Search Results

The knock metric for controlled auto-ignition (CAI) engines is assessed by considering the physical processes that establish the pressure wave that contributes to the acoustic radiation of the engine, and by analyzing pressure data from a CAI engine. Data sets from the engine operating with port fuel injection, early direct injection and late direct injection are used to monitor the effect of mixture composition stratification. Thermodynamic analysis shows that the local pressure rise produced by heat release has to be discounted by the work spent in acoustic expansion against the ambient pressure to properly predict the pressure wave amplitude. Based on this analysis, a modified correlation between the pressure wave amplitude and the maximum pressure rise rate (MPRR) is developed by introducing an MPRR offset to account for the expansion work.

The engine and its exhaust flow behaviors are investigated in a turbo-charged gasoline direct injection engine under simulated cold-fast-idle condition. The metrics of interest are the exhaust sensible and chemical enthalpy flows, and the exhaust temperature, all of which affect catalyst light off time. The exhaust sensible enthalpy flow is mainly a function of combustion phasing; the exhaust chemical enthalpy flow is mainly a function of equivalence ratio. High sensible and chemical enthalpy flow with acceptable engine stability could be obtained with retarded combustion and enrichment. When split injection is employed with one early and one later and smaller fuel pulse, combustion retards with early secondary injection in the compression stroke but advances with late secondary injection. Comparing gasoline to E85, the latter produces a lower exhaust temperature because of charge cooling effect and because of a faster combustion.

The first 3 cycles in the cold crank-start process at 20°C are studied in a GDI engine. The focus is on the dependence of the HC and PM/PN emissions of each cycle on the injection strategy and combustion phasing of the current and previous cycles. The PM/PN emissions per cycle decrease by more than an order of magnitude as the crank-start progresses from the 1st to the 3rd cycle, while the HC emissions stay relatively constant. The wall heat transfer, as controlled by the combustion phasing, during the previous cycles has a more significant influence on the mixture formation process for the current cycle than the amount of residual fuel. The results show that the rise in HC emissions caused by the injection spray interacting with the intake valves and piston crown is reduced as the cranking process progresses. Combustion phasing retard significantly reduces the PM emission. The HC emissions, however, are relatively not sensitive to combustion phasing in the range of interest.

The gasoline direct injection (GDI) engine particulate emission sources are assessed under cold start conditions: the fast idle and speed/load combinations representative of the 1st acceleration in the US FTP. The focus is on the accumulation mode particle number (PN) emission. The sources are non-fuel, combustion of the premixed charge, and liquid fuel film. The non-fuel emissions are measured by operating the engine with premixed methane/air or hydrogen/air. Then the PN level is substantially lower than what is obtained with normal GDI operation; thus non-fuel contribution to PN is small. When operating with stoichiometric premixed gasoline/air, the PN level is comparable to the non-fuel level; thus premixed-stoichiometric mixture combustion does not significantly generate particulates. For fuel rich premixed gasoline/air, PN increases dramatically when lambda is less than 0.7 to 0.8.

The effects of cooled exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) on a boosted direct-injection (DI) spark ignition (SI) engine operating at stoichiometric equivalence ratio, gross indicated mean effective pressure of 14-18 bar, and speed of 1500-2500 rpm, are studied under constant fuel condition at each operating point. In the presence of EGR, burn durations are longer and combustion is more retard. At the same combustion phasing, the indicated specific fuel consumption improves because of a decrease in heat loss and an increase in the specific heat ratio. The knock limited spark advance increases substantially with EGR. This increase is due partly to a slower combustion which is equivalent to a spark retard, as manifested by a retarded value of the 50% burn point (CA50), and due partly to a slower ignition chemistry of the diluted charge, as manifested by the knock limited spark advance to beyond the value offered by the retarded CA50.

Particulate emissions from a production gasoline direct injection spark ignition engine were studied under a typical cold-fast-idle condition (1200 rpm, 2 bar NIMEP). The particle number (PN) density in the 22 to 365 nm range was measured as a function of the injection timing with single pulse injection and with split injection. Very low PN emissions were observed when injection took place in the mid intake stroke because of the fast fuel evaporation and mixing processes which were facilitated by the high turbulent kinetic energy created by the intake charge motion. Under these conditions, substantial liquid fuel film formation on the combustion chamber surfaces was avoided. PN emissions increased when injection took place in the compression stroke, and increased substantially when the fuel spray hit the piston.

A research program designed to measure the contribution from fuel absorption in the thin layer of oil, lubricating the cylinder liner, to the total and speciated HC emissions from a spark ignition engine has been performed. The logic of the experiment design was to test the oil layer mechanism via variations in the oil layer thickness (through the lubricant formulations), solubility of the fuel components in the lubricants, and variations in the crankcase gas phase HC concentration (through crankcase purging). A set of preliminary experiments were carried out to determine the solubility and diffusivity of the fuel components in the individual lubricants. Engine tests showed similar HC emissions among the tested lubricants. No consistent increase was observed with oil viscosity (oil film thickness), contrary to what would be expected if fuel-oil absorption was contributing significantly to engine-out HC. Similarly, no effect of crankcase purging could be observed.

In order to meet common fuel specifications such as cetane number and volatility, a refinery must blend a number of refinery stocks derived from various process units in the refinery. Fuel chemistry can be significantly altered in meeting fuel specifications. Additionally, fuel specifications are seldom changed in isolation, and the drive to meet one specification may alter other specifications. Homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) engines depend on the kinetic behavior of a fuel to achieve reliable ignition and are expected to be more dependent on fuel specifications and chemistry than today's conventional engines. Regression analysis can help in determining the underlying relationships between fuel specifications, chemistry, and engine performance. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) is used as an adjunct to regression analysis in this work, because of its ability to deal with co-linear variables and potential to uncover ‘hidden’ relationships between the variables.

The effects of the directed port flow produced by a Charge-Motion-Control-Valve (CMCV) on mixture preparation in a Port-Fuel-Injection engine were assessed under conditions typical of fast idle in a cold start process. The port fuel was found to comprise two components: a “valve” puddle (at the vicinity of the valve) that built up quickly, and that was mainly responsible for the delivery of the fuel to the cylinder charge; a “port” puddle located significantly upstream. The latter was mainly created by the reverse back flow process and built up slowly. Although the fuel amounts in these two components were roughly the same, the latter did not significantly interact with the fuel transport to the cylinder charge. The CMCV only weakly affected the purging or filling time of the valve puddle, hence the dynamics of the fuel delivery process was not materially affected.

Knock in a HCCI engine was examined by comparing subjective evaluation, recorded sound radiation from the engine, and cylinder pressure. Because HCCI combustion involved simultaneous heat release in a spatially large region, substantial oscillations were often found in the pressure signal. The time development of the audible signal within a knock cycle was different from that of the pressure trace. Thus the audible signal was not the attenuated transmission of the cylinder pressure oscillation but the sound radiation from the engine structure vibration excited by the initial few cycles of pressure oscillation. A practical knock limited maximum load point for the specific 2.3 L I4 engine under test (and arguably for engines of similar size and geometry) was defined at when the maximum rate of cycle-averaged pressure rise reached 5 MPa/ms.

The impact of market-fuel variations on the HCCI operating range was measured in a 2.3L four-cylinder engine, modified for single-cylinder operation. HCCI combustion was achieved through the use of residual trapping. Variable cam phasing was used to maximize the load range at each speed. Test fuels were blended to cover the range of variation in select commercial fuel properties. Within experimental measurement error, there was no change in the low-load limit among the test fuels. At the high-load limit, some small fuel effects on the operating range were observed; however, the observed trends were not consistent across all the speeds studied.

As the world market develops for biodiesel fuels, it is likely that a wider variety of biodiesels will become available, both locally and globally, and require engines to operate on a wider variety of fuels than experienced today. At the same time, tighter emissions regulations and a drive for improved fuel economy have focused interest on advanced combustion modes such as HCCI or PCCI, which are known to be more sensitive to fuel properties. This research covers two series of biodiesel fuels. In the first, B20 blends of natural methyl esters derived from palm, coconut, rape, soy, and mustard were evaluated at light load in an HCCI research engine to determine combustion and performance characteristics. These fuels showed performance differences between the biodiesels and the base #2 ULSD fuel, but did not allow separation of chemical effects due to the small number of fuels and correlation of various properties.

The influence of various diesel fuel properties on the steady state emissions and performance of a Cummins light-duty (ISB) engine modified for single cylinder operation has been studied at the mid-load “cruise” operating condition. Designed experiments involving independent manipulation of both fuel properties and engine control parameters have been used to build statistical engine response models. The models were then applied to optimize for the minimum fuel consumption subject to specific constraints on emissions and mechanical limits and also to estimate the optimum engine control parameter settings and fuel properties. The study reveals that under the high EGR, diffusion-burn dominated conditions encountered during the experiments, NOx is impacted by cetane number and the distillation characteristics. Lower T50 (mid-distillation temperature) resulted in simultaneous reductions in both NOx and smoke, and higher cetane number provided an additional small NOx benefit.

The combustion process after auto-ignition is investigated. Depending on the non-uniformity of the end gas, auto-ignition could initiate a flame, produce pressure waves that excite the engine structure (acoustic knock), or result in detonation (normal or developing). For the “acoustic knock” mode, a knock intensity (KI) is defined as the pressure oscillation amplitude. The KI values over different cycles under a fixed operating condition are observed to have a log-normal distribution. When the operating condition is changed (over different values of λ, EGR, and spark timing), the mean (μ) of log (KI/GIMEP) decreases linearly with the correlation-based ignition delay calculated using the knock-point end gas condition of the mean cycle. The standard deviation σ of log(KI/GIMEP) is approximately a constant, at 0.63. The values of μ and σ thus allow a statistical description of knock from the deterministic calculation of the ignition delay using the mean cycle properties

An ignition delay correlation encompassing the effects of temperature, pressure, residual gas, EGR, and lambda (on both the rich and lean sides) has been developed. The procedure uses the individual knocking cycle data from a boosted direct injection SI engine (GM LNF) operating at 1250 to 2000 rpm, 8-14 bar GIMEP, EGR of 0 to 12.5%, and lambda of 0.8 to 1.3 with a certification fuel (Haltermann 437, with RON=96.6 and MON=88.5). An algorithm has been devised to identify the knock point on individual pressure traces so that the large data set (of some thirty three thousand cycles) could be processed automatically. For lean and for rich operations, the role of the excess fuel, air, and recycled gas (which has excess air in the lean case, and hydrogen and carbon monoxide in the rich case) may be treated effectively as diluents in the ignition delay expression.

The fuel effects on HCCI operation in a spark assisted direct injection gasoline engine are assessed. The low load limit has been extended with a pilot fuel injection during the negative valve overlap (NVO) period. The fuel matrix consists of hydrocarbon fuels and various ethanol blends and a butanol blend, plus fuels with added ignition improvers. The hydrocarbon fuels and the butanol blend do not significantly alter the high or the low limits of operation. The HCCI operation appears to be controlled more by the thermal environment than by the fuel properties. For E85, the engine behavior depends on the extent that the heat release from the pilot injected fuel in the NVO period compensates for the evaporative cooling of the fuel.

The performance of an extended stroke spark ignition engine has been assessed by cycle simulation. The base engine is a modern turbo-charged 4-stroke passenger car spark-ignition engine with 10:1 compression ratio. A complex crank mechanism is used so that the intake stroke remains the same while the expansion-to-intake stroke ratio (SR) is varied by changing the crank geometry. The study is limited to the thermodynamic aspect of the extended stroke; the changes in friction, combustion characteristic, and other factors are not included. When the combustion is not knock limited, an efficiency gain of more than 10 percent is obtained for SR = 1.5. At low load, however, there is an efficiency lost due to over-expansion. At the same NIMEP, the extended stroke renders the engine more resistant to knock. At SR of 1.8, the engine is free from knock up to 14 bar NIMEP at 2000 rpm. Under knocking condition, the required spark retard to prevent knocking is less with the extended stroke.

The loss mechanisms associated with engine downsizing, boosting and compression ratio change are assessed. Of interest are the extents of friction loss, pumping loss, and crevice loss. The latter does not scale proportionally with engine size. These losses are deconstructed via a cycle simulation model which encompasses a friction model and a crevice loss model for engine displacement of 300 to 500 cc per cylinder. Boost pressure is adjusted to yield constant torque. The compression ratio is varied from 8 to 20. Under part load, moderate speed condition (1600 rpm; 13.4 Nm/cylinder brake torque), the pumping work reduces significantly with downsizing while the work loss associated with the crevice volume increases. At full load (1600 rpm; 43.6 Nm/cylinder brake torque), the pumping work is less significant. The crevice loss (normalized to the fuel energy) is essentially the same as in the part load case. The sensitivities of the respective loss terms to downsizing are reported.

This paper describes the development of a spark ignition engine operating in a stratified-EGR mode at part load. The concept is to reduce the pumping loss with high levels of EGR while maintaining stable combustion via charge stratification. Since the engine operates stoichiometrically, the ability to control NOx emissions by the three-way catalyst is retained. The configuration of introducing the stoichiometric fresh mixture to the center portion of the combustion chamber with the EGR gas on the two sides is visualized in a transparent engine using planar laser-induced fluorescence (PLIF) and Mie scattering. Visualization results showed that the stratification between air/fuel mixture and EGR gas was relatively well established during the intake stroke. There was, however, significant mixing in the late part of the compression stroke.

The residual gas fraction prior to ignition at the vicinity of the spark plug in a single cylinder, two-valve spark ignition engine was measured with a fast-response flame ionization hydrocarbon detector. The technique in using such an instrument is reported. The measurements were made as a function of the intake manifold pressure, engine speed and intake/exhaust valve-overlap duration. Both the mean level of the residual fraction and the statistics of the cycle-to-cycle variations were obtained.