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This work has focused on studying the in-cylinder pressure fluctuations caused by rapid HCCI combustion and determine what they consist of. Inhomogeneous autoignition sets up pressure waves traversing the combustion chamber. These pressure waves induce high gas velocities which causes increased heat transfer to the walls or in worst case engine damage. In order to study the pressure fluctuations a number of pressure transducers were mounted in the combustion chamber. The multi transducer arrangement was such that six transducers were placed circumferentially, one placed near the centre and one at a slight offset in the combustion chamber. The fitting of six transducers circumferentially was enabled by a spacer design and the two top mounted transducers were fitted in a modified cylinder head. During testing a disc shaped combustion chamber was used. The results of the tests conducted were that the in-cylinder pressure experienced during rapid HCCI-combustion is inhomogeneous.

Simultaneous OH- and formaldehyde planar-LIF measurements have been performed in an optical engine using two laser sources working on 283 and 355 nm, respectively. The engine used for the measurements was a car Diesel engine converted to single-cylinder operation and modified for optical access. The fuel, n-heptane, was injected by a direct injection common rail system and the engine was also fitted with an EGR system. The engine was operated in both HCCI mode and Diesel mode. Due to the low load, the Diesel mode resulted in low-temperature Diesel combustion and because of limitations in maximum pressure and maximum rate of pressure increase of the optical engine, the Diesel mode was run at a higher EGR percentage than the HCCI mode to slow down the combustion. A third mode, pilot combustion, was also investigated. This pilot combustion is created by an injection at 30 CAD before TDC followed by a second injection just before TDC.

This study applies a state feedback based Closed-Loop Combustion Control (CLCC) using Fast Thermal Management (FTM) on a multi cylinder Variable Compression Ratio (VCR) engine. At speeds above 1500 rpm is the FTM's bandwidth broadened by using the VCR feature of this engine, according to a predefined map, which is a function of load and engine speed. Below 1500 rpm is the PID based CLCC using VCR applied instead of the FTM while slow cylinder balancing is effectuated by the FTM. Performance of the two CLCC controllers are evaluated during an European EC2000 drive cycle, while HC, CO and CO2 emissions are measured online by a Fast Response Infrared (FRI) emission equipment. A load and speed map calculated for an 1.6L Opel Astra is used to get reference values for the dynamometer speed and the load control. The drive cycle test is initiated from a hot engine and hence no cold start is included. Commercial RON/MON 92/82 gasoline, which corresponds to US regular, is utilized.

The Homogenous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) operating range in terms of speed and load does not cover contemporary driving cycles, e.g. the European driving cycle EC2000, without increased engine displacement, supercharging, or without excessive noise and high NOx emissions. Hence, the maximum achievable load with HCCI is too low for high load vehicle operation and a combustion mode transfer from HCCI to spark ignited (SI) has to be done. At some operating conditions spark assisted HCCI combustion is possible, which makes a mixed combustion mode and controlled combustion mode transfers possible. The mixed combustion region and the operating conditions are investigated in this paper from lean SI limit to pure HCCI without SI assistance. Parameters as compression ratio, inlet air pressure, inlet air temperature, and lambda are used for controlling the mixed combustion mode. A strategy for closed-loop combustion mode transfer is discussed.

A 6-cylinder truck engine was modified to run in HCCI-mode. The aim was to show whether or not it is possible having HCCI run a multi-cylinder engine, to provide brake values of emissions and efficiency and to verify models for engine system simulation. The work proved that it is feasible to use HCCI in multi-cylinder engines with high brake efficiency. Emissions' strong dependence on inlet temperature and octane number was demonstrated. The numerical models simulated the mean effective pressure with high precision, while inlet and exhaust pressures were less accurate, mainly due to the limitations of the turbo maps used.