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In this paper, a low-speed pre-ignition (LSPI) diagnostic strategy is designed based on the ion current signal. Novel diagnostic and re-injection strategies are proposed to suppress super-knock induced by pre-ignition within the detected combustion cycle. A parallel controller system that integrates a regular engine control unit (ECU) and CompactRIO (cRIO) from National Instruments (NI) is employed. Based on this system, the diagnostic and suppression strategy can be implemented without any adaptions to the regular ECU. Experiments are conducted on a 1.5-liter four-cylinder, turbocharged, direct-injected gasoline engine. The experimental results show two kinds of pre-ignition, one occurs spontaneously, and the other is induced by carbon deposits. Carbon deposits on the spark plug can strongly interfere with the ion current signal. By applying the ion current signal, approximately 14.3% of spontaneous and 90% of carbon induced pre-ignition cycles can be detected.

Downsizing gasoline direct injection engine with turbo boost technology is the main trend for gasoline engine. However, with engine downsizing and ever increasing of power output, a new abnormal phenomenon, known as pre-ignition or super knock, occurs in turbocharged engines. Pre-ignition will cause very high in-cylinder pressure and high oscillations. In some circumstances, one cycle of severe pre-ignition may damage the piston or spark plug, which has a severe influence on engine performance and service life. So pre-ignition has raised lots of attention in both industry and academic society. More and more studies reveal that the auto-ignition of lubricants is the potential source for pre-ignition. The auto-ignition characteristics of different lubricants are studied. This paper focuses on the ignition delay of different lubricants in Controllable Active Thermo-Atmosphere (CATA) combustion system.

The present work discusses a novel oxy-fuel combustion cycle utilized in compression ignition internal combustion engine. The most prominent feature of this cycle is that the air intake is replaced by oxygen; therefore nitric oxide (NOX) emission is eliminated. The enrichment of oxygen leads to higher flame speed and mass fraction consumption rate; on the other hand, the high concentration of oxygen presented during combustion will result in intense pressure rise rate which may cause severe damage to engine hardware. As water injection is already utilized in gasoline engine to control knocking, the utilization of water injection in optimizing oxy-fuel combustion process has been tested in this study. To understand the relationship between water injection strategy and cycle efficiency, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations were carried out. The model was carefully calibrated with the experimental results; the errors were controlled within 3%.

By changing the top-land radial clearance, this paper presents the effect of the piston crevice on the transient HC emissions of the first firing cycle at cold start on an LPG SI Engine. A fast-response flame ionization detector (FFID) was employed to measure transient HC emissions of the first firing cycle. At the same time, the transient cylinder pressure and instantaneous crankshaft speed of the engine were measured and recorded. The results show that increasing 50% crevice volume leads to 25% increase of HC emissions in the lean region and 18% increase of HC emissions in the rich region, however, the 50% increase of crevice volume contributes to 32% decease of HC emissions in the stable combustion region. For LPG SI engine, the HC emissions of the first firing cycle during cold start are relatively low in a wide range of the excess air ratio.

The effectiveness of after-treatment systems depends on the exhaust gas temperature, which is low during cold-start. As a result, Euro III, Euro IV and FTP75 require that the emissions tests include exhaust from the beginning of cold start. It is proved that 50%∼80% of HC and CO emissions are emitted during the cold start and the amount of unburned fuel from the crevices during starting is much higher than that under warmed engine conditions. The piston crevices is the most part of combustion chamber crevices, and results of mathematical simulations show that the piston crevice contribution to HC emissions is expected to increase during cold engine operation. Based on the transient HC test data and the double zone combustion model, this paper presents the study of the crevice HC Mechanism of the first firing cycle at cold start on an LPG SI Engine. A fast-response flame ionization detector (FFID) was employed to measure transient HC emissions of the first firing cycle.

This paper presents the simulation of in-cylinder stratified mixture formation, spray motion, combustion and emissions in a four-stroke and four valves direct injection spark ignition (DISI) engine with a pent-roof combustion chamber by the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code. The Extended Coherent Flame Combustion Model (ECFM), implemented in the AVL-Fire codes, was employed. The key parameters of spray characteristics related to computing settings, such as skew angle, cone angle and flow per pulse width with experimental measurements were compared. The numerical analysis is mainly focused on how the tumble flow ratio and geometry of piston bowls affect the motion of charge/spray in-cylinder, the formation of stratified mixture and the combustion and emissions (NO and CO₂) for the wall-guided stratified-charge spark-ignition DISI engine.

The development of the present day spark ignition (SI) engines has imposed higher demands for on-board ignition systems. Proper design of the ignition system circuit is required to achieve certain spark performances. In this paper, the authors studied the relationship between spark discharge characteristics and different inductive spark ignition circuit parameters with the help of a simplified circuit model. The circuit model catches the principle behavior of the spark discharge process. Simulation results obtained from the model were compared with experimental data for model verification. Different circuit model parameters were then tuned to study the effect of those on spark discharge current and spark energy properties. The parameters studied include the ignition coil coupling coefficient, ignition coil primary and secondary inductances, secondary circuit series resistance and spark plug gap width.

Pre-ignition may lead to an extreme knock (super-knock or mega-knock) which will impose a severe negative influence on the engine performance and service life, thus limiting the development of downsizing gasoline direct injection (GDI) engine. More and more studies reveal that the auto-ignition of lubricants is the potential source for pre-ignition. However, pre-ignition is complicated to study on the engine test bench. In this paper, a convenient test method is applied to investigate the influence of lubricants metal-additives on pre-ignition. 8 groups of lubricants are injected into a hot co-flow atmosphere which generated by a burner. A single-hole nozzle injector with a diameter of 0.2 mm at 20 MPa injection pressure is utilized for lubricants' injection and spray atomization. The ignition delays of lubricants with different additives of calcium, ZDDP (Zinc Dialkyl Dithiophosphates) and magnesium content under the hot co-flow atmosphere are recorded with a high-speed camera.

In order to investigate the impacts of recirculated exhaust gas temperature on gasoline engine combustion and emissions, an experimental study has been conducted on a turbocharged PFI gasoline engine. The engine was equipped with a high pressure cooled EGR system, in which different EGR temperatures were realized by using different EGR coolants. The engine ran at 2000 r/min and 3000 r/min, and the BMEP varied from 0.2MPa to 1.0MPa with the step of 0.2MPa. At each case, there were three conditions: 0% EGR, 10% LT-EGR, 10% HT-EGR. The results indicated that LT-EGR had a longer combustion duration compared with HT-EGR. When BMEP was 1.0 MPa, CA50 of HT-EGR advanced about 5oCA. However, CA50 of LT-EGR could still keep steady and in appropriate range, which guaranteed good combustion efficiency. Besides, LT-EGR had lower exhaust gas temperature, which could help to suppress knock. And its lower exhaust gas temperature could reduce heat loss. These contributed to fuel consumption reduction.

Spray characteristics and spray wall-impingement events are the key factors for the direct injection spark ignition (DISI) engines, affecting fuel/air mixture preparation and its combustion process. Thus, the spray characteristics of a multi-hole injector for DISI engines, such as spray tip penetration and spray cone angle were investigated in an optical chamber employing the high-speed shadow photography. Furthermore, the effects of the injection pressure, ambient pressure and piston top shape on the impinging spray development were studied in the optical chamber, when the impinging distance is 26.1 mm, corresponding to about 60 CAD ATDC. In addition, the SMD and wall film thickness of the spray impinging on the piston top were studied by means of CFD technique. The results showed that the ambient pressure had the greater effect on the changes of the spray penetration and spray cone angle than the injection pressure.

Due to much higher pressure and pressure rising rate, knocking is always of potential hazards causing damages in the engine and high NOX emissions. Therefore, the researchers have focused on knocking diagnosis and control for many years. However, there is still lack of fast response sensor detecting in-cycle knocking. Until now, the feedback control based on knocking sensor normally adjusts the injection and ignition parameters of the following cycles after knocking appears. Thus in-cycle knocking feedback control which requires a predictive combustion signal is still hard to see. Ion current signal is feasible for real-time in-cylinder combustion detection, and can be employed for misfiring and knocking detection. Based on incylinder pressure and ion current signals, the in-cycle knocking feedback control is investigated in this research. The 2nd-order differential of in-cylinder pressure, which means the response time of pressure rising rate dPR, is employed for knocking prediction.

In order to meet the ever more stringent demands on the CO2 emission reduction, downsized modern gasoline engine with highly boosted turbo charger meets new challenges such as super knock and pre-ignition, which will influence the engine combustion efficiency, smooth operation and even cause mechanical failure. A spark plug type ion current detection sensor was used in a 1.8L turbo charged gasoline engine. The ion-current wave signal differed greatly under different engine operating conditions such as without knock, with knock of different knock intensities. The frequency spectrum of ion-current was also studied, by the method of discrete Fourier transform (DFT). In knocking cycles, there were fluctuations of frequency 8-13 kHz both in the combustion pressure signal and in the ion current signal, proving the existence of knock information.

Spray behavior is regarded as one of main factors which influence engine performance, fuel consumption and emissions for diesel engine. In practice, spray characteristics from each orifice from a multi-hole nozzle are normally arranged symmetrically, while the hole-to-hole spray variation is unavoidable. This variation will cause spatial uneven distribution of spray and combustion degrade, which will be no longer inconsiderable in face of the more and more stringent emission rules. In this paper, two methods including spray macro-characteristics experiment and separated fuel mass measurement are employed to test the hole-to-hole spray variation of two six-hole symmetric VCO injectors of different brands, and experiments are operated under different conditions including different injection pressures, back pressures and injection durations.

Ion current sensing, which usually employs a spark plug as its sensor to obtain feedback signal from different types of combustion in SI engines, may be applied to HCCI combustion sensing instead of a prohibitively expensive piezoelectric pressure transducer. However, studies showed that the ion current detected by a spark plug sensor is a localized signal within the vicinity of the sensor's electrode gap, being affected by conditions around it. To find out better and feasible ion probe positions, a 3D-CFD model with a detailed surrogate mechanism containing 1423 species and 6106 reactions was employed to study the effect of stratification on ion distribution in HCCI combustion. The simulation results indicate that the monitor probe 1, 8 and 9 are more stable and reliable than the others. IONmax and dIONmax are more accurate to estimate CA50 and dQmax respectively.

The weight of an exhaust system on a modern vehicle is increasing because of all kinds of reasons, like engine power's increasing, more catalysts for emission control and more NVH (Noise, Vibration and Harshness) performance requirements. After the engine starting, the exhaust system was not only bearing a cyclical load from the engine, which mainly causing the vibration of the exhaust system, but also the loads from the road, which was transferred through the wheels, the suspension system and the body. Because the exhaust system always worked in these bad conditions, its structural strength, durability and life-time were analyzed in the paper, by numerical simulation and physical correlation. By discretizing the exhaust system's CAD model, a finite element model was built. After restrict the finite element model as it in a real load condition, complete the structure stress analysis and Fatigue analysis of exhaust system's hanger with FEA analysis tools.

Gasoline homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) can achieve high efficiency and extremely low NOX emissions. However, the working condition range of HCCI is limited by knock occurring during engine operation. To achieve an expanded HCCI working condition range, it is necessary to explore a method predicting knock cases accurately to avoid knock occurring. Based on a DI-HCCI engine with ethanol/gasoline mixed fuel, the knock cases under different conditions have been investigated. In-cylinder pressure signals are used to identify the knock cases and the knock oscillations are extracted with fast Fourier transform (FFT). The effects of the ethanol proportion in the fuel and air/fuel ratio on the characteristics of knock have been studied. The results have shown that the knock parameters, such as maximum frequency, start point angle and the duration, have close relationship with the knock intensity.

It has been revealed by researches that lubricant properties have a great effect on the low-speed pre-ignition (LSPI) frequency in downsizing turbocharged direct-injection engines which are developed for better fuel economy. Droplets of lubricant or lubricant-gasoline mixture are considered to be the potential pre-ignition sources. Those droplets fly into the combustion chamber and ignite the gasoline-air mixture. To study lubricant droplets fundamentally, a novel set of droplet auto-ignition system is designed based on a Dibble Burner for this experiment. Influences of metallic additive contents, viscosities, lubricant diluted with gasoline and waste lubricant on the ignition delay of droplets are investigated by testing 12 groups of lubricants or lubricant-gasoline mixture. The equivalent diameter of each droplet generated by micro-syringes is around 2.1 mm. The co-flow temperature varies from 1123 K to 1223 K, and the experiments are carried out at atmospheric pressure.

The present work discusses the effects of intake manifold water injection in a six-cylinder heavy duty natural gas (NG) engine through one-dimensional simulation. The numerical study was carried out based on GT-Power under different engine working conditions. The established simulation model was firstly calibrated in detail through the whole engine speed sweep under full load conditions before the model of intake manifold water injector was involved, and the calibration was based on experimental data. The intake manifold water injection mass was controlled through adjustment of intake water/gas (water/natural gas) ratio, a water/gas ratio swept from 0 to 4 was selected to investigate the effects of intake manifold water injection on engine performance and emissions characteristics. On the other hand, the enhancement potential of intake manifold water injection in heavy duty NG engine under lean and stoichiometric condition was also investigated by the alteration of air-fuel ratio.

The argon power cycle engine, which uses hydrogen as fuel, oxygen as oxidant, and argon other than nitrogen as the working fluid, is considered as a novel concept of zero-emission and high-efficiency system. Due to the extremely high in-cylinder temperature caused by the lower specific heat capacity of argon, the compression ratio of spark-ignition argon power cycle engine is limited by preignition or super-knock. Compression-ignition with direct-injection is one of the potential methods to overcome this challenge. Therefore, a detailed flammability limit of H2 under Ar-O2 atmosphere is essential for better understanding of stable autoignition in compression-ignition argon power cycle engines.

An ion current sensor is employed in a 4 cylinder production SI engine for combustion diagnosis during combustion process, knock, and low speed pre-ignition (LSPI) detection. The results show that the ion current peak value and ion current peak phase have strong correlation with the cylinder pressure and pressure peak phase respectively. The COV of ion current integral value is greater than the COV of IMEP at the same operating condition. Results show that the ion current signal is sensitive to different lambdas. Using ion current signal, the knock in any given cylinder can be detected. Importantly, the ion sensor successfully detected the low speed pre-ignition (LSPI) about more than 20 °CA before spark ignition.