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To adhere to stringent environmental regulations, SI (spark ignition) engines are required to achieve higher thermal efficiency. In recent years, EGR (exhaust gas recirculation) systems and lean-burn operation has been recognized as key technologies. Under such operating conditions, reducing CCV (cycle-to-cycle variation) in combustion is critical to the enhancement of overall engine performance. Flow-field CCV is one of the considerable factors affecting combustion in engines. Conventionally, in research on flow fields in SI engines, the ensemble average is used to separate the measured velocity field into a mean component and a fluctuation component, the latter of which contains a CCV component and a turbulent component. To extract the CCV of the flow field, previous studies employed spatial filter, temporal filter, and POD (proper orthogonal decomposition) methods.

The Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) engine is possible to achieve high thermal efficiency and low emissions. One of the main challenges with HCCI engines is structuring the systems to control combustion phasing, crank angle of 50% heat release (CA50), for keeping high thermal efficiency and avoiding an excessive rate of pressure rise which causes knocking, when operating conditions vary. Though some HCCI combustion control systems, for example Variable Valve Timing System and Variable Compression Ratio System, have been suggested, these control systems are complex and heavy. In this study, for the development of a lightweight and small-sized generator HCCI engine fuelled with Dimethyl Ether (DME) which is low-emission and easy to autoignite, a simple HCCI combustion control system is suggested, and the control system is evaluated experimentally.

The characteristics of cycle-to-cycle variations of indicated mean effective pressure (IMEP) with combustion-phasing retard have been investigated experimentally and computationally in an homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) engine using dimethyl ether (DME). The experiments were conducted in a single-cylinder HCCI research engine equipped with an exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) passage for external EGR and a two-stage exhaust cam for rebreathed EGR. To understand the chemical effects of rebreathed EGR, which is assumed to contribute to the autoignition enhancement, the computations were performed with a single-zone model of CHEMKIN using a chemical-kinetic mechanism developed by combining DME mechanism and NOx submechanism.

A significant drawback to HCCI engines is the knocking caused by rapid increases in pressure. Such knocking limits the capacity for high-load operation. To solve this problem, thermal stratification in the combustion chamber has been suggested as possible solution. Thermal stratification has the potential to reduce the maximum value of the rate of pressure increase combustion by affecting the local combustion start time and extending the duration of combustion. The purpose of this study was to experimentally obtain fundamental knowledge about the effect of thermal stratification on the HCCI combustion process. Experiments were conducted in a rapid compression machine (RCM) equipped with a quartz window to provide optical access to the combustion chamber. The machine was fueled with DME, n-Butane, n-Heptane and iso-Octane, all of which are currently being investigated as alternative fuels and have different low temperature characteristics.

Theoretically, homogeneous charge compression engines (HCCI) are able to grant a high thermal efficiency, as well as a low NOx and particulate emissions. This ability is mainly due to the combustion process, which, contrary to both Diesel and Gasoline engine, is homogeneous in time and space within the combustion chamber. But despite these advantages, the engine operating condition is limited by the narrow boundaries of misfire at low load and knocking at high load. For that matter, one of the numerous ways of overcoming knocking is to deliberately create fuel inhomogeneities within the combustion chamber, since it has proved to lengthen combustion duration and to drastically reduce maximum pressure rise rate (PRR). Nevertheless, though the global effects of fuel inhomogeneities on PRR have been studied, we lack information that explains this phenomenon.

Thermal and mixing stratifications have been thought as one of the ways to avoid an excessive pressure rise on HCCI combustion. The purpose of this research is to investigate the potential of thermal and mixing stratifications for reducing PRR (Pressure Rise Rate) on HCCI combustion. The pre-mixture with thermal and mixing stratifications is charged in RCM (Rapid Compression Machine). After that, the pre-mixture is compressed and in that process, in-cylinder gas pressure and chemiluminescence images are obtained and analyzed. Furthermore, experimental results are compared with the computational results calculated by using multi-zone model for analyzing these mechanisms.

This work has been investigated the potential of in-cylinder EGR stratification for reducing the pressure rise rate of DME HCCI engines, and the coupling of both thermal stratification and fuel stratification. The numerical analyses were done by using five-zone version of CHEMKIN-II kinetics rate code, and kinetic mechanics for DME. The effects of inert components were used for the presence of EGR in calculation. Three cases of EGR stratification were tested on both thermal stratification and fuel stratification at the fixed initial temperature, pressure and fueling rate at BDC. In order to explore the appropriate stratification of EGR, EGR width was employed from zero to thirty percent. Firstly, EGR homogeneity case which means EGR width zero was examined. Secondly, EGR is located densely in hotter zone for combining with thermal stratification or in richer zone for a combination with fuel stratification. Lastly, the case was judged inversely with the second case.

Nowadays, highly super charging is required corresponded to downsizing concept for improving thermal efficiency in direct-injected spark ignition (DISI) engine. However, highly super charging increases the possibility of super-knock caused by pre-ignition. Recently, in many studies, the reason of pre-ignition has been investigated but the reason why pre-ignition leads such strong knocking called super-knock has not been investigated. In DISI engine, it is estimated that there is more inhomogeneity of equivalence ratio and temperature of air-fuel mixture than it in port injection SI engine. In this study, factors which decide self-ignition timing was reviewed and the influence of inhomogeneity of air-fuel mixture to super-knock was investigated based on numerical calculation.

In the HCCI Engine, inhomogeneity in fuel distribution and temperature in the pre-mixture exists microscopically, and has the possibility of affecting the ignition and combustion process. In this study, the effect of charge inhomogeneity in fuel distribution on the HCCI combustion process was investigated. Two-dimensional images of the chemiluminescence were captured by using a framing camera with an optically accessible engine in order to understand the spatial distribution of the combustion. DME was used as a test fuel. By changing a device for mixing air and fuel in the intake manifold, inhomogeneity in fuel distribution in the pre-mixture was varied. The result shows that luminescence is observed in a very short time in a large part of the combustion chamber under the homogeneous condition, while luminescence appears locally with considerable time differences under the inhomogeneous condition.

Delaying CA50(Crank Angle of 50% Heat Release) of the HCCI engine to expansion stroke can lead to high indicated thermal efficiency as well as the avoidance of knocking. However, this method could induce the problem of cycle variability. In this study, the cycle-to-cycle variation of a HCCI engine fueled with DME was investigated. Experimental parameters of each cycle, such as in-cylinder temperature, pressure and gas flow rate, were recorded by fast response system, and analyzed consequently. Moreover, the interdependency between the combustion and the performance parameters were evaluated.

In this study, attention was paid to the method of mixing fuel to solve one of problems of the HCCI engine, which is the avoidance of knocking. The objectives of the work reported in this paper were to research the characteristics of HCCI combustion of the Methane/DME/air pre-mixture in the experiment and to check the oxidation reaction in two cases: when DME was used as an ignition accelerator for the Methane/air pre-picture, and when Hydrogen was used as ignition accelerator. Furthermore, from these results reference was made about basic specifications required fuel for an HCCI engine.

Improving the thermal efficiency of spark ignition (SI) engine is strongly required due to its widespread use but considerably less efficiency than that of compression ignition (CI) engine. Although lean SI engine operation can offer substantial improvements of the thermal efficiency relative to that of traditional stoichiometric SI operation, the cycle-to-cycle variations of combustion increases with the level of air dilution, and becomes unacceptable. To improve the stability of lean operation, this study examines the effects of spark discharge pattern and tumble level on cycle-to-cycle variations of combustion at lean limits. The spark discharge pattern was altered by a custom inductive ignition system using ten spark coils and the tumble level was increased by a custom adapter installed in the intake port (tumble adapter).

A lightweight 100 W-class deployable radiator with environment-adaptive functions has been investigated. This radiator - Reversible Thermal Panel (RTP) - is composed of flexible high thermal conductive materials and a passive reversible actuator, and it changes its function from a radiator to a solar absorber by deploying/stowing the reversible fin upon changes in the heat dissipation and thermal environment. The RTP is considered one of the candidates of thermal control methodology for the Japanese Venus mission “Planet-C”, which will be launched in 2010 to save its survival heater power. In this paper, design and fabrication of the RTP proto-model (PM) and the test results of deployment/stowing characteristics in an atmospheric condition are reported. Thermal performance estimation with thermal analytical model of the RTP PM is also presented.

It is necessary to clarify the influence on NOx emissions by driver's operation for analyzing of NOx pollution mechanism at roadside. Simple on-board measurement system for vehicle running condition and actual NOx emissions was developed to evaluate local NOx pollution caused by vehicles. The measurement system was installed in a freight vehicle whose payload is two tons, and actual driving test was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the system. The tests on chassis dynamometer including steady state and transient mode indicated enough accuracy to evaluate NOx emissions from a vehicle at local roadsides.

This paper describes a new passive thermal control device-a Reversible Thermal Panel (RTP)-which changes its function reversibly from a radiator to a solar absorber by deploying/stowing the radiator/absorber reversible fin. The RTP consists of Highly Oriented Graphite Sheets (HOGSs), which have characteristics of high thermal conductivity, flexibility and light weight, as thermal transport units, which can transport the heat from equipment to reversible fin, and of a Shape - Memory Alloy (SMA) as a passively rotary actuator to deploy/stow the reversible fin. The RTP prototype model was designed and fabricated using HOGSs, a honeycomb base palate, and a prototype reversible rotary actuator. The heat rejection performance of the RTP as a radiator and the heat absorption performance as an absorber were evaluated by thermal vacuum tests and thermal analyses. The autonomous thermal controllability achieved using the prototype rotary actuator was also evaluated.

Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) engine attracts much attention because of its high thermal efficiency and low NOx, PM emissions. On the other hand, Di-Methyl Ether (DME) is expected as one of alternative fuel for the internal combustion engines. In this study, four-stroke HCCI engine running on DME is developed to make it realistic application in production engines. This paper shows construction of the control method using both internal EGR at high temperature and external EGR at low temperature and estimates the performance of developed HCCI engine. Besides combustion characteristics of DME and the effects of EGR are researched with experiment and numerical calculation with elementary reactions. As a result, developed HCCI engine got comparable high thermal efficiency to conventional diesel engine but much lower Indicated Mean Effective Pressure (IMEP) than that. Meanwhile it can be said that DME is suitable fuel for the HCCI engines in combustion characteristics.

The purpose of this study was to gain a better understanding of the effects of in-cylinder gas temperature stratification on reducing the pressure-rise rate in HCCI combustion. HCCI combustion was investigated using an optically accessible engine and direct visualization of the combustion chemiluminescence. The engine was fueled with Di-Methyl Ether. Computational work was conducted on the gas compression and expansion strokes in HCCI engine with simple 0-dimensinal multi-zones model. When fuel inhomogeneous charging in experiment, maximum heat release rate decreased. Combustion duration got longer. Maximum pressure-rise rate decreased. Chemiluminescence, of which transition was identified from the side of intake valve to the side of exhaust valve, was observed. It is need for total moderate heat release to get local moderate combustion with not overall but continuous combustion in chamber.

Knock is a factor hindering enhancement of the thermal efficiency of spark ignition engines, and is an unsteady phenomenon that does not necessarily occur each cycle. In addition, the heat release history of the flame also fluctuates from cycle to cycle, and the auto-ignition process of the unburned mixture (end-gas), compressed by the global increase in pressure due to release of chemical energy, is affected by this fluctuation. Regarding auto-ignition of the end-gas, which can be the origin of knock, this study focused on the fluctuation of the flame heat release pattern, and used a zero-dimensional (0D) detailed chemical reaction calculation in an attempt to analyze and examine the consequence on the end-gas compression and auto-ignition process of changes in the i) start of combustion, ii) combustion duration and iii) center of heat release of the flame.

When the compression ratio of the spark ignition engine is set high as a method of improving the fuel efficiency of passenger cars, it is often combined with the direct fuel injection system for knock mitigation. In port injection, there are also situations where the fuel is guided into the cylinder while the vaporization is insufficient, especially at the cold start. If the fuel is introduced into the cylinder in a liquid state, the temperature in the cylinder will change due to sensible heat and latent heat of the fuel during vaporization. Further, if the fuel is unevenly distributed in the cylinder, the effect of the specific heat is added, and the local temperature difference is expanded through the compression process. In this research, an experiment was conducted using a rapid compression machine for the purpose of discussing the effect of the temperature-pressure time history of fuel on ignition delay time.

It has been shown that lean burn is effective for improving the thermal efficiency of gasoline SI engines. This happens because the reduction of heat loss by decrease of flame temperature. On the other hand, the fuel dilution of the premixed gas makes the combustion speed low, and cycle-to-cycle variations of combustion are increased by excessive dilution, it is difficult to increase the thermal efficiency of the gasoline SI engine. Influence of ignition by spark discharge is considered as a factor of combustion variation, and it is necessary to understand the effects of spark discharge characteristics on the lean combustion process. Spark discharge in the SI engines supplies energy to the premixed-gas via a discharge channel in the spark plug gap which ignites the premixed-gas. The discharge channel is elongated by in-cylinder gas flow and its behavior varies in each cycles.