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Mechanical load and thermal load are the two main barriers limiting the engine power output of heavy duty (HD) diesel engines. Usually, the peak cylinder pressure could be reduced by retarding combustion phasing while introducing the drawback of higher thermal load and exhaust temperature. In this paper, Miller cycle with late intake valve closing was investigated at high speed high load condition (77 kW/L) on a single cylinder HD diesel engine. The results showed the simultaneous reduction of mechanical and thermal loads. In the meanwhile, higher boosting pressure was required to compensate the Miller loss of the intake charge during intake and compression process. The combustion temperature, cylinder pressure, exhaust temperature and NOx emission were reduced significantly with Miller cycle at the operating condition. Furthermore, the combustion process, smoke number and fuel consumption were analysed.

Controlled Auto-Ignition (CAI) combustion, also known as Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI), has the potential to simultaneously reduce the fuel consumption and nitrogen oxides emissions of gasoline engines. However, narrow operating region in loads and speeds is one of the challenges for the commercial application of CAI combustion to gasoline engines. Therefore, the extension of loads and speeds is an important prerequisite for the commercial application of CAI combustion. The effect of intake charge boosting, charge stratification and spark-assisted ignition on the operating range in CAI mode was reviewed. Stratified flame ignited (SFI) hybrid combustion is one form to achieve CAI combustion under the conditions of highly diluted mixture caused by the flame in the stratified mixture with the help of spark plug.

Downsizing as a main-stream technology was widely used for design of future diesel engines in order to meet the increasingly stringent demands of emissions regulation and reduction of CO2 production. Design of intake system faces a considerable challenge accordingly. Discharge coefficient and swirl ratio as two main factors of intake port design have been widely investigated by researchers. However, these two parameters indicate a trade-off relationship. Therefore, it is difficult for a classical intake system to achieve a good balance between sufficient air charge and decent air-fuel radial mixing quality. A 1 L twin-intake-port single-cylinder diesel engine was studied in this paper. A swirl control valve designed to adjust the effective flow area of the filling port, was installed between the intake manifold and the intake filling port in order to achieve variation of swirl ratio. And there is no control valve for the intake spiral port.

Poppet-valve two-stroke gasoline engines can increase the specific power of their four-stroke counterparts with the same displacement and hence decrease fuel consumption. However, knock may occur at high loads. Therefore, the combustion with stratified lean mixture was proposed to decrease knock tendency and improve combustion stability in a poppet-valve two-stroke direct injection gasoline engine. The effect of intake pressure and split injection on fuel distribution, combustion and knock intensity in lean mixture conditions at high loads was simulated with a three-dimensional computational fluid dynamic software. Simulation results show that with the increase of intake pressure, the average fuel-air equivalent ratio in the cylinder decreases when the second injection ratio was fixed at 70% at a given amount of fuel in a cycle.

Piston bowl geometry has important effects on diesel engine combustion. Especially for a high power density engine, much more fuel requires to burn across the cylinder in a short period after the top dead centre (TDC). Therefore the piston bowl geometry plays a critical role for the air/fuel mixing process and the combustion process. In this paper, a 3-D in-cylinder combustion modeling was carried out for a high power density engine. The ω type of bowl shape was described by seven independent parameters. Five of them are conducted to investigate their effects on the combustion process. The results show that the bowl diameter has significant effects on combustion both in the pre-mixing combustion period and in the diffusion combustion period. There exists an optimized bowl diameter value to obtain a highest indicated power. The re-entrant angle has an important effect on pre-mixing combustion and there also exists an optimized value to reach a highest indicated power.

The intake process plays an important role in the operation of internal combustion engines. In the present study, a three-dimensional transient simulation of a four-valve diesel engine was performed using Large Eddy Simulation (LES) model based on software CONVERGE. The mean velocity components in three directions through the intake valve curtain, the flow separation around the intake valves, the influences of inlet jet on turbulence flow field and cycle-to-cycle variation were investigated in this work. The result shows that the mean velocity distributes non-uniformly near the valve curtain at high valve lifts. In contrast, the mean velocity distribution is uniform at low valve lifts. It is found that the flow separation occurs at valve stem, valve seat and valve sealing through the outlet of the helical port. In contrast, flow separation is only observed in the valve seat through the outlet of the tangential port.

Displacement downsize is an exciting technology for IC engines in recent years in order to reduce both toxic emissions and fuel consumption simultaneously. The key point of this technology is to increase power density so that a downsized engine has power output high enough to replace a bigger displacement one. This paper describes a research into the power output enhancement by combustion system optimization. This research work was conducted on a single-cylinder diesel engine with a displacement of 2.8L. The aim of the research is to increase engine power output from current 73kW to 150kW. The power output was firstly boosted to 92kW by virtue of increasing intake pressure, reducing intake flow resistance, optimizing cam profile, modifying fuel injection system and optimizing combustion parameters. As a result, a satisfied heat release pattern was obtained with the achievement of the power target.

Controlled Auto-Ignition (CAI), also known as Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI), can improve the fuel economy of gasoline engines and simultaneously achieve ultra-low NOx emissions. However, the difficulty in combustion phasing control and violent combustion at high loads limit the commercial application of CAI combustion. To overcome these problems, stratified mixture, which is rich around the central spark plug and lean around the cylinder wall, is formed through port fuel injection and direct injection of gasoline. In this condition, rich mixture is consumed by flame propagation after spark ignition, while the unburned lean mixture auto-ignites due to the increased in-cylinder temperature during flame propagation, i.e., stratified flame ignited (SFI) hybrid combustion.

In diesel engines, valve avoiding pit (VAP) is often designed on the top of the piston in order to avoid the interference between the valves and the piston during the engine operation. With the continued application of the downsized or high power density diesel engines, the depth of VAP has to be further deepened due to increased valve lift for more air flow into and out of the cylinder and decreased piston top clearance for less HC/CO and soot emissions. The more and more deepening of VAP changes the combustion chamber geometry, the top clearance height and the injector relative position to the piston crown. In this paper, a 3-D in-cylinder combustion model was used for a heavy duty diesel engine to investigate the effects of the depth of VAP on combustion process and emissions. Five depths of VAP were designed in this study. In order to eliminate the influence of compression ratio, the piston clearance height was adjusted for each VAP depth to keep the same compression ratio.

Due to increasingly stringent emission and fuel consumption regulations, diesel engines for vehicle are facing more and more technical challenges. Engine downsizing technology is the most promising measures to deal with these challenges at present. With the enhancement of power density, a small engine displacement with a high turbocharging technique becomes popular. In order to increase the intake mass flow rate on a downsizing diesel engine, the tilting axis of intake valve was chosen to enlarge the intake valve diameter and decrease the arc radius of intake ports. Thus cylinder head had to be redesigned to meet this demand. Geometry of cylinder head made a notable effect in organization of in-cylinder flow, fuel-air mixing quality and further combustion characteristics. 3-D CFD was a convenient and economical tool to explore effects of geometry of cylinder head on the combustion process.

Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), as an effective analytical tool, has been applied at China North Engine Research Institute (CNERI) for combustion chamber design and combustion system optimization on a V8 heavy -duty diesel engine in order to meet increasingly stringent emission targets. The design of combustion system involves great number of parameteric optimizations such as the number of nozzle holes, the spray angle, the swirl ratio and the piston bowl shape. 3-D CFD was a convenient and cheap tool to explore the effects of all these parameters to the engine performance, compared with extensive hardware testing. 1-D modeling was used to set up boundary conditions at intake valve closure for 3-D CFD modeling during the closed-cycle. AVL FIRE software with a widely used combustion model, ECFM-3Z model, was used for 3-D simulation. Two sets of nozzle holes, four spray angles and three swirl levels were utilized and optimized under rated power.

Swirl ratio in the cylinder of a diesel engine is an important parameter for air/fuel mixing and combustion process. The swirl intensity generated by an intake port is measured on a steady flow rig. The swirl ratio at the end of intake process in the engine is then estimated from the steady flow test results by equations which have already been established by Ricardo and AVL. However, the existing equations are deduced from a series of assumptions. Three of them affect swirl ratio estimation significantly: a) volumetric efficiency of an engine is 100%; b) the pressure drop through the intake ports is constant during the intake process in engine operation; c) no burned gas residual is trapped in the cylinder. An accurate estimation of swirl ratio is essential during the engine combustion system development.