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The introduction of CO₂-reduction technologies like Start-Stop or the Hybrid-Powertrain and the future emission legislation require a detailed optimization of the engine start-up. The combustion concept development as well as the calibration of the ECU makes an explicit thermodynamic analysis of the combustion process during the start-up necessary. Initially, the well-known thermodynamic analysis of in-cylinder pressure at stationary condition was transmitted to the highly non-stationary engine start-up. There, the current models for calculation of the transient wall heat fluxes were found to be misleading. Therefore, adaptations to the start-up conditions of the known models by Woschni, Hohenberg and Bargende were introduced for calculation of the wall heat transfer coefficient in SI engines with gasoline direct injection. This paper shows how the indicated values can be measured during the engine start-up.

Due to the increasingly stricter emission legislation and growing demands for lower fuel consumption, there have been significant efforts to improve combustion efficiency while satisfying the emission requirements. Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) combined with turbo/supercharging on gasoline engines provides a particularly promising and, at the same time, a challenging approach. Naturally aspirated (n.a.) HCCI has already shown a considerable potential of about 14% in the New European Driving Cycle (NEDC) compared with a conventional 4-cylinder 2.0 liter gasoline Port Fuel Injection (PFI) engine without any advanced valve-train technology. The HCCI n.a. operation range is air breathing limited due to the hot residuals required for the self-ignition and to slow down reaction kinetics, and therefore is limited to a part-load operation area.

Regarding the strongly growing two-wheeler market fuel economy, price and emission legislations are in focus of current development work. Fuel economy as well as emissions can be improved by introduction of engine management systems (EMS). In order to provide the benefits of an EMS for low cost motorcycles, efforts are being made at BOSCH to reduce the costs of a port fuel injection (PFI) system. The present paper describes a method of how to reduce the number of sensors of a PFI system by the use of sophisticated software functions based on high-resolution engine speed evaluation. In order to improve the performance of a system working without a MAP-sensor (manifold air pressure sensor) an air charge feature (ACFn) based on engine speed is introduced. It is shown by an experiment that ACFn allows to detect and adapt changes in manifold air pressure. Cross-influences on ACFn are analyzed by simulations and engine test bench measurements.

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.

Cost reduction of engine management systems (EMS) for two-wheeler applications is the key to utilize their potentials compared to carburetor bikes regarding emissions, fuel economy and system robustness. In order to reduce the costs of a system with port fuel injection (PFI) Bosch is developing an EMS without a manifold air pressure (MAP) sensor. The pressure sensor is usually used to compensate for different influences on the air mass, which cannot be detected via the throttle position sensor (TPS) and mean engine speed. Such influences are different leakage rates of the throttle body and changing ambient conditions like air pressure. Bosch has shown in the past that a virtual sensor relying on model based evaluation of engine speed can be used for a detection of leakage air mass in idling to improve the pre-control of the air-fuel ratio. This provides a functionality which so far was only possible with an intake pressure sensor.

Novel combustion technologies, which de-throttle the gasoline spark ignition (SI) engine, show high potential in reducing the fuel consumption. Technologies like variable valve actuation and/or gasoline direct injection, allow new strategies to run the SI engine unthrottled with early inlet valve closing (SI-VVA), charge stratification (SI-STRAT) and controlled auto ignition (CAI), also known as gasoline homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI). These diverse combustion concepts show thermodynamic gains that stem from several, often different, sources. A multitude of definitions of thermodynamic gas exchange potentials arise when looking at the various publications concerning de-throttled combustion concepts. This paper shows a summary and comparison of these definitions and points out which one can be applied in general to evaluate various combustion concepts under the same basis of evaluation.

Advanced engine control and diagnosis strategies for internal combustion engines need accurate feedback information from the combustion engine. The feedback information can be utilized to control combustion features which allow the improvement of engine's efficiency through real-time control and diagnosis of the combustion process. This article describes a new method for combustion phase and IMEP estimation using one in-cylinder pressure and engine speed. In order to take torsional deflections of the crankshaft into account a gray-box model of the crankshaft is identified by subspace identification. The modeling accuracy is compared to a stiff physical crankshaft model. For combustion feature estimation, the identified MISO (multiple input single output) system is inverted. Experiments for a four-cylinder spark-ignition engine show the superior performance of the new method for combustion feature estimation compared to a stiff model approach.

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.

It is a well known fact that indicated efficiency of a SI engine at WOT is predominantly limited by knock occurrence. Therefore many investigations have been carried out to avoid knocking. Considering the further development of downsized engines knocking will also pose a greater challenge. Not only knocking but also irregular combustion in general will require further investigation in supercharged SI eingines. Premature ignition, for instance, hasn’t yet been completely understood and therefore limits the low end torque of supercharged SI engines. The purpose of this paper is to introduce different analysis methods which allow to identify the knock onset and the knocking zones in the combustion chamber. In addition to established methods new techniques have been developed to account for the complex nature of pressure oscillation during knocking combustion. Experimental data was acquired on a single cylinder research engine to validate the methodology using six pressure transducers.

Environmental consciousness and tightening emissions legislation push the market share of electronic fuel injection within a dynamically growing world wide small engines market. Similar to automotive engines during late 1980's, this opens up opportunities for original equipment manufacturers (OEM) and suppliers to jointly advance small engines performance in terms of fuel economy, emissions, and drivability. In this context, advanced combustion system analyses from automotive engine testing have been applied to a typical production motorcycle small engine. The 125cc 4-stroke, 2-valve, air-cooled, single-cylinder engine with closed-loop lambda-controlled electronic port fuel injection was investigated in original series configuration on an engine dynamometer. The test cycle fuel consumption simulation provides reasonable best case fuel economy estimates based on stationary map fuel consumption measurements.

The introduction of CO₂-reduction technologies like Start-Stop or the Hybrid-Powertrain and the future emissions limits require a detailed optimization of the engine start-up. The combustion concept development as well as the calibration of the ECU makes an explicit thermodynamic analysis of the combustion process during the start-up necessary. Initially, the well-known thermodynamic analysis of in-cylinder pressure at stationary condition was transmitted to the highly non-stationary engine start-up. There, the current models for calculation of the transient wall heat fluxes were found to be misleading. But with a fraction of nearly 45% of the burned fuel energy, the wall heat is very important for the calculation of energy balance and for the combustion process analysis.

The controlled auto-ignition1 (CAI) improves dramatically the efficiency of a gasoline engine and brings it in close competition to the diesel engine without penalties in emissions. With CAI run in part-load, the gasoline engine reaches a standard driving cycle advantage of 12% in fuel economy compared to current commercial engines operating solely in homogeneous gasoline direct injection (GDI) with a stoichiometric charge. CAI is run lean in fuel and thus limited in load similar to the second generation spray guided stratified GDI strategy that promises at least the same fuel efficiency but is plagued with high NOx emissions requiring complex after-treatment systems. Although CAI produces negligible NOx, and a simple three-way catalyst suffices, it depends strongly on judiciously operating the engine within the dynamic operating cycle. Direct injection, valve actuation flexibility and advanced controls based on combustion state sensing are indispensable for this.

Pressure Trace Analysis (PTA) is the basis for any combustion concept development and analysis of its combustion features. Cyclic variability analysis is also addressed using PTA, for example by means of heat release calculation. To fulfill that requirement with a low computational effort, methods for reliable fast heat release calculation of single cycles are presented. A new approach to determine the temperature in the burnt zone of a 2-zone-model is introduced as well. These PTA methods were applied to chosen combustion concepts at a representative operation point: 2000/3 bar imep (work integral over 720 cad). The gasoline combustion concepts used in this study are: homogeneous charge stoichiometric spark ignition (SI) using standard valve-train and additionally using a variable valve-train regarding lift and timing (VVA); stratified charge spray guided direct injection (SGDI) and homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI).

The worldwide stricter emission legislation and growing demands for lower fuel consumption require for significant efforts to improve combustion efficiency while satisfying the emission quality demands. Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) on gasoline engines provides a particularly promising and, at the same time, challenging approach, especially regarding the combustion mode switch between spark-ignited (SI) and gasoline HCCI mode and vice-versa. Naturally aspirated (n.a.) HCCI shows considerable potential, but the operation range is air breathing limited due to hot residuals required for auto-ignition and to slow down reaction kinetics. Therefore it is limited to part-load operation. Considering the future gasoline engine market with growing potentials identified on downsized gasoline engines, it is imperative to investigate the synergies and challenges of boosted HCCI.

Stricter emissions legislation and growing demands for lower fuel consumption require significant efforts to improve combustion efficiency while satisfying the emission quality demands. Controlled Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) combined with boosted air systems on gasoline engines provides a particularly promising, yet challenging, approach. Naturally aspirated (NA) HCCI has already shown considerable potential in combustion efficiency gains. Nevertheless, since the volumetric efficiency is limited in the NA HCCI operation range due to the hot residuals required to ignite the mixture and slow down reaction kinetics, only part-load operation is feasible in this combustion mode. Considering the future gasoline engine market with growing potentials identified in downsized gasoline engines, it becomes necessary to investigate the synergies and challenges of controlled, boosted HCCI.

The stricter worldwide emission legislation and growing demands for lower fuel consumption and CO2-emission require for significant efforts to improve combustion efficiency while satisfying the emission quality demands. Ethanol fuel combined with boosting on direct injection gasoline engines provides a particularly promising and, at the same time, a challenging approach. Brazil is one of the main Ethanol fuel markets with its E24 and E100 fuel availability, which covers a large volume of the national needs. Additionally, worldwide Ethanol availability is becoming more and more important, e.g., in North America and Europe. Considering the future flex-fuel engine market with growing potentials identified on downsized spark ignition engines, it becomes necessary to investigate the synergies and challenges of Ethanol boosted operation. Main topic of the present work focuses on the operation of Ethanol blends up to E100 at high loads up to 30 bar imep.

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.

Novel Combustion technologies and strategies show high potential in reducing the fuel consumption of gasoline spark ignition (SI) engines. In this paper, a comparison between various gasoline combustion concepts at two representative engine operating points is shown. Advantages of the combustion concepts are analyzed using thermodynamic split of losses method. In this paper, a tool for thermodynamic assessment (Split of Losses) of conventional and new operating strategies of SI engine and its derivatives is used. Technologies, like variable valve actuation and/or gasoline direct injection, allow new strategies to run the SI engine unthrottled with early inlet valve closing (SI-VVA) combined with high EGR, charge stratification (SI-STRAT) and controlled auto ignition (CAI), also known as gasoline homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI). These diverse combustion concepts show thermodynamic gains that stem from several, often different sources.

In order to fulfil emission legislation and achieve good drivability of combustion-engine-powered vehicles, information about the air charge and feedback about the engine condition is necessary. In current systems, different sensors are used, e.g. the MAP (manifold air pressure) sensor and a lambda sensor. Aiming at reducing costs, efforts are being made to reduce the number of sensors while still retrieving the necessary information. Various engine speed based functions are state-of-the-art for automotive engines, e.g. for fuel-calibration, misfire-detection etc. Those functions evaluate the engine speed fluctuations during a working cycle induced by combustion. For multiple-cylinder engines, those influences are overlapping, therefore evaluation possibilities are limited. The work presented is based on the effect that at a single-cylinder engine, there is no overlap of combustion influences of various cylinders on the crankshaft.

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.