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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.

Owing to the small size of engines and high injection pressures, it is difficult to avoid the fuel spray impingement on the combustion cylinder wall and piston head in Direct Injection Spark Ignition (DISI) engine, which is a possible source of hydrocarbons and soot emission. As a result, the droplets size and distribution are significantly important to evaluate the atomization and predict the impingement behaviors, such as stick, spread or splash. However, the microscopic behaviors of droplets are seldom reported due to the high density of small droplets, especially under high pressure conditions. In order to solve this problem, a “spray slicer” was designed to cut the spray before impingement as a sheet one to observe the droplets clearly. The experiment was performed in a constant volume chamber under non-evaporation condition, and a mini-sac injector with single hole was used.

Combustion closed-loop control is now being studied intensively for engineering applications to improve fuel economy. Currently, combustion closed-loop feedback control is usually based on the cylinder pressure signal, which is the most direct and exact signal that reflects engine working process. Although there were some relatively cheap types of in-cylinder pressure sensors, cylinder pressure sensors have not been widely applied because of their high price now. Moreover, the combustion analysis based on cylinder pressure imposes high requirements on the information acquisition capability of the current ECU, such as high acquisition and analog-digital conversion frequency and so on. For developing a low price and feasible technology, a new engine information feedback method based on model calculation and crank angular velocity measurement was proposed. A simplified combustion model was operated in ECU for the real-time calculation of cylinder pressure and combustion parameters.

Engine knock is an abnormal phenomenon, which places barriers for modern Spark-Ignition (SI) engines to achieve higher thermal efficiency and better performance. In order to trigger more controllable knock events for study while keeping the knock intensity at restricted range, various spark strategies (e.g. spark timing, spark number, spark location) are applied to investigate on their influences on knock combustion characteristics and pressure oscillations. The experiment is implemented on a modified single cylinder Compression-Ignition (CI) engine operated at SI mode with port fuel injection (PFI). A specialized liner with 4 side spark plugs and 4 pressure sensors is used to generate various flame propagation processes, which leads to different auto-ignition onsets and knock development. Based on multiple channels of pressure signals, a band-pass filter is applied to obtain the pressure oscillations with respect to different spark strategies.

Lean-burn combustion is an effective method for increasing the thermal efficiency of gasoline engines fueled with stoichiometric fuel-air mixture, but leads to an unacceptable level of high cyclic variability before reaching ultra-low nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions emitted from conventional gasoline engines. Multi-point micro-flame ignited (MFI) hybrid combustion was proposed to overcome this problem, and can be can be grouped into double-peak type, ramp type and trapezoid type with very low frequency of appearance. This research investigates the micro-flame ignition stages of double-peak type and ramp type MFI combustion captured by high speed photography. The results show that large flame is formed by the fast propagation of multi-point flame occurring in the central zone of the cylinder in the double-peak type. However, the multiple flame sites occur around the cylinder, and then gradually propagate and form a large flame accelerated by the independent small flame in the ramp type.

In order to understand the spray impinging the lubricant oil on the piston or cylinder wall in GDI engine, the Laser Induced Fluorescence (LIF) method was used to observe the phenomenon of the fuel droplets impact oil film and distinguish the fuel and oil during the impingement. The experimental results show that the hydrodynamic characteristics of impingement affected by the oil viscosity, droplets’ Weber number, oil film thickness. Crown formed after impingement. The morphology after impingement was categorized into: rings, stable crown, splash and prompt splash. Low oil film dynamic viscosity, high Weber number or thin oil film can facilitate splash. Splash droplets consist of fuel and oil, and the oil is the main component of splash droplets and crown. The empirical formula of critical We number (We) is fitted. High dimensionless oil film thickness or low oil film dynamic viscosity can increase the proportion of fuel in the crown.

Although supercharged system has been widely employed in downsized engines, the effect of supercharging on the intake flow characteristics remains inadequately understood. Therefore, it is worthwhile to investigate intake flow characteristics under high intake pressure. In this study, the supercharged intake flow is studied by experiment using steady flow test bench with supercharged system and transient flow simulation. For the steady flow condition, gas compressibility effect is found to significantly affect the flow coefficient (Cf), as Cf decreases with increasing intake pressure drop, if the compressibility effect is neglected in calculation by the typical evaluation method; while Cf has no significant change if the compressibility effect is included. Compared with the two methods, the deviation of the theoretical intake velocity and the density of the intake flow is the reason for Cf calculation error.

Two-stroke engines have to face the problems of insufficient charge for short intake time and the loss of intake air caused by long valve overlap. In order to promote the power of a two-stroke poppet valve diesel engine, measures are taken to help optimize intake port structure. In this work, the scavenging and combustion processes of three common types of intake ports including horizontal intake port (HIP), combined swirl intake port (CSIP) and reversed tumble intake port (RTIP) were studied and their characteristics are summarized based on three-dimensional simulation. Results show that the RTIP has better performance in scavenging process for larger intake air trapped in the cylinder. Its scavenging efficiency reaches 84.7%, which is 1.7% higher than the HIP and the trapping ratio of the RTIP reaches 72.3% due to less short-circuiting loss, 11.2% higher than the HIP.

This work numerically investigates the detailed combustion kinetics of partially premixed combustion (PPC) in a diesel engine under three different premixed ratio fuel conditions. A reduced Primary Reference Fuel (PRF) chemical kinetics mechanism was coupled with CONVERGE-SAGE CFD model to predict PPC combustion under various operating conditions. The experimental results showed that the increase of premixed ratio (PR) fuel resulted in advanced combustion phasing. To provide insight into the effects of PR on ignition delay time and key reaction pathways, a post-process tool was used. The ignition delay time is related to the formation of hydroxyl (OH). Thus, the validated Converge CFD code with the PRF chemistry and the post-process tool was applied to investigate how PR change the formation of OH during the low-to high-temperature reaction transition. The reaction pathway analyses of the formations of OH before ignition time were investigated.

Strategies to suppress knock have been extensively investigated to pursue thermal efficiency limits in downsized engines with a direct-injection spark ignition. Comprehensive considerations were given in this work, including the effects of second injection timing and injector location on knock combustion in a downsized gasoline engine by large eddy simulation. The turbulent flame propagation is determined by an improved G-equation turbulent combustion model, and the detailed chemistry mechanism of a primary reference fuel is employed to observe the detailed reaction process in the end-gas auto-ignition process. The conclusions were obtained by comparing the data to the baseline single-injection case with moderate knock intensity. Results reveal that for both arrangements of injectors, turbulence intensity is improved as the injecting timing is retarded, increasing the flame propagation speed.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the spray characteristics and ignition stability of gasoline sprays injected from a hole-type nozzle. Using a single-hole VCO (Valve-Covered-Orifice) nozzle, the spray characteristics were studied with LAS (Laser Absorption Scattering) technique, and then flame propagation and ignition stability were investigated inside a high temperature high pressure constant volume vessel using a high speed video camera. The spatial ignition stability of the spray at different locations was tested by adjusting the position of the electrodes. By adjusting the ignition timings, the stable ignition windows for 3 determined locations where the ignition stability was high at a fixed ignition timing were studied. The flame propagation process was examined using high speed shadowgraph method. Experimental results show that when the ignition points are located on the spray axis, the ignition probability is low.

Porous medium (PM) engine was a new type engine based on the technique of combustion in porous medium, which can realize homogeneous and stable combustion. In this paper, the combustion and working processes of a specific PM engine was simulated by a two-zone model considering the influences of the mass distribution, heat transfer from the cylinder wall, mass exchange between zones and the heat transfer in porous medium. Influences of operating parameters, e.g. intake temperature and pressure, compression ratio, the excess air ratio on the performance of the PM engine were discussed. It is found out that the porous medium, acting as a heat recuperator, can significantly enhance the evaporation of liquid fuel and preheat the mixture, which promotes the ignition and combustion in the cylinder; and that the initial PM temperature and the compression ratio are critical factors controlling the compression ignition of the mixture.

A solution for cylinder wall scuffing is researched. By means of the finite element method, a mathematical model to investigate the temperature field and thermal deformation of the piston is established, which can be used for predicting the cylinder wall scuffing in both the design process of a new diesel engine and the improvement process of the combustion system of an operating diesel engine. The experimental data support the calculated results obtained by using the model. As an application example, the temperature fields and thermal deformations of the piston in the 6E150C diesel engine, which suffers from the cylinder wall scuffing during the period of operation, are analyzed quantitatively by using the mathematical model. After an improved piston with new structure and good cooling system is used in the 6E150C diesel engine, the cylinder wall scuffing no longer occurs.

Due to the mechanical forces under static conditions, the engine cylinders cross section will not be a round circle any more once they are installed. The deformation of an engine cylinder causes increasing lubricating oil consumption and abnormal wear, resulting in worse fuel economy and emissions. However, prediction of deformation on a liner has not been made because of the complication of conditions and structure. In this study, a V6-type engine body model was built and meshed with Hypermesh suit software. Then, cylinder deformation under static condition has been simulated and analyzed. First of all, experimental work was done to verify the engine model. Basically, few parameters like pre-tightened force, structure and distribution of bolts have been investigated to figure out how the cylinder bore deformation behaves via finite element analysis. Also, a simple Matlab program was developed to process the data.

The chemical kinetic mechanism determines the ignition timing of homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) engines. The correlation of the ignition delay in shock tubes and HCCI engines under different operating conditions was studied with a reduced mechanism of the primary reference fuel (PRF) composing of n-heptane and iso-octane. According to the similarity analysis of the sensitivity coefficient, the operating conditions which affect the similarity factor are recognized. The results indicate that, under the negative temperature coefficient (NTC) region of the ignition delay in shock tubes, the weight of each reaction on the ignition delay in shock tubes is similar to that in HCCI engines. The ignition delay time in HCCI engines is defined as the period from the time of start of heat release (SHR) with the HRR greater than zero to CA10. At the high equivalence ratios in shock tubes, the similarity factor at the low ambient temperatures is small.

Butanol is a promising alcohol fuel. Previous studies on combustion and diesel engines showed different trends in sooting tendencies of the butanol isomers (n-butanol, iso-butanol, sec-butanol and tert-butanol).The impact of butanol isomers on the particulate emissions of GDI (Gasoline Direct Injection) engines, however, has not been reported. This work examines the combustion performance and particle number emissions of a GDI engine fueled with gasoline/butanol blends in steady state modes. Each isomer was tested at blend ratios from 10% to 50% by volume. Spark timings for all the fuels are set to obtain the maximum break torque (MBT), i.e. the MBT spark timings. Results show that the particle number concentration is reduced significantly with increasing butanol content for all the isomers.

On-board fuel reforming offers a prospective clean combustion mode for the engines. The flexible cylinder engine strategy (FCE) is a new kind of such mode. In this paper, the combustion of the primary reference fuel of PRF90 was theoretically investigated in a homogeneous charge compression ignition engine to validate the FCE mode, mainly focusing on the ignition delay time, the flame speed, and the emissions. The simulations were performed by using the CHEMKIN2.0 package to demonstrate the fuel reforming process in the flexible cylinder, the cooling effect on the reformed products, and the combustions of the mixture of the fresh fuel and the reformed products in the normal cylinders. It was found that the FCE mode decreased the ignition delay time of the fuel by about 35 crank angles at a typical engine condition.

In this paper, the influences of metallic content of lubricating oils on diesel particles were investigated. Three lubricating oils with different levels of metallic content were used in a 2.22 Liter, two cylinders, four stroke, and direct injection diesel engine. 4.0 wt. % and 8 wt. % antioxidant and corrosion inhibitor (T202) were added into baseline lubricating oil to improve the performance respectively. Primary particle diameter distributions and particle nanostructure were compared and analyzed by Transmission Electron Microscope. The graphitization degrees of diesel particles from different lubricating oils were analyzed by Raman spectroscopy. Conclusions drawn from the experiments indicate that the metallic content increases the primary particles diameter at 1600 rpm and 2200 rpm. The primary particles diameter ranges from 5 nm to 65 nm and the distribution conformed to Gaussian distribution.

The combustion of cylinder lubricating oil (called as cylinder oil for short) is one of the major sources of PM emissions of low-speed 2-stroke marine diesel engines. For pre-mixed combustion low-speed 2-stroke marine gas engines, the auto-ignition of cylinder oil might result in knock or more hazard abnormal combustion - pre-ignition. Evaporation is a key sub-process of the auto-ignition process of cylinder oil droplets. The evaporation behavior has a profound impact on the auto-ignition and combustion processes of cylinder oil droplets, and a great influence on engine combustion performance and emission characteristics. This paper applied an oil suspending apparatus to investigate the evaporation behavior of cylinder oil droplets and base oil droplets. The effects of ambient temperatures on the evaporation process were measured and analyzed. The results indicate that the evaporation of cylinder oil includes heating, evaporating, pyrolysis, and polymerization.

Knock threshold detection is the key of closed loop control of ignition in gasoline engine, and it is also the difficult point in knock measurement. In this paper, an investigation of knock detection in turbocharged gasoline engine using bispectrum slice and ensemble empirical mode decomposition (EEMD) based on the engine cylinder head vibration signals is presented. By adding some finite amplitude Gaussian white noises to the signal, EEMD keeps the signal continuous in different time span, and therefore the mode mixing inhering in the classical empirical mode decomposition (EMD) method is alleviated. Power spectrum density (PSD) estimation is used to determine the band range of the resonance frequency generated by knock component. EEMD is used to decompose the original signals, the time-frequency characteristics of the Intrinsic Mode Functions (IMF) are analyzed using Continues Wavelet Transform (CWT) due to its excellent time-frequency resolution.