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Controlled Auto-Ignition (CAI) combustion can effectively improve the thermal efficiency of conventional spark ignition (SI) gasoline engines, due to shortened combustion processes caused by multi-point auto-ignition. However, its commercial application is limited by the difficulties in controlling ignition timing and violent heat release process at high loads. Stratified flame ignited (SFI) hybrid combustion, a concept in which rich mixture around spark plug is consumed by flame propagation after spark ignition and the unburned lean mixture closing to cylinder wall auto-ignites in the increasing in-cylinder temperature during flame propagation, was proposed to overcome these challenges.

The Gasoline direct-injection (GDI) engine can emit high levels of particulate matter and unburned Hydrocarbons when operating under stratified charge combustion mode. Injecting late in the compression stroke means the fuel has insufficient time to atomise and evaporate. This could cause fuel film accumulation on the piston surface and combustion liner. Locally fuel rich diffusion combustion could also result in the formation of soot particles. Employing a split-injection strategy can help tackle these issues. The first injection is initiated early in the intake stroke and could ensure a global homogeneous charge. The second injection during the compression stroke could help form a fuel-rich charge in the vicinity of the spark plug. Many studies have established the crucial role that a split-injection strategy plays in the stratified charge operation of GDI engines.

This paper presents results from an experimental programme researching the in-cylinder conditions necessary to obtain gasoline Controlled Auto-ignition (CAI) combustion in a 4-stroke engine. A single-cylinder, variable compression ratio research engine is used for all experiments. Investigations concentrate on establishing the CAI operating range with regard to Air/Fuel ratio and Exhaust Gas Re-circulation (EGR) and their effect on ignition timing, combustion rate and variability, ISFC, and engine-out emissions, such as NOx, CO, and unburned HC. Comprehensive maps for each of the measured variables are presented and in relevant cases, these results are compared to those obtained during normal spark-ignition operation so that the benefits of CAI combustion can be more fully appreciated.

This paper presents results from an experimental programme researching the in-cylinder conditions necessary to obtain homogenous CAI (or HCCI) combustion in a 4-stroke engine. The fuels under investigation include three blends of Unleaded Gasoline, a 95 RON Primary Reference Fuel, Methanol, and Ethanol. This work concentrates on establishing the CAI operating range with regard to Air/Fuel ratio and Exhaust Gas Re-circulation and their effect on the ignition timing, combustion rate and variability, Indicated thermal efficiency, and engine-out emissions such as NOx. Detailed maps are presented, defining how each of the measured variables changes over the entire CAI region. Results indicate that the alcohols have significantly higher tolerance to dilution than the hydrocarbon fuels tested. Also, variations in Gasoline blend have little effect on any of the combustion parameters measured.

Controlled Auto-Ignition (CAI), also known as Homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI), has been the subject of extensive research because of their ability to providing simultaneous reduction in fuel consumption and NOx emissions in a gasoline engine. However, due to its limited operation range, combustion mode switching between CAI and spark ignition (SI) combustion is essential to cover the overall operational range of a gasoline engine for passenger car applications. Previous research has shown that the SI-CAI hybrid combustion has the potential to control the ignition timing and heat release process during both steady state and transient operations. However, it was found that the SI-CAI hybrid combustion process is often characterized with large cycle-to-cycle variations, due to the flame instability at high dilution conditions.

In this paper, an experimental study was performed to investigate characteristics of flame propagation and knocking combustion of hydrous (10% water content) and anhydrous ethanol at different air/fuel ratios in comparison to RON95 gasoline. Experiments were conducted in a full bore overhead optical access single cylinder port-fuel injection spark-ignition engine. High speed images of total chemiluminescence and OH* emission was recorded together with the in-cylinder pressure, from which the heat release data were derived. The results show that under the stoichiometric condition anhydrous ethanol and wet ethanol with 10% water (E90W10) generated higher IMEP with at an ignition timing slightly retarded from MBT than the gasoline fuel for a fixed throttle position. Under rich and stoichiometric conditions, the knock limited spark timing occurred at 35 CA BTDC whereas both ethanol and E90W10 were free from knocking combustion at the same operating condition.

In this paper, HCCI combustion characteristics of three typical high octane number fuels, gasoline, ethanol and methanol, are compared in a Ricardo single cylinder port injection engine with compression ratio of 10.5. In order to trap enough high temperature residual gas to heat intake mixture charge for stable HCCI combustion, camshafts of the experimental engine are replaced by a set of special camshafts with low valve lift and short cam duration. The three fuels are injected into the intake port respectively in different mixture volume percentages, which are E0 (100% gasoline), E50 (50% gasoline, 50% ethanol), E100 (100% ethanol), M50 (50% gasoline, 50% methanol) and M100 (100% methanol). This work concentrates on the combustion and emission characteristics and the available HCCI operation range of these fuels. What's more, the detailed comparison of in-cylinder temperature, ignition timing and other parameters has been carried out.

The present paper aims to investigate the influence of spark ignition on CAI combustion based on internal EGR strategy. Controlled Auto-ignition (CAI) combustion is facilitated in a Ricardo single cylinder engine with a pair of special camshafts, which valve lift and cam profile are modified to trap enough hot residuals. Operation regions and other detailed combustion characteristics of the CAI engine operation are analyzed and compared between pure CAI mode and the CAI mode with assisted spark ignition. The results show that spark ignition can play an important role in controlling CAI combustion ignition in low load boundary region. The low temperature chemical reaction process is shortened and the auto ignition timing is advanced due to the spark discharge. Meantime, lower fuel consumption and cycle-to-cycle variations can be achieved.

Having achieved CAI-combustion in a 4-cylinder four-stroke gasoline DI engine the effects of ignition timing on the CAI combustion process were investigated through the introduction of spark. By varying the start of fuel injection, the effects on Indicated Specific values for NOx, HC, CO emissions and fuel consumption were investigated for CAI combustion. The CAI combustion process was then assisted by spark and three different ignition timings were studied. The effect on engine performance and the emission specific values were investigated further. The engine speed was maintained at 1500 rpm and lambda was kept constant at 1.2. It was found that with spark-assisted CAI, IMEP and ISNOx values increased as compared with typical CAI. ISHC values were lower for spark-assisted CAI as compared to typical CAI. Heat release data was studied to better understand this phenomenon.

We present a computational tool to develop an exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) - air-fuel ratio (AFR) operating range for homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) engines. A single cylinder Ricardo E-6 engine running in HCCI mode, with external EGR is simulated using an improved probability density function (PDF) based engine cycle model. For a base case, the in-cylinder temperature and unburned hydrocarbon emissions predicted by the model show a satisfactory agreement with measurements [Oakley et al., SAE Paper 2001-01-3606]. Furthermore, the model is applied to develop the operating range for various combustion parameters, emissions and engine parameters with respect to the air-fuel ratio and the amount of EGR used. The model predictions agree reasonably well with the experimental results for various parameters over the entire EGR-AFR operating range thus proving the robustness of the PDF based model.

Controlled auto Ignition (CAI) combustion has great potential for reducing both NOx emissions and fuel consumption in IC engines and the application of direct injection technology to the CAI engine adds another dimension of control to the combustion process. In this work an air-assisted injection system was applied to an engine that used residual gas to initiate and control CAI combustion. Injections were performed at Exhaust valve closure (EVC), intake valve opening (IVO) and BDC of the intake/compression stroke and the effects on combustion phasing (i.e. ignition timing and burn duration), engine output, fuel consumption and exhaust emissions analyzed. Injection at EVC gave the best results in terms of engine output, operating range and combustion stability. Injection at IVO generally resulted in the lowest fuel consumption. It was found that injection timing is an effective means of controlling combustion phasing.

With the application of valve timing strategy to inlet and exhaust valves, Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) combustion was achieved by varying the amount of trapped residuals through negative valve overlap on a Ricardo Hydra four-stroke port fuel injection engine fueled with ethanol. The effect of ethanol on HCCI combustion and emission characteristics at different air-fuel ratios, speeds and valve timings was investigated. The results indicate that HCCI ethanol combustion can be achieved through changing inlet and exhaust valve timings. HCCI ethanol combustion range can be expanded to high speeds and lean burn mixture. Meanwhile, the factors influencing ignition timing and combustion duration are valve timing, lambda and speeds. Moreover, NOx emissions are extremely low under HCCI combustion. The emissions-speed and emissions-lambda relationships are obtained and analyzed.

Poppet-valve two-stroke gasoline engines can increase the specific power of their four-stroke counterparts with the same displacement and hence decrease fuel consumption. However, knock may occur at high loads. Therefore, the combustion with stratified lean mixture was proposed to decrease knock tendency and improve combustion stability in a poppet-valve two-stroke direct injection gasoline engine. The effect of intake pressure and split injection on fuel distribution, combustion and knock intensity in lean mixture conditions at high loads was simulated with a three-dimensional computational fluid dynamic software. Simulation results show that with the increase of intake pressure, the average fuel-air equivalent ratio in the cylinder decreases when the second injection ratio was fixed at 70% at a given amount of fuel in a cycle.

Engine downsizing is an effective technology to lower automotive CO2 emissions. However, the high load low speed regions are plagued with knocking combustion that are usually overcome by retarding the ignition. This interferes with the efficiency gains due to very late combustion. This paper reports the use of Exhaust Gas Recirculation (EGR) on a Ford Ecoboost 1l downsized gasoline turbocharged direct injection (GTDI) engine to improve efficiency by optimising combustion phasing unlocked by the improved knock resistance with EGR dilution. Further ignition system upgrades are tested for impact towards further efficiency improvements. 75mJ (standard) and 120mJ (high energy) ignition systems were compared. The experimental results showed that the brake specific fuel consumption (BSFC) can be improved by 5.6% with EGR dilution at 25%. When considering combined effects of EGR and high energy ignition upon engine fuel economy, the BSFC gain improves to 7.9%.

Turbulent Jet Ignition (TJI) is a pre-chamber ignition system for an otherwise standard gasoline spark ignition engine. TJI works by injecting chemically active turbulent jets to initiate combustion in a premixed fuel/air mixture. The main advantage of TJI is its ability to ignite and burn, completely, very lean fuel/air mixtures in the main chamber charge. This occurs with a very fast burn rate due to the widely distributed ignition sites that consume the main charge rapidly. Rapid combustion of lean mixtures leads to lower exhaust emissions due to more complete combustion at a lower temperature. For this research, the effectiveness of the Mahle TJI system on combustion stability, lean limit and emissions in a single cylinder spark engine fueled with gasoline at different speeds was investigated. The combustion and heat release process was analyzed and the exhaust emissions were measured.