Search Results

The combustion and exhaust emission characteristics of a DME fueled HCCI engine were investigated. Different fuel injection strategies were tested under various injection quantities and timings with exhaust gas recirculation (EGR). The combustion phase in HCCI was changed by an in-cylinder direct injection and EGR, due to changes in the in-cylinder temperature and mixture homogeneity. The gross indicated mean effective pressure (IMEPgross) increased and the hydrocarbon (HC) and carbon monoxide (CO) emissions decreased as the equivalence ratio was augmented. The IMEPgross with direct injection was greater than with the port injection due to retarded ignition timing resulting from latent heat of direct injected DME fuel. It was because that most of burn duration was completed before top dead center owing to higher ignitability for DME with high cetane number. However, HC and CO emissions were similar for both injection locations.

The combustion, knock characteristics and exhaust emissions in an engine were investigated under homogeneous charge compression ignition operation fueled with liquefied petroleum gas with regard to variable valve timing and the addition of di-methyl ether. Liquefied petroleum gas was injected at an intake port as the main fuel in a liquid phase using a liquefied injection system, while a small amount of di-methyl ether was also injected directly into the cylinder during the intake stroke as an ignition promoter. Different intake valve timings and fuel injection amount were tested in order to identify their effects on exhaust emissions, combustion and knock characteristics. The optimal intake valve open timing for the maximum indicated mean effective pressure was retarded as the λTOTAL was decreased. The start of combustion was affected by the intake valve open timing and the mixture strength (λTOTAL) due to the volumetric efficiency and latent heat of vaporization.

Dimethyl ether (DME) as a high cetane number fuel and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) as a high octane number fuel were supplied together to evaluate the controllability of combustion phase and improvement of power and exhaust emission in homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) engine. Each fuel was injected at the intake port and in the cylinder separately during the same cycle, i.e., DME in the cylinder and LPG at the intake port, or vice versa. Direct injection timing was varied from 200 to 340 crank angle degree (CAD) while port injection timing was fixed at 20 CAD. In general, the experimental results showed that DME direct injection with LPG port injection was the better way to increase the IMEP and reduce emissions. The direct injection timing of high cetane number fuel was important to control the auto-ignition timing because the auto-ignition was occurred at proper area, where the air and high cetane number fuel were well mixed.

Diesel fuel injection system is the most important part of the direct-injection diesel engine and, in recent years, it has become one of the critical technologies for emission control with the help of electronically controlled fuel injection. Common rail injection system has great flexibility in injection timing, pressure and multi-injections. Many studies and applications have reported the advantages of using common rail system to meet the strict emission regulation and to improve engine performance for diesel engines. The main objective of this study is to investigate the effect of pilot-, post- and multiple-fuel injection strategies on engine performance and emissions. The study was carried out on a single cylinder optical direct injection diesel engine equipped with a high pressure common rail fuel injection system. Spray and combustion evolutions were visualized through a high speed charge-coupled device (CCD) camera.

This paper describes a method to separate structure-borne noise, which comes from the shock absorber, from the measured vehicle interior sound pressure. The transfer path analysis (TPA) was used. Shock absorber was considered as an input source while the sound pressure at the driver seat as its output. It was found that the sound pressure at the driver seat position and accelerations at the shock absorber mounting points are strongly correlated. Using one-third octave band analysis, the contribution of shock absorber structure-borne noise to the driver seat sound pressure was analyzed. Also the relationship between the measured acceleration and sound pressure was studied.

Diesel injections with various nozzle geometries were tested to investigate the spray characteristics by optical imaging techniques. Sac-nozzle and VCO nozzle with single guided needle coupled with rotary-type mechanical pump were compared in terms of macroscopic spray development and microscopic behavior. These nozzles incorporated with common-rail system were tested to see the effect of high pressure injection. Detailed investigation into spray characteristics from the holes of VCO nozzles, mostly with double guided needle, was performed. A variety of injection hole geometries were tested and compared to give tips on better injector design. Different hole sizes and taper ratio, represented as K factor, were studied through comprehensive spray imaging techniques. Global characteristics of a diesel spray, such as spray penetration, spray angle and its pattern, were observed from macroscopic images.

Dimethyl Ether (DME) has been considered as one of the most attractive alternative fuels for compression ignition engine. Its main advantage in compression-ignition engine application is high efficiency of diesel cycle with soot free combustion though conventional fuel injection system has to be modified due to the intrinsic properties of the DME. Experimental study of the DME and conventional diesel spray employing a common-rail type fuel injection system with a sac type injector was performed in a constant volume vessel pressurized by nitrogen gas. A CCD camera was employed to capture time series of spray images, so that spray cone angles and penetrations of the DME spray were characterized and compared with those of diesel. Intermittent hesitating DME spray appeared at injection pressures of 25MPa and 40MPa in both atmospheric and 3MPa chamber pressures.

To investigate the mixture distributions in an LPG engine with Liquid phase port injection for heavy duty vehicles, an optical single cylinder engine, which is optically accessible both in side and bottom view, and laser diagnostic system were incorporated to apply PLIF (planar laser induced fluorescence) technique. Acetone was used as a dopant in LPG fuel, which was excited by KrF excimer laser (248nm), and its fluorescence images were acquired with ICCD camera. The effects of fuel injection timing, swirl intensity and excess air ratio were investigated. For the case of open valve injection, favorable stratification of fuel, both in axial and radial direction, was clearly observed compared to the closed valve injection, where reverse stratification in axial direction was observed. At the Ricardo swirl ratio of 3.4, it was apparent that excessive axial stratification of fuel got dominant, which would lead to poor engine performances.

This paper investigated the influence of the injector nozzle geometry on fuel consumption and exhaust emission characteristics of a light-duty diesel engine with 250 MPa injection. The engine used for the experiment was the 0.4L single-cylinder compression ignition engine. The diesel fuel injection equipment was operated under 250MPa injection pressure. Three injectors with nozzle hole number of 8 to 10 were compared. As the nozzle number of the injector increased, the orifice diameter decreased 105 μm to 95 μm. The ignition delay was shorter with larger nozzle number and smaller orifice diameter. Without EGR, the particulate matter(PM) emission was lower with larger nozzle hole number. This result shows that the atomization of the fuel was improved with the smaller orifice diameter and the fuel spray area was kept same with larger nozzle number. However, the NOx-PM trade-offs of three injectors were similar at higher EGR rate and higher injection pressure.

Engine-out CO emission and fuel conversion efficiency were measured in a highly-dilute, low-temperature diesel combustion regime over a swirl ratio range of 1.44-7.12 and a wide range of injection timing. At fixed injection timing, an optimal swirl ratio for minimum CO emission and fuel consumption was found. At fixed swirl ratio, CO emission and fuel consumption generally decreased as injection timing was advanced. Moreover, a sudden decrease in CO emission was observed at early injection timings. Multi-dimensional numerical simulations, pressure-based measurements of ignition delay and apparent heat release, estimates of peak flame temperature, imaging of natural combustion luminosity and spray/wall interactions, and Laser Doppler Velocimeter (LDV) measurements of in-cylinder turbulence levels are employed to clarify the sources of the observed behavior.

The More precise control of the multiple-injection is required in common-rail injection system of direct injection diesel engine to meet the low NOx emission and optimal PM filter system. The main parameter for obtaining the multiple-injections is the mechanism controlling the injector needle energizing and movement. In this study, a piezo-driven diesel injector, as a new method driven by piezoelectric energy, has been applied with a purpose to develop the analysis model of the piezo actuator to predict the dynamics characteristics of the hydraulic component (injector) by using the AMESim code and to evaluate the effect of this control capability on spray formation processes. Aimed at simulating the hydraulic behavior of the piezo-driven injector, the circuit model has been developed and verified by comparison with the experimental results.

One of the major problems limiting the accuracy of piezoelectric transducers for cylinder pressure measurements in an internal-combustion (IC) engine is the thermal shock. Thermal shock is generated from the temperature variation during the cycle. This temperature variation results in contraction and expansion of the diaphragm and consequently changes the force acting on the quartz in the pressure transducer. An empirical equation for compensation of the thermal shock error was derived from consideration of the diaphragm thermal deformation and actual pressure data. The deformation and the resulting pressure difference due to thermal shock are mainly a function of the change in surface temperature and the equation includes two model constants. In order to calibrate these two constants, the pressure inside the cylinder of a diesel engine was measured simultaneously using two types of pressure transducers, in addition to instantaneous wall temperature measurement.

Spray characteristics of diesel fuel injection is one of the most important factors in diesel combustion and pollutant emissions especially in HSDI (High Speed Direct Injection) diesel engines where the interval between the evaporation of atomized fuel and the onset of combustion is relatively short. An investigation into various spray characteristics from different holes of VCO nozzles was performed and its results were compared to standard sac nozzle. The global characteristics of spray, including spray angle, spray tip penetration, and spray pattern were measured from the spray images which were frozen by an instantaneous photography with a spark light source. For better understanding of spray behavior, SMD of the fuel sprays from each hole in the multi hole nozzles were measured with back light imaging while the sprays from the other holes were covered by a purpose-built nozzle cap.

Wall wetting of injected fuel onto the intake manifold and cylinder wall causes unpredictable transient behavior of air-fuel mixing which results in a significant emission of unburned hydrocarbon (HC) emission during cold start operation. Heated exhaust gas oxygen (HEGO) sensors cannot measure the air-fuel ratio (A/F) of exhaust gas during cold start condition. Precise and fast estimation of air/fuel ratio of the exhaust gas is required to elucidate the wall wetting phenomena and subsequent HC formation. Refined A/F estimation can enable the control of fuel injection minimizing HC emissions during cold start conditions so that HC emissions can be minimized. A new estimator for A/F of the exhaust gas has been developed. The A/F estimator described in this study utilizes measured exhaust gas temperature and general engine parameters such as engine speed, airflow, coolant temperature, etc.