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The push for environmental protection and sustainability has led to strict emission regulations for automotive manufacturers as evident in EURO VII and 2026 EPA requirements. The challenge lies in maintaining fuel efficiency and simultaneously reducing the carbon footprint while meeting future emission regulations. Alcohol (primarily methanol, ethanol, and butanol) and ether (dimethyl ether) fuels, owing to their comparable energy density to existing fuels, the comparative ease of handling, renewable production, and suitable emission characteristics may present an attractive drop-in replacement, fully or in part as an additive, to the gasoline/diesel fuels, without extensive modifications to the engine geometry. Additionally, lean and diluted combustion are well-researched pathways for efficiency improvement and reduction of engine-out emissions of modern engines.

In order to improve the fuel economy for future high-efficiency spark ignition engines, the applications of advanced combustion strategies are considered to be beneficial with an overall lean and/or exhaust gas recirculation diluted cylinder charge. Stronger and more reliable ignition sources become more favorable under extreme lean/EGR conditions. Existing research indicates that the frequency of plasma restrikes increases with increased flow velocity and decreased discharge current level, and a higher discharge current can reduce the gap resistance and maintain the stretched plasma for a longer duration under flow conditions. An in-house developed current boost control system provides flexible control of the discharge current level and discharge duration. The current boost ignition system is based on a multi-coil system with a discharge current level of 180mA.

The push for environmental protection and sustainability has led to strict emission regulations for automotive manufacturers as evident in EURO VII and 2026 EPA requirements. The challenge lies in maintaining fuel efficiency and simultaneously reducing the carbon footprint while meeting future emission regulations. Alcohol (primarily methanol, ethanol, and butanol) and ether (dimethyl ether) fuels, owing to their comparable energy density to existing fuels, the comparative ease of handling, renewable production, and suitable emission characteristics may present an attractive drop-in replacement, fully or in part as an additive, to the gasoline/diesel fuels, without extensive modifications to the engine geometry. Additionally, lean and diluted combustion are well-researched pathways for efficiency improvement and reduction of engine-out emissions of modern engines.

Combustion diagnostics of highly diluted mixtures are essential for the estimation of the combustion quality, and control of combustion timing in advanced combustion systems. In this paper, a novel fast response flame detection technique based on active plasma is introduced and investigated. Different from the conventional ion current sensing used in internal combustion engines, a separate electrode gap is used in the detecting probing. Further, the detecting voltage across the electrode gap is modulated actively using a multi-coil system to be slightly below the breakdown threshold before flame arrival. Once the flame front arrives at the probe, the ions on the flame front tend to decrease the breakdown voltage threshold and trigger a breakdown event. Simultaneous electrical and optical measurements are employed to investigate the flame detecting efficacy via active plasma probing under both quiescent and flow conditions.

The use of renewable natural gas and green hydrogen can significantly reduce the carbon footprint of engines. For future spark ignition engines, lean burn strategy and high compression ratio need to be adopted to further improve thermal efficiency, reducing energy consumption. The efficacy of the ignition system is essential to initiate self-sustainable flame under those extreme conditions. In this work, a rapid compression machine is employed to compress air-fuel mixture to engine-like boundary conditions before the spark event to experimentally investigate the ignition and combustion characteristics of the methane-air mixtures under extreme lean conditions. Hydrogen is also added to support the ignition process and enhance flame propagation speed. Lean methane-air mixtures with excess air ratio up to 2.8 are used, with 10 vol% hydrogen addition into the methane fuel. The ignition criteria under various ignition strategies are explored.

Performance of the ignition system becomes more important than ever, because of the extensively used EGR in modern spark-ignition engines. Future lean burn SI and SACI combustion modes demand even stronger ignition capability for robust ignition control. For spark-based ignition systems, extensive research has been carried out to investigate the discharge characteristics of the ignition process, including discharge current amplitude, discharge duration, spark energy, and plasma stretching. The correlation between the spark stretch and the discharge energy, as well as the impact of discharge current level on this correlation, are important with respect to both ignition performance, and ignition system design. In this paper, a constant volume combustion chamber is applied to study the impact of plasma stretch on the spark energy release process with cross-flow speed from 0 m/s up to 70 m/s.

Lean burn is regarded as one of the most effective ways to improve fuel efficiency for spark ignition engines. However, the excessive air dilution deteriorates combustion stability, limiting the degree of engine operational dilution. The intensified flow field is therefore introduced into the cylinder to mitigate the decline of the burning velocity caused by the leaned-out fuel-air mixture. In a moderate flow field, flame kernels are formed near the hot spark plasma during discharge and stick to the spark gap even after the end of discharge; the flame front then propagates outward and evolves into self-sustained flame. Flame attaching to the spark gap is a common phenomenon in the early combustion stage and has been reported to be beneficial for flame inception in the literature.

Stronger ignition sources become more favorable under extreme lean/EGR conditions. Under those conditions, the reduced pumping loss and low combustion temperature can contribute to further engine efficiency improvement for spark ignited engines. Multicoil ignition system can enhance ignition energy as well as modulate discharge profile. The ignition energy can either be deployed through single spark gap to enhance the ignition capability of the plasma channel, or be distributed to multiple ignition sites to establish multiple flame kernels to secure flame kernel initiation. The multiple ignition coils used for energy distribution ignition strategy also consume more power, in order to maintain the stable operation of the engine under lean operation limit. In this paper, efficacy of concentrated and distributed multicoil ignition strategies were investigated on a spark ignited inline 4-cylinder production engine using a three-ignition-coil pack.

Meeting the increasingly stringent emission and fuel efficiency standards is the primary objective of the modern automotive research. Lean/diluted combustion is a promising avenue to realize high-efficiency combustion and reduce emissions in SI engines. Under diluted conditions, the flame propagation speed is reduced because of the reduced charge reactivity. Enhancing in-cylinder charge motion and turbulence, and thereby increasing the flame speed, is a possible way to harness the combustion process in SI engines. However, charge motion can have a significant effect on the spark ignition process because of the reduced discharge duration and frequent restrikes. A longer discharge duration can aid in the formation of a self-sustained flame kernel and subsequent stable ignition. Therefore, an empirical study is undertaken to investigate the effect of discharge duration and ignition timing on the ignition and early combustion in a port fueled SI engine, operated under lean conditions.

Lean burn or EGR diluted combustion with enhanced charge motion is effective in improving the efficiency of spark ignition engines. However, the ignition process under these conditions is getting more challenging due to higher ignition energy required by the lean or diluted mixture, as well as the interactions of the gas flow on the flame kernel. Enhanced spark discharge energy is essential to initiate the combustion under these conditions. Moreover, the discharge process should be more carefully controlled to improve the effectiveness of the spark. In this study, spark ignition systems with boosted discharge energy are used to ignite diluted air-fuel mixture under forced flow conditions. The impacts of the discharge current level, the discharge duration and the discharge current profile on the ignition are investigated in detail using optical diagnosis.

For spark ignition (SI) engines, further improvement of engine efficiency has become the major development trend, and lean burn/EGR technologies, as well as intensified in-cylinder flow, need to be adapted to reach that target. Stronger ignition sources become more favorable under extreme lean/EGR conditions. Among the ignition technologies developed, multiple ignition sites technology has been proved to be an effective way to help with the initial flame kernel development. In this paper, a spark ignited 4-cylinder turbo-charged production engine is employed to investigate the impact of multiple ignition sites technology on engine performance under lean burn conditions. Four in-house designed 3-core sparkplugs are installed on the cylinders to replace traditional stock sparkplugs, in order to generate multiple ignition sites in the cylinders.

Increasingly stringent emission standards have promoted the interest in alternate fuel sources. Because of the comparable energy density to the existing fossil fuels and renewable production, alcohol fuels may be a suitable replacement, or an additive to the gasoline/diesel fuels to meet the future emission standards with minimal modification to current engine geometry. In this research, the combustion characteristics of neat n-butanol are analyzed under spark ignition operation using a single cylinder SI engine. The fuel is injected into the intake manifold using a port-fuel injector. Two modes of charge dilution were used in this investigation to test the limits of stable engine operation, namely lean burn using excess fresh air and exhaust gas recirculation (EGR). The in-cylinder pressure measurement and subsequently, heat release analysis are used to investigate the combustion characteristics of the fuel under low load SI engine operation.

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.

The control of combustion phasing in homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) combustion is investigated with neat n-butanol in this work. HCCI is a commonly researched combustion mode, owing to its improved thermal efficiency over conventional gasoline combustion, as well as its lower nitrogen oxide (NOx) and particulate matter emissions compared to those of diesel combustion. Despite these advantages, HCCI lacks successful widespread implementation with conventional fuels, primarily due to the lack of effective combustion phasing control. In this preliminary study, chemical kinetic simulations are conducted to study the auto-ignition characteristics of n-butanol under varied background pressures, temperatures, and dilution levels using established mechanisms in CHEMKIN software. Increasing the pressure or temperature lead to a shorter ignition delay, whereas increasing the dilution by the application of exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) leads to a longer ignition delay.

Reduction of nitrogen oxides (NOx) in lean burn and diesel fueled Compression Ignition (CI) engines is one of the major challenges faced by automotive manufacturers. Lean NOx Trap (LNT) and urea-based Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) exhaust after-treatment systems are well established technologies to reduce NOx emissions. However, each of these technologies has associated advantages and disadvantages for use over a wide range of engine operating conditions. In order to meet future ultra-low NOx emission norms, the use of both alternative fuels and advanced after-treatment technology may be required. The use of an alcohol fuel such as n-butanol or ethanol in a CI engine can reduce the engine-out NOx and soot emissions. In CI engines using LNTs for NOx reduction, the fuel such as diesel is utilized as a reductant for LNT regeneration.

This empirical work investigates the impacts of thermodynamic parameters, such as pressure and temperature, and fuel properties, such as fuel Cetane number and aromatic contents on ignition delay in diesel engines. Systematic tests are conducted on a single-cylinder research engine to evaluate the ignition delay changes due to the fuel property differences at low, medium and high engine loads under different EGR dilution ratios. The test fuels offer a range of Cetane numbers from 28 to 54.2 and aromatic contents volume ratios from 19.4% to 46.6%. The experimental results of ignition delays are used to derive an ignition delay model modified from Arrhenius’ expression. Following the same format of Arrhenius’ equation, the model incorporates the pressure and temperature effects, and further includes the impacts of intake oxygen concentration, fuel Cetane number and aromatic contents volume ratio on the ignition delay.

Spark ignition systems with the capability of providing spark event with either higher current level or longer discharge duration has been developed in recent years to help IC engines towards clean combustion with higher efficiency under lean/diluted intake charge. In this research, a boosted current spark strategy was proposed to investigate the effect of spark discharge current level and discharge duration on the combustion process. Firstly, the discharge characteristics of a boosted current spark system were tested with a traditional spark plug under crossflow conditions, and results showed that the spark channel was more stable, and was stretched much longer when the discharge current was boosted. Then the boosted current strategy was used in a spark ignition engine operating under lean conditions. Boosted current was added to the spark channel with different timing, duration, and current levels.

In this work, a spatially distributed spark ignition strategy was employed to improve the ignition process of well-mixed ultra-lean dilute gasoline combustion in a high compression ratio (13.1:1) single cylinder engine at partial loads. The ignition energy was distributed in the perimeter of a 3-pole igniter. It was identified that on the basis of similar total spark energy, the 3-pole ignition mode can significantly shorten the early flame kernel development period and reduce the cyclic variation of combustion phasing, for the spark timing sweep tests at λ 1.5. The effect of ignition energy level on lean-burn operation was investigated at λ 1.6. Within a relatively low ignition energy range, i.e. below 46 mJ per pole, the increase in ignition energy via ether 1 pole or 3 pole can improve the controllability over combustion phasing and reduce the variability of lean burn combustion. Higher ignition energy was required in order to enable ultra-lean engine operation with λ above 1.6.

A three-pole spark igniter, with the concept to broaden the ignition area, is employed in this paper to investigate the effect of spark discharge strategies on the early ignition burning process. The prototyped three-pole igniter has three independent spark gaps arranged in a triangular pattern with a circumradius of 2.3 mm. Direct-capacitor discharge techniques, utilizing close-coupled capacitors parallel to the spark gap, are applied on the three-pole igniter to enhance either the transient spark power or the overall energy. In particular, the simultaneous discharge of high energy plasma on three spark gaps can produce a surface-like ignition process which intensifies the plasma-flame interaction, thereby producing a rapid flame kernel development. The ignition strategies are evaluated in both constant volume combustion vessels and a modified single-cylinder metal engine.

This research work investigates the control strategies of fuel burn rate of neat n-butanol combustion to improve the engine load capability. Engine tests of homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) and partially premixed combustion (PPC) with neat n-butanol show promising NOx and smoke emissions; however, the rapid burn rate of n-butanol results in excessive pressure rise rates and limits the engine load capability. A multi-event combustion strategy is developed to modulate the fuel burn rate of the combustion cycle and thus to reduce the otherwise high pressure rise rates at higher engine load levels. In the multi-event combustion strategy, the first combustion event is produced near TDC by the compression ignition of the port injected butanol that resembles the HCCI combustion; the second combustion event occurs near 7~12 degrees after TDC, which is produced by butanol direct injection (DI) after the first HCCI-like combustion event.