Search Results

In order to comply with more and more stringent emission standards, like EU6 which will be mandatory starting in September 2014, GDI engines have to be further optimized particularly in regard of PN emissions. It is generally accepted that the deposition of liquid fuel wall films in the combustion chamber is a significant source of particulate formation in GDI engines. Particularly the wall surface temperature and the temperature drop due to the interaction with liquid fuel spray were identified as important parameters influencing the spray-wall interaction [1]. In order to quantify this temperature drop at combustion chamber surfaces, surface temperature measurements on the piston of a single-cylinder engine were conducted. Therefore, eight fast-response thermocouples were embedded 0.3 μm beneath the piston surface and the signals were transmitted from the moving piston to the data acquisition system via telemetry.

Due to the principle of direct injection, which is applied in modern homogeneously operated gasoline engines, there are various operation points with significant particulate emissions. The spray droplets contact the piston surface during the warm-up and early injections, in particular. The fuel wall films and the resulting delayed evaporation of the liquid fuel is one of the main sources of soot particles. It is therefore necessary to carry out investigations into the formation of wall film. The influence of the spray impact angle is of special interest, as this is a major difference between engines with side-mounted injectors and centrally positioned injectors. This paper describes an infrared thermography-based method, which we used to carry out a systematic study of fuel deposits on the walls of the combustion chamber. The boundary conditions of the test section were close to those of real GDI engines operated with homogeneous charge.

Equipping low cost two-wheelers with engine management systems (EMS) enables not only a reduction of emissions but also an improvement in fuel consumption and system robustness. These benefits are accompanied by initially higher system costs compared to carburetor systems. Therefore, intelligent software solutions are developed by Bosch, which enable a reduction of the necessary sensors for a port fuel injection system (PFI) and furthermore provide new possibilities for combustion control. One example for these intelligent software solutions is a model based evaluation of the engine speed. By use of the information contained in the engine speed signal, characteristic features like air charge, indicated mean effective pressure (imep) and combustion phasing are derivable. The present paper illustrates how these features could be used to reduce the system costs and to improve fuel consumption and system robustness.

The introduction of CO2-reduction technologies like Start-Stop or the Hybrid-Powertrain and the future emissions regulations require a detailed optimization of the engine start-up. The combustion concept development as well as the calibration of the ECU makes it necessary to carry out an explicit thermodynamic analysis of the combustion process during the start-up. As of today, the well-known thermodynamic analysis using in-cylinder pressure traces at stationary condition is transmitted to the highly dynamic engine start-up. Due to this approximation the current models for calculation of the transient wall heat fluxes by Woschni, Hohenberg and Bargende do not lead to desired results. But with a fraction of approximately 40 % of the burnt fuel energy, the wall heat is very important for the calculation of energy balance and for the combustion process analysis during start-up.

General Motors' 3.6L DOHC 4V V6 engine has been upgraded to provide substantial improvements in performance, fuel economy, and emissions for the 2008 model year Cadillac CTS and STS. The fundamental change was a switch from traditional manifold-port fuel injection (MPFI) to spark ignition direct injection (SIDI). Additional modifications include enhanced cylinder head and intake manifold air flow capacities, optimized camshaft profiles, and increased compression ratio. The SIDI fuel system presented the greatest opportunities for system development and optimization in order to maximize improvements in performance, fuel economy, and emissions. In particular, the injector flow rate, orifice geometry, and spray pattern were selected to provide the optimum balance of high power and torque, low fuel consumption, stable combustion, low smoke emissions, and robust tolerance to injector plugging.

An optimum combustion chamber was designed for a reverse-tumble wall-controlled gasoline direct-injection engine by systematically optimizing each design element of the combustion system. The optimization was based on fuel-economy, hydrocarbon, combustion-stability and smoke measurements at a 2000 rev/min test-point representation of road-load operating condition. The combustion-chamber design parameters that were optimized in this study included: piston-bowl depth, piston-bowl opening width, piston-bowl-volume ratio, exhaust-side squish height, bowl-lip draft angle, distance between spark-plug electrode and piston-bowl lip, spark-plug-electrode length, and injector spray-cone angle. No attempt was made to optimize the gross engine parameters such as bore and stroke or the intake system, since this study focused on optimizing a reverse-tumble wall-controlled gasoline direct-injection variant of an existing port-fueled injection engine.

The resonances of SI engine combustion chambers are slightly excited during normal combustion but strongly excited by knock. In order to avoid knocking combustions extensive knowledge about knock and its effects is necessary. In this paper the combustion chamber of a serial production engine is modeled by finite elements. Modal analyses are performed in order to gain information about the resonances, their frequencies, and their frequency and amplitude modulations. Simulation results are compared to measured data using a high-resolution time-frequency method. Furthermore, a connection between knock origin and the excitation of the resonances is postulated applying transient analyses.

This study presents a methodology to predict particle number (PN) generation on a naturally aspirated 4-cylinder gasoline engine with port fuel injection (PFI) from wall wetting, employing numerical CFD simulation and fuel film analysis. Various engine parameters concerning spray pattern, injection timing, intake valve timing, as well as engine load/speed were varied and their impact on wall film and PN was evaluated. The engine, which was driven at wide open throttle (WOT), was equipped with soot particle sampling technology and optical access to the combustion chamber of cylinder 1 in order to visualise non-premixed combustion. High-speed imaging revealed a notable presence of diffusion flames, which were typically initiated between the valve seats and cylinder head. Their size was found to match qualitatively with particulate number measurements. A validated CFD model was employed to simulate spray propagation, film transport and droplet impingement.

CNG direct injection is a promising technology to promote the acceptance of natural gas engines. Among the beneficial properties of CNG, like reduced pollutants and CO2 emissions, the direct injection contributes to a higher volumetric efficiency and thus to a better driveability, one of the most limiting drawbacks of today’s CNG vehicles. But such a combustion concept increases the demands on the injection system and mixture formation. Among other things it requires a much higher flow rate at low injection pressure. This can be only provided by an outward-opening nozzle due to its large cross-section. Nevertheless its hollow cone jet with a specific propagation behavior leads to an adverse fuel-air distribution especially at higher loads under scavenging conditions. This paper covers numerical and experimental analysis of CNG direct injection to understand its mixture formation.

A previous study by the authors has shown an efficiency benefit of up to Δηi = 10 % for stratified operation of a high pressure natural gas direct injection (DI) spark ignition (SI) engine compared to the homogeneous stoichiometric operation with port fuel injection (PFI). While best efficiencies appeared at extremely lean operation at λ = 3.2, minimum HC emissions were found at λ = 2. The increasing HC emissions and narrow ignition time frames in the extremely lean stratified operation have given the need for a detailed analysis. To further investigate the mixture formation and flame propagation und these conditions, an optically accessible single-cylinder engine was used. The mixture formation and the flame luminosity have been investigated in two perpendicular planes inside the combustion chamber.

To meet future CO₂ emissions limits and satisfy the bounds set by exhaust gas legislation reducing the engine displacement while maintaining the power output ("Downsizing") becomes of more and more importance to the SI-engine development process. The total number of cylinders per engine has to be reduced to keep the thermodynamic disadvantages of a small combustion chamber layout as small as possible. Doing so leads to new challenges concerning the mechanical design, the design of the combustion system concept as well as strategies maintaining a satisfying transient torque behavior. To address these challenges a turbocharged 2-cylinder SI engine with gasoline direct injection was designed for research purposes by Weber Motor and Bosch. This paper wants to offer an insight in the design process. The mechanical design as well as the combustion system concept process will be discussed.

To meet future CO₂ emissions limits and satisfy the bounds set by exhaust gas legislation reducing the engine displacement while maintaining the power output ("Downsizing") becomes of more and more importance in the SI engine development process. The total number of cylinders per engine has to be reduced to keep the thermodynamic disadvantages of a small combustion chamber layout as small as possible. Doing so new challenges arise concerning the mechanical design, the design of the combustion system concept as well as strategies maintaining a satisfying transient torque behavior. To address these challenges a turbocharged 2-cylinder SI engine was designed for research purposes by Weber Motor GmbH and Robert Bosch GmbH. The design process was described in detail in last year's paper SAE 2012-01-0832. Since the engine design is very modular it allows for several different engine layouts which can be examined and evaluated.

Innovative solutions for reducing particulate emissions will be necessary in order to comply with the even more stringent exhaust-gas standards of the future. The potential of a diesel nozzle with variable orifice geometry has long been common knowledge in the area of engine construction. But up to now, a fully functional solution of such a nozzle has not appeared which operates with a reduced orifice at low engine speeds and/or low loads. Here with regard to target costing, the requirements implicit in function and manufacture must also be taken into account. Using calculations on nozzle interior flow and injection-spray investigations, it will be shown which nozzle geometries best fulfill the various requirements. In order to achieve low levels of particulate emission in an engine with a combustion chamber designed for optimum use of a hole-type nozzle, the injection-spray direction and its geometry must to a large extent correspond to those of a hole-type nozzle.

Today, knock control is part of standard automotive engine management systems. The structure-borne noise of the knock sensor signal is evaluated in the electronic control unit (ECU). In case of knocking combustions the ignition angle is first retarded and then subsequently advanced again. The small-sized combustion chamber of small two-wheeler engines, uncritical compression ratios and strong enrichment decrease the knock tendency. Nevertheless, knock control can effectuate higher performance, lower fuel consumption, compliance with lower legally demanded emission limits, and the possibility of using different fuel qualities. The Knock-Intensity-Detector 2 (KID2) and the Bosch knock control tool chain, based on many years of experience gained on automotive engines, provides an efficient calibration method that can also be used for two-wheeler engines. The raw signal of the structure-borne noise is used for signal analysis and simulation of different filter settings.

Contemporary diesel engines are high-tech power plants that provide high torques at very good levels of efficiency. By means of modern injecting-systems such as Common-Rail Injection, combustion noise and emissions could be influenced positively as well. Diesel engine are therefore used increasingly in top-range and sports cars. Today's production ECUs have no or only very low feedback regarding the process in the combustion chamber. As long as this data is missing, the design of the maps in the ECU can only be a compromise, since production tolerances and aging processes have to be considered in advance. Disturbances in the combustion process may not be detected at all. If more knowledge about the course of combustion is provided, especially the start of combustion (SOC), various operating parameters, such as the pilot injection quantity or the beginning of current feed to the injector, could be adjusted more precisely and individually for every cylinder.

Heat transfer to the combustion chamber walls constitutes a significant portion of the overall energy losses over the working cycle of a direct injection (DI) diesel engine. In the last few decades, numerous research efforts have been devoted to investigating the prospects of boosting efficiency by insulating the combustion chamber. Relatively few studies have focused on the prospects of reducing emissions by applying combustion chamber insulation. A main purpose of this study is to assess the potential of reducing in-cylinder soot as well as boosting aftertreatment performance by means of partially insulating the combustion chamber. Based on the findings from a conceptual study, a Low Heat Rejection (LHR) design, featuring a Nimonic 80A insert into an Aluminum piston, was developed and tested experimentally at various loads in a single-cylinder Hatz-engine.

A comprehensive cycle analysis has been developed for four-stroke spark-ignited engines from which the indicated performance of a single cylinder engine was computed with a reasonable degree of accuracy. The step-wise cycle calculations were made using a digital computer. This analysis took into account mixture composition, dissociation, combustion chamber shape (including spark plug location), flame propagation, heat transfer, piston motion, engine speed, spark advance, manifold pressure and temperature, and exhaust pressure. A correlation between the calculated and experimental performance is reported for one engine at a particular operating point. The calculated pressure-time diagram was in good agreement with the experimental one in many respects. The calculated peak pressure was 10 per cent lower and the thermal efficiency 0.8 per cent higher than the measured values. Thus this calculational procedure represents a significant improvement over constant volume cycle approximations.

The heat transfer process in a reciprocating engine is dominated by forced convection, which is drastically affected by mean flow, turbulence, flame propagation and its impingement on the combustion chamber walls. All these effects contribute to a transient heat flux, resulting in a fast-changing temporal and spatial temperature distribution at the surface of the combustion chamber walls. To quantify these changes in combustion chamber surface temperature, surface temperature measurements on the piston of a single cylinder diesel engine were taken. Therefore, thirteen fast-response thermocouples were installed in the piston surface. A wireless microwave telemetry system was used for data transmission out of the moving piston. A wide range of parameter studies were performed to determine the varying influences on the surface temperature of the piston.

Model guided application (MGA) combining physico-chemical internal combustion engine simulation with advanced analytics offers a robust framework to develop and test particle number (PN) emissions reduction strategies. The digital engineering workflow presented in this paper integrates the kinetics & SRM Engine Suite with parameter estimation techniques applicable to the simulation of particle formation and dynamics in gasoline direct injection (GDI) spark ignition (SI) engines. The evolution of the particle population characteristics at engine-out and through the sampling system is investigated. The particle population balance model is extended beyond soot to include sulphates and soluble organic fractions (SOF). This particle model is coupled with the gas phase chemistry precursors and is solved using a sectional method. The combustion chamber is divided into a wall zone and a bulk zone and the fuel impingement on the cylinder wall is simulated.

In the context of the energy transition, CO2-neutral solutions are of enormous importance for all sectors, but especially for the mobility sector. Hydrogen as an energy carrier has therefore been the focus of research and development for some time. However, the development of hydrogen combustion engines is in many respects still in the conception phase. Automotive system providers and engineering companies in the field of software development and simulation are showing great interest in the topic. In a joint project with the industrial partners Robert Bosch GmbH and AVL Germany, combustion in a H2-DI-engine for use in light-duty vehicles was methodically investigated using the CFD tool AVL FIRE®. The collaboration between Robert Bosch GmbH and the Institute for Mobile Systems (IMS) at Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg has produced a model study in which model approaches for the combustion of hydrogen can be analyzed.