Search Results

Lean mixture operation and high transient response has been accomplished by the introduction of newly designed Central Injection (Ci) system. This paper describes the effects of Ci design variables on its performance. Lean mixture operation has been attained by optimizing the injection interval, injection timing and fuel spray angle in order to improve the cylinder to cylinder air-fuel ratio distribution. Both air-fuel distribution and transient engine response are affected by the fuel spray angle. Widening the fuel spray angle improves the air-fuel distribution but worsen the transient engine response. This inconsistency has been solved by off-setting the injector away from the center axis of the throttle body and optimizing the fuel spray angle.

This paper describes an analysis of the rise in timing belt temperature occuring under high engine speed operation that was made to establish the cause of heat deterioration of the belt materials. Surface temperatures of the belt were accurately measured by correcting thermo-vision detected radiations to eliminate environmental radiation. The temperature profile of a belt cross-section was obtained by a specially developed thermo-couple device. The experimental results indicated that heat generated by the belt contributes significantly to the temperature rise and that the primary cause of the heat generation is bending hysteresis of the belt cords. In addition, a description is made of a method of calculating the rate of heat generation in the belt. In this simulation method, the energy dissipated as heat is calculated from the bending strains and loss moduli of the belt materials. Calculated results were found to agree well with experimental results.

A direct injection spark ignition (DISI) gasoline engine with a new stratified charge combustion concept has been launched on the Japanese domestic market. This new concept consists of two components. First, a thin fan-shaped spray from a slit nozzle enables wide spray dispersion, moderate spray penetration and a fine atomization. Second, a shell-shaped piston cavity allows better mixture formation, however avoiding distinct charge motions (such as tumble or swirl). Simple intake port geometry increases the full load performance. The combustion concept, at the same time allows stratified charge to be used at higher load and at higher engine speeds and improves the homogeneous charge combustion. A new 3L in-line 6 gasoline engine with this combustion concept showed 20% better fuel economy than a 3L port fuel injection (PFI) engine (λ=1 feed back system) under the Japanese 10-15 mode.

In order to reduce tail-pipe hydrocarbon emissions from SI gasoline engines, rapid catalyst warm-up and improvement of catalyst conversion efficiency are important. There are many reports which have been published by manufacturers and research institutes on this issue. For further reduction of tail-pipe hydrocarbon emissions, it is necessary to reduce engine-out hydrocarbon emissions and to improve after treatment, during the time the catalyst is not activated. This paper quantitatively analyzed the fuel amount of intake port and cylinder wall-wetting, burned fuel and engine-out hydrocarbon emissions, cycle by cycle in firing condition, utilizing a specially designed analytical engine. The effect of mixture preparation and fuel properties for engine-out hydrocarbon emissions, during the cold engine start and warm-up period, were quantitatively clarified.

A two-color high speed shutter TV camera system has been developed as a new sensing device for measuring the flame temperature in engines. The TV camera system can measure the radiant intensities of high temperature substances accurately and rapidly. And, the two-dimensional temperature distribution can be easily calculated from the radiant intensities by using an image processor. This system is applicable to measurement of flame temperatures in diesel and gasoline engines. The relation between the progress of combustion phenomena and the measured temperature distribution is clearly explained. It is confirmed that the system is effective for measurement of the flame temperature distribution in engines.

In direct-injection (DI) gasoline engines, spray characteristics greatly affect engine combustion. For the rapid development of new gasoline direct-injectors, it is necessary to predict the spray characteristics accurately by numerical analysis based on the injector nozzle geometry. In this study, two-phase flow inside slit nozzle injectors is calculated using the volume of fluid method in a three-dimensional CFD. The calculation results are directly applied to the boundary conditions of spray calculations, of which the submodels are recently developed to predict spray formation process in direct injection gasoline engines. The calculation results are compared with the experiments. Good agreements are obtained for typical spray characteristics such as spray shape, penetration and Sauter mean diameter at both low and high ambient pressures. Two slit nozzle injectors of which the slit thickness is different are compared.

In the direct injection spark ignition gasoline engine (D-4), thin fan-shaped high-dispersion, high-penetration and high-atomization spray formed by the slit nozzle generates a stratified mixture cloud without depending on a strong intake air motion, subsequently realizing stable stratified charge combustion. To improve fuel economy further in actual traffic, the region of stratified charge combustion in torque-engine speed map must be expanded by improving spray characteristics. Since the fuel flow inside the nozzle has a large effect on the spray characteristics, it was clarified this effect by visual analysis of the fuel flow inside the nozzle using an enlarged acrylic slit nozzle of 10 magnifications. Consequently, it was found that vortices are generated frequently within a sac even in the case of steady state conditions. The effect on the spray characteristics is corresponding to the vortex scale.

A newly-developed time resolved exhaust gas analysis system was utilized in this study. The hydrocarbon compositions upstream and downstream of the catalytic converter were investigated during cold start and warm up of the Federal Test Procedure(FTP), with three fuels of different aromatic contents. Although engine-out hydrocarbon emissions had high concentrations right after cold start, the specific reactivity was low. This can be explained by the selective adsorption of the high boiling point components which had a high Maximum Incremental Reactivity (MIR) in the intake manifold and engine-oil films. Thereafter, the high boiling point components were desorbed rapidly and consequently specific reactivity increased. Hydrocarbon adsorption of high boiling point components and hydrocarbon conversion of low boiling point components occurred simultaneously on the catalyst during warm up.

In SI engines with port injection system, fuel behavior both in the intake port and in the cylinder has significant influence on the transient A/F characteristics and HC emissions [1]. Therefore, to improve the engine performance, it is very important to understand fuel behavior in the intake port and in the cylinder [2, 3]. This paper describes the following three unique methods to analyze fuel behavior in port injected SI engines and some test results. (1) Observation of fuel behavior in the intake port, using a transparent intake air tube and a strobe synchronized TV-photographic system. (2) Observation of fuel behavior in the cylinder, using a glass cylinder and fluorescent fuel. (3) Measurement of fuel wall wetting in the intake port and in the cylinder, using the engine with electronically controlled hydraulically driven in-take/exhaust valves.