque build up response was also improved with TiAl turbocharger even though engine torque response gap between both turbochargers was slightly reduced due to retarded combustion phase. In addition, with advanced ignition timing, fuel consumption became less than that of Inconel turbocharger with similar engine torque response.

Low Temperature Combustion (LTC) is known to be feasible only in lower load ranges so in real world application of LTC, engine operation mode should frequently change back and forth between LTC mode in lower loads and conventional mode in higher loads. In this research, effect of injection strategy on smoothness and emissions during mode transition in a single cylinder heavy duty diesel engine is studied. The Exhaust Gas Recirculation (EGR) line was controlled by a servo-valve capable of opening or closing the EGR loop within only one engine cycle. Ten cycles after the EGR valve closure were taken as the transition period during which injection timing and quantity were shifted in various ways (i.e. injection strategies) and the effect on Indicated Mean Effective Pressure (IMEP) stability and emissions was studied.

Spray and combustion of gasoline and diesel were visualized under different ambient conditions in terms of pressure, temperature and density in a constant volume chamber. Three different ambient conditions were selected to simulate the three combustion regimes of homogeneous charge compression ignition, premixed charge compression ignition and conventional combustion. Ambient density was varied from 3.74 to 23.39 kg/m3. Ambient temperature at the spray injection were controlled to the range from 474 to 925 K. Intake oxygen concentration was also modulated from 15 % to 21 % in order to investigate the effects of intake oxygen concentrations on combustion characteristics. The injection pressure of gasoline and diesel were modulated from 50 to 150 MPa to analyze the effect of injection pressure on the spray development and combustion characteristics. Liquid penetration length and vapor penetration length were measured based on the methods of Mie-scattering and Schileren, respectively.

Steady and transient tests in a downsizing Gasoline Direct Injection (GDI) in-line 4 cylinders 2.0 liter engine were carried out to investigate characteristics of turbocharger with Titanium aluminide (TiAl) turbine wheel. The density of TiAl material is lower than Inconel 718 (Inconel) which is raw material for conventional turbine wheel. The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of light rotational inertia of turbine wheel on engine performance. Performance of TiAl turbine wheel turbocharger itself was also compared to that of Inconel turbine wheel turbocharger. Except for the turbine wheels, all experimental conditions were matched to be the same load and engine speed conditions. The compressor total-to-total pressure ratio of TiAl turbocharger was higher under part load condition due to higher turbocharger speed of TiAl turbocharger, which was led by lower rotational inertia of TiAl turbine wheel, while the engine performance was not much improved.

Mode transition between low temperature combustion (LTC) and conventional combustion was performed by changing the exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) rate from 60% to 0% or vice versa in a light duty diesel engine. The indicated mean effective pressure (IMEP) before mode transition was set at 0.45 MPa, representing the maximum load of LTC in this research engine. Various engine operating parameters (rate of EGR change, EGR path length, and residual gas) were considered in order to investigate their influence on the combustion mode transition. The characteristics of combustion mode transition were analyzed based on the in-cylinder pressure and hydrocarbon (HC) emission of each cycle. The general results showed that drastic changes of power output, combustion noise, and HC emission occurred during the combustion mode transition due to the improper injection conditions for each combustion mode.

In this study, premixed charge compression ignition (PCCI) combustion was implemented using an injector that had a narrow injection angle of 70° and a moderately early injection timing of -40° crank angle after top dead center (CA ATDC). In-cylinder pressure measurements and high-speed direct imaging of the flame were performed in an optically accessible single-cylinder diesel engine. Frequency analysis of the acquired in-cylinder pressure data was carried out to obtain the frequency range of diesel knock. Meanwhile, image segmentation and a tracking algorithm based on YCbCr color space were implemented to determine the frequency range of diesel knock from the obtained high-speed image. The results show that the frequency of diesel knock was dominated by the range from 13 kHz to 15 kHz. Still, frequency with low power existed down until 7 kHz. The frequencies of the area movement were shown to be 13 kHz and, in some cases, 8.67 kHz.

Combustion and emission characteristics were investigated in a compression ignition engine with dual-fuel strategy using dimethyl ether (DME) and gasoline. Experiments were performed at the low load condition corresponding to indicated mean effective pressure of 0.45 MPa. DME was directly injected into the cylinder and gasoline was injected into the intake manifold during the intake stroke. The proportion of DME in the total input energy was adjusted from 10% to 100%. DME DME injection timing was widely varied to investigate the effect of injection timing on the combustion phase. Injection pressure of DME was varied from 20 MPa to 60 MPa. Exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) was controlled from 0% to 60% to explore the effect of EGR on the combustion and emission characteristics. As DME proportion was decreased with the increased portion of gasoline, the combustion efficiency was decreased but thermal efficiency was increased.

In this study, single and double post injections were applied to diesel premixed charge compression ignition (PCCI) combustion to overcome the drawbacks those are high level of hydrocarbons (HC) and carbon monoxide (CO) emissions in a single-cylinder direct-injection diesel engine. The operating conditions including engine speed and total injection quantity were 1200 rpm and 12 mg/cycle, which are the representative of low engine speed and low load. The main injection timing of diesel PCCI combustion was set to 28 crank angle degree before top dead center (CAD BTDC). This main injection timing showed 32% lower level of nitric oxides (NOx) level and 8 CAD longer ignition delay than those of conventional diesel combustion. However, the levels of HC and CO were 2.7 and 3 times higher than those of conventional diesel combustion due to over-lean mixture and wall wetting of fuel.

The influence of fuel injection pressure and intake pressure on conventional and low temperature diesel combustion was investigated in a light duty diesel engine. The in-cylinder pressure and exhaust emissions were measured and analyzed in each operating condition. The two combustion regimes were classified in terms of intake oxygen concentrations, which were adjusted by varying the amount of exhaust gas recirculation. The fuel injection quantity and injection timing were fixed in order to minimize the influencing factors. Fuel injection pressures of 40 MPa and 120 MPa were used to verify the effect of the fuel injection pressure in both combustion regimes. The injection pressure significantly affected the combustion phase in the low temperature diesel combustion regime due to the longer premixing time relative to the conventional diesel combustion regime.

The compression ignition combustion fuelled with hydrogen and dimethyl-ether was investigated. Exhaust gas recirculation was applied to reduce noise and nitrogen oxide (NOx) emission. When dimethyl-ether was injected earlier, combustion showed two-stage ignitions known as low temperature reaction and high temperature reaction. With advanced dimethyl-ether injection, combustion temperature and in-cylinder pressure rise were lowered which resulted in high carbon monoxide and hydrocarbon emissions. However, NOx emission was decreased due to relatively low combustion temperature. The engine combustion showed only high temperature reaction when dimethyl-ether was injected near top dead center. When exhaust gas recirculation gas was added, the in-cylinder pressure and heat release rate were decreased. However, it retarded combustion phase resulting in higher indicated mean effective pressure.

The effect of pilot injection and exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) on premixed charge compression ignition (PCCI) combustion was investigated in a single-cylinder direct-injection diesel engine with low engine speed and low load. The injection timing of PCCI combustion was fixed at 25 ~ 30 crank angle degree before top dead center (°CA BTDC) based on the ignition delay and power output. The level of oxides of nitrogen (NOx) emissions of PCCI combustion was 68% lower than that of conventional diesel combustion owing to the reduction of near-stoichiometric region which is well known as the main source of NOx formation. However, the indicated mean effective pressure (IMEP), hydrocarbon (HC), particulate matter (PM) and carbon monoxide (CO) emissions deteriorated compared with conventional diesel combustion because of early injection, advanced combustion phase and lowered combustion temperature. EGR has been applied to PCCI combustion.

Mode transition between low temperature combustion and conventional combustion was investigated in a direct injection diesel engine. Low temperature diesel combustion was realized by means of high exhaust gas recirculation rate (69~73%) and early injection timing (-28~ -16 crank angle degree after top dead center) compared with those (20% exhaust gas recirculation rate and -8 crank angle degree after top dead center) of conventional combustion. Tests were carried out at different engine speeds and injection pressures. Exhaust gas recirculation rate was changed transiently by controlling each throttle angle for fresh air and exhaust gas recirculation to implement mode transition. Various durations for throttle transition were applied to investigate the effect of speed change of exhaust gas recirculation rate on the characteristics of mode transition.

Premixed compression ignition (PCI) combustion was implemented using advanced injection strategy and exhaust gas recirculation in a direct-injection single-cylinder diesel engine. The injection timing swept experiment using a baseline injector, which had an injection angle of 146° and 8 nozzle holes, obtained three types of combustion regime: conventional diesel combustion for an injection timing of 10° CA (crank angle) BTDC (before top dead center), PCI combustion for an injection timing of 40° CA BTDC and homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) combustion for an injection timing of 80° CA BTDC. PCI combustion can be verified by burn duration analysis. The burn duration, which was defined as the period from 10% to 90% of the accumulated heat release, was very short in PCI combustion but not in the others. PCI combustion with an injection timing of 40° CA BTDC was achieved in a range of an exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) rate from 0% to around 40%.

An experimental study was performed to evaluate the effects of ethanol blending on to gasoline spray and combustion characteristics in a spray-guided direct-injection spark-ignition engine under lean stratified operation. The spray characteristics, including local homogeneity and phase distribution, were investigated by the planar laser-induced fluorescence and the planar Mie scattering method in a constant volume chamber. Therefore, the single cylinder engine was operated with pure gasoline, 85 %vol, 50 %vol and 25vol % ethanol blended with gasoline (E85, E50, E25) to investigate the combustion and exhaust emission characteristics. Ethanol was identified to have the potential of generating a more appropriate spray for internal combustion due to a higher vapor pressure at high temperature conditions. The planar laser-induced fluorescence image demonstrated that ethanol spray has a faster diffusion velocity and an enhanced local homogeneity.

Low temperature diesel combustion with a large amount of exhaust gas recirculation in a direct injection diesel engine was investigated. Tests were carried out under various engine speeds, injection pressures, injection timings, and injection quantities. Exhaust emissions and brake specific fuel consumption were measured at different torque and engine speed conditions. High rates of exhaust gas recirculation led to the simultaneous reduction of nitrogen oxide and soot emissions due to a lower combustion temperature than conventional diesel combustion. However, hydrocarbon and carbon monoxide emissions increased as the combustion temperature decreased because of incomplete combustion and the lack of an oxidation reaction. To overcome the operating range limits of low temperature diesel combustion, increased intake pressure with a modified turbocharger was employed.