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The operating range in HCCI mode is limited by the excessive pressure rise rate and therefore high combustion induced noise. The HCCI range can be extended with turbocharging which enables increased dilution of the charge and thus a reduction of combustion noise. When the engine is turbocharged the intake charge will have a high temperature at increased boost pressure and can then be regulated in a cooling circuit. Limitations and benefits are examed at 2250 rpm and 400 kPa indicated mean effective pressure. It is shown that combustion stability, combustion noise and engine efficiency have to be balanced since they have optimums at different intake temperatures and combustion timings. The span for combustion timings with high combustion stability is narrower at some intake temperatures and the usage of external EGR can improve the combustion stability. It is found that the standard deviation of combustion timing is a useful tool for evaluating cycle to cycle variations.

When increasing EGR from low levels to a level that corresponds to low temperature combustion, soot emissions initially increase due to lower soot oxidation before decreasing to almost zero due to very low soot formation. At the EGR level where soot emissions start to increase, the NOx emissions are low, but not sufficiently low to comply with future emission standards and at the EGR level where low temperature combustion occurs CO and HC emissions are too high. The purpose of this study was to investigate the possibilities for shifting the so-called soot bump (where soot levels are increased) to higher EGR levels, or to reduce the magnitude of the soot bump using very high injection pressures (up to 240 MPa) while reducing the NOx emissions using EGR. The possibility of reducing the CO and HC emissions at high EGR levels due to the increased mixing caused by higher injection pressure was also investigated and the flame was visualized using an endoscope at chosen EGR values.

Using alternative fuels like Natural Gas (NG) has shown good potentials on heavy duty engines. Heavy duty NG engines can be operated either lean or stoichiometric diluted with EGR. Extending Dilution limit has been identified as a beneficial strategy for increasing efficiency and decreasing emissions. However dilution limit is limited in these types of engines because of the lower burnings rate of NG. One way to extend the dilution limit of a NG engine is to run the engine on Hythane (natural gas + some percentage hydrogen). Previously effects of Hythane with 10% hydrogen by volume in a stoichiometric heavy duty NG engine were studied and no significant changes in terms of efficiency and emissions were observed. This paper presents results from measurements made on a heavy duty 6-cylinder NG engine. The engine is operated with NG and Hythane with 25% hydrogen by volume and the effects of these fuels on the engine performance are studied.

Internal combustion engine (ICE) fuel efficiency is a balance between good indicated efficiency and mechanical efficiency. High indicated efficiency is reached with a very diluted air/fuel-mixture and high load resulting in high peak cylinder pressure (PCP). On the other hand, high mechanical efficiency is obtained with very low peak cylinder pressure as the piston rings and bearings can be made with less friction. This paper presents studies of a combustion engine which consists of a two stage compression and expansion cycle. By splitting the engine into two different cycles, high-pressure (HP) and low-pressure (LP) cycles respectively, it is possible to reach high levels of both indicated and mechanical efficiency simultaneously. The HP cycle is designed similar to today's turbo-charged diesel engine but with an even higher boost pressure, resulting in high PCP. To cope with high PCP, the engine needs to be rigid.

The engine concept partially premixed combustion (PPC) has proved higher gross indicated efficiency compared to conventional diesel combustion engines. The relatively simple implementation of the concept is an advantage, however, high gas exchange losses has made its use challenging in multi-cylinder heavy duty engines. With high rates of exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) to dilute the charge and hence limit the combustion rate, the resulting exhaust temperatures are low. The selected boost system must therefore be efficient which could lead to large, complex and costly solutions. In the presented work experiments and modelling were combined to evaluate different turbocharger configurations for the PPC concept. Experiments were performed on a multi-cylinder engine. The engine was modified to incorporate long route EGR and a single-stage turbocharger, however, with compressed air from the building being optionally supplied to the compressor.

Partially Premixed Combustion (PPC) has shown its potential by combining high combustion controllability with emission characteristics that are close to those of an HCCI engine. In order to get PPC the ignition delay needs to be long enough for the fuel and air to mix prior to combustion. This can be achieved by injecting the fuel sufficiently early while running with high EGR. In order to find out where and how PPC occurs a map that shows the changes in combustion characteristics with injection timing and EGR was created. The combustion characteristics were studied in a six cylinder heavy duty engine where the Start of Injection (SOI) was swept from early to late injection over a wide range of EGR levels. The emissions were monitored during the sweeps and in the most promising regions, with low emissions and high efficiency, additional changes in injection pressure and engine speed were applied to get a more versatile picture of the combustion.

High EGR rates combined with turbocharging has been identified as a promising way to increase the maximum load and efficiency of heavy duty spark ignition engines. With stoichiometric conditions a three way catalyst can be used which means that regulated emissions can be kept at very low levels. Obtaining reliable spark ignition is difficult however with high pressure and dilution. There will be a limit to the amount of EGR that can be tolerated for each operating point. Open loop operation based on steady state maps is difficult since there is substantial dynamics both from the turbocharger and from the wall heat interaction. The proposed approach applies standard closed loop lambda control for controlling the overall air/fuel ratio for a heavy duty 6-cylinder port injected natural gas engine. A closed loop load control is also applied for keeping the load at a constant level when using EGR.

This article deals with application of turbulent jet ignition technique to heavy duty multi-cylinder natural gas engine for mobile application. Pre-chamber spark plugs are identified as a promising means of achieving turbulent jet ignition as they require minimal engine modification with respect to component packaging in cylinder head and the ignition system. Detailed experiments were performed with a 6 cylinder 9.4 liter turbo-charged engine equipped with multi-point gas injection system to compare performance and emissions characteristics of operation with pre-chamber and conventional spark plug. The results indicate that ignition capability is significantly enhanced as flame development angle and combustion duration are reduced by upto 30 % compared to those with conventional spark plugs at certain operating points.

In the automotive industry, the piezo-based in-cylinder pressure sensor is getting commercialized and used in production vehicles. For example, the pressure sensor offers the opportunity to design algorithms for estimation of engine emissions, such as soot and NO , during a combustion cycle. In this paper a zero-dimensional NO model for a diesel engine is implemented that will be used in real time. The model is based on the thermal NO formation and the Zeldovich mechanism using two non-geometrical zones: burned and unburned zone. The influence of EGR on combustion temperature was modeled using a well-known thermodynamic identity where specific heat at constant pressure is included. Specific heat will vary with temperature and the gas composition. The model was implemented in LabVIEW using tools specific for an FPGA (Field-Programmable Gate Array).

The development of high efficiency powertrains is a key objective for car manufacturers. One approach for improving the efficiency of gasoline engines is based on homogeneous charge compression ignition, HCCI, which provides higher efficiency than conventional strategies. However, HCCI is only currently viable at relatively low loads, primarily because at high loads it involves rapid combustion that generates pressure oscillations in the cylinder (ringing), and partly because it gives rise to relatively high NOX emissions. This paper describes studies aimed at increasing the viability of HCCI combustion at higher loads by using fully flexible valve trains, direct injection with charge stratification (SCCI), and intake air boosting. These approaches were complemented by using EGR to control NOX emissions by stoichiometric operation, which enables the use of a three-way catalyst.

In order to investigate the effects of split injection on emission formation and engine performance, experiments were carried out using a heavy duty single cylinder diesel engine. Split injections with varied dwell time and start of injection were investigated and compared with single injection cases. In order to isolate the effect of the selected parameters, other variables were kept constant. In this investigation no EGR was used. The engine was equipped with a common rail injection system with a piezo-electric injector. To interpret the observed phenomena, engine CFD simulations using the KIVA-3V code were also made. The results show that reductions in NOx emissions and brake specific fuel consumption were achieved for short dwell times whereas they both were increased when the dwell time was prolonged. No EGR was used so the soot levels were already very low in the cases of single injections.

Combustion characteristics of dimethyl ether, DME, have been investigated experimentally, in a heavy duty single cylinder engine equipped with an adapted common rail fuel injection system, and the effects of varying injection timing, rail pressure and exhaust gas recirculation on the combustion and emission parameters. The results show that DME combustion does not produce soot and with the use of exhaust gas recirculation NOX emissions can also be reduced to very low levels. However, high injection pressure and/or a DME adopted combustion system is required to improve the mixing process and thus reduce the combustion duration and carbon monoxide emissions.

The effects of using an SI stratified charge in combination with HCCI combustion on combustion phasing, rate of heat release and emissions were investigated in engine experiments to identify ways to extend the operational range of HCCI combustion to lower loads. In the experiments an optical single-cylinder engine equipped with a piezo electric outward-opening injector and operated with negative valve overlap (NVO) and low lift, short duration, camshaft profiles, was used to initiate HCCI combustion by increasing the exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) and thus retaining sufficient thermal energy to reach auto-ignition temperatures. Two series of experiments with full factorial designs were performed, to investigate how the tested parameters (amounts of fuel injected in pilot injections and main injections, stratification injection timing and spark-assistance) influenced the combustion.

Engine tests have been performed on a 9.6 liter spark-ignited engine fueled by natural gas and a mixture of 25/75 hydrogen/natural gas by volume. The scope of the work was to test two strategies for low emissions of harmful gases; lean burn operation and stoichiometric operation with EGR and a three-way catalyst. Most gas engines today, used in city buses, utilize the lean burn approach to achieve low NOx formation and high thermal efficiency. However, the lean burn approach may not be sufficient for future emissions legislation. One way to improve the lean burn strategy is to add hydrogen to the fuel to increase the lean limit and thus reduce the NOx formation without increasing the emissions of HC. Even so, the best commercially available technology for low emissions of NOx, HC and CO today is stoichiometric operation with a three-way catalyst as used in passenger cars.

Urban traffic involves frequent acceleration and deceleration. During deceleration, the energy previously used to accelerate the vehicle is mainly wasted on heat generated by the friction brakes. If this energy that is wasted in traditional IC engines could be saved, the fuel economy would improve. One solution to this is a pneumatic hybrid using variable valve timing to compress air during deceleration and expand air during acceleration. The compressed air can also be utilized to supercharge the engine in order to get higher load in the first few cycles when accelerating. A Scania D12 single-cylinder diesel engine has been converted for pneumatic hybrid operation and tested in a laboratory setup. Pneumatic valve actuators have been used to make the pneumatic hybrid possible. The actuators have been mounted on top of the cylinder head of the engine. A pressure tank has been connected to one of the inlet ports and one of the inlet valves has been modified to work as a tank valve.

The emissions from a direct injection diesel engine measured according to the ECE R49 13-mode cycle and as a function of exhaust gas recirculation are compared for diesel fuel without water addition, and for water-in-diesel as emulsion and microemulsion. The effect of water addition on the soot emissions was remarkably strong for both the emulsion and microemulsion fuels. The average weighted soot emission values for the 13-mode cycle were 0.0024 and 0.0023 g/kWh for the two most interesting emulsion and microemulsion fuels tested, respectively; 5-fold lower than the US 2007 emission limit.

The present paper shows the validation of a self tuning heat release method with no need to model heat losses, crevice losses and blow by. Using the pressure and volume traces the method estimates the polytropic exponents (before, during and after the combustion event), by the use of the emission values and amount of fuel injected per cycle the algorithm calculates the total heat release. These four inputs are subsequently used for computing the heat release trace. The result is a user independent algorithm which results in more objective comparisons among operating points and different engines. In the present paper the heat release calculated with this novel method has been compared with the one computed using the Woschni correlation for modeling the heat transfer. The comparison has been made using different fuels (PRF0, PRF80, ethanol and iso-octane) making sweeps in relative air-fuel ratio, engine speed, EGR and CA 50.

Future requirements for emission reduction from combustion engines in ground vehicles might be met by using the HCCI combustion concept. In this study, negative valve overlap (NVO) and low lift, short duration, camshaft profiles, were used to initiate HCCI combustion by increasing the internal exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) and thus retaining sufficient thermal energy for chemical reactions to occur when a pilot injection was introduced prior to TDC, during the NVO. One of the crucial parameters to control in HCCI combustion is the combustion phasing and one way of doing this is to vary the relative ratio of fuel injected in pilot and main injections. The combustion phasing is also influenced by the total amount of fuel supplied to the engine, the combustion phasing is thus affected when the load is changed. This study focuses on the reactions that occur in the highly diluted environment during the NVO when load and pilot to main ratio are changed.

The major advantages with Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition, HCCI, is high efficiency in combination with low NOx-emissions. The major drawback with HCCI is the problem to control the ignition timing over a wide load and speed range. Other drawbacks are the limitation in attainable IMEP and relativly high emissions of unburned hydrocarbons. But the use of Exhaust Gas Recycling (EGR) instead of only air, slows down the rate of combustion and makes it possible to use lower air/fuel ratio, which increases the attainable upper load limit. The influence of mixture quality was therefore experimentally investigated. The effects of different EGR rates, air/fuel ratios and inlet mixture temperatures were studied. The compression ratio was set to 18:1. The fuels used were iso-octane, ethanol and commercially available natural gas. The engine was operated naturally aspirated mode for all tests.

Future demands for improvements in the fuel economy of gasoline passenger car engines will require the development and implementation of advanced combustion strategies, to replace, or combine with the conventional spark ignition strategy. One possible strategy is homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) achieved using negative valve overlap (NVO). However, several issues need to be addressed before this combustion strategy can be fully implemented in a production vehicle, one being to increase the upper load limit. One constraint at high loads is the combustion becoming too rapid, leading to excessive pressure-rise rates and large pressure fluctuations (ringing), causing noise. In this work, efforts were made to reduce these pressure fluctuations by using a late injection during the later part of the compression. A more appropriate acronym than HCCI for such combustion is SCCI (Stratified Charge Compression Ignition).