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Over the past years, the question as to what may be the powertrain of the future has become ever more apparent. Aiming to improve upon a given technology, the internal combustion engine still offers a number of development paths in order to maintain its position in public and private mobility. In this study, an innovative combustion process is investigated with the goal to further approximate the ideal Otto cycle. Thus far, similar approaches such as Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) shared the same objective yet were unable to be operated under high load conditions. Highly increased control efforts and excessive mechanical stress on the components are but a few examples of the drawbacks associated with HCCI. The approach employed in this work is the so-called Spark Assisted Compression Ignition (SACI) in combination with a pre-chamber spark plug, enabling short combustion durations even at high dilution levels.

Diesel engines are arguably the superior device in the ground transportation sector in terms of efficiency and reliability, but suffer from inferior emission performance due to the diffusive nature of diesel combustion. Great research efforts gradually reduced nitrogen oxide (NOX) and particulate matter (PM) emissions, but the PM-NOX trade-off remained to be a problem of major concern and was believed to be inevitable for a long time. In the process of engine development, the modification of fuel properties has lately gained great attention. In particular, the oxygenate fuel oxymethylene ether (OME) has proven potential to not only drastically reduce emissions, but possibly resolve the formerly inevitable trade-off completely.