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As the invalidation of the oxygen sensor in the initial cycles at cold start, the engine can not operate based on the closed loop control based on oxygen sensor. And it may result in the misfire events and higher hydrocarbon (HC) emissions during this period. To solve this problem, a novel closed loop control based on ionization current in combustion cycle is proposed. The in-cylinder combustion quality is monitored by means of the ion current detection technique; meanwhile, if the misfire event is detected in the combustion cycle, the spark re-ignition is made in the current combustion cycle. In addition, to optimize the combustion and reduce HC emissions during cold start, the fuel injection quantity and ignition timing in the next cycle are adjusted based on the current ion current signal.

Gasoline Direct Injection (GDI) engines have attracted interest as automotive power-plants because of their potential advantages in down-sizing, fuel efficiency and in emissions reduction. However, GDI engines suffer from elevated unburned hydrocarbon (HC) emissions during start up process, which are sometimes worsened by misfires and partial burns. Moreover, as the engine is cranked to idle speed quickly in HEVs (Hybrid Electric Vehicle), the transients of quick starts are more dramatically than that in traditional vehicle, which challenge the optimization of combustion and emissions. In this study, test bench had been set up to investigate the GDI engine performances for ISG (Integrated Starter and Generator) HEVs during start up process. Based on the test system, cycle-controlled of the fuel injection mass, fuel injection timing and ignition timing can be obtained, as well as the cycle-resolved measurement of the HC concentrations and NO emissions.

An ion current sensor is employed in a 4 cylinder production SI engine for combustion diagnosis during combustion process, knock, and low speed pre-ignition (LSPI) detection. The results show that the ion current peak value and ion current peak phase have strong correlation with the cylinder pressure and pressure peak phase respectively. The COV of ion current integral value is greater than the COV of IMEP at the same operating condition. Results show that the ion current signal is sensitive to different lambdas. Using ion current signal, the knock in any given cylinder can be detected. Importantly, the ion sensor successfully detected the low speed pre-ignition (LSPI) about more than 20 °CA before spark ignition.

Idle stopping is one of the most important fuel saving methods for hybrid electric vehicle (HEV). While the enriched injection strategy which was employed to ensure reliable ignition of first cycle will leads to even more fuel film stayed in the intake port, all of the liquid film will evaporate randomly and interfere the mixture air-fuel ratio of the followed cycles. The fuel transport of the first cycle should be enhanced to reduce the residual fuel film, and then the control of the cycle-by-cycle air-fuel ratio will become easier and the combustion and HC emissions will also be better. In this paper the mixture preparation characteristics of the unfired first cycle, as well as the combustion and HC emissions characteristics of the fired first cycle under various injection timing strategies such as close-valve injection, mid-valve injection, and open-valve injection were investigated.

Ion current sensing, which usually employs a spark plug as its sensor to obtain feedback signal from different types of combustion in SI engines, may be applied to HCCI combustion sensing instead of a prohibitively expensive piezoelectric pressure transducer. However, studies showed that the ion current detected by a spark plug sensor is a localized signal within the vicinity of the sensor's electrode gap, being affected by conditions around it. To find out better and feasible ion probe positions, a 3D-CFD model with a detailed surrogate mechanism containing 1423 species and 6106 reactions was employed to study the effect of stratification on ion distribution in HCCI combustion. The simulation results indicate that the monitor probe 1, 8 and 9 are more stable and reliable than the others. IONmax and dIONmax are more accurate to estimate CA50 and dQmax respectively.

A cycle-resolved test system was designed in a Two Stage Direct Injection (TSDI) Gasoline engine to simulate the engine quick start process in an Integrated Start and Generator (ISG) Hybrid Electric Vehicle (HEV) system. Based on the test system, measurement of the in cylinder HC concentrations near the spark plug under different engine coolant temperature and cranking speed conditions were conducted using a Fast Response Flame Ionization Detector (FFID) with Sampling Spark Plug (SSP) fits, then the in-cylinder equivalence ratio near the spark plug was estimated from the measured HC concentrations. In addition, the effects of the 1st injection timing, 2nd injection timing, and total equivalence ratio on the mixture formation near the spark plug were analyzed by means of experiments.

This paper presents the simulation of in-cylinder stratified mixture formation, spray motion, combustion and emissions in a four-stroke and four valves direct injection spark ignition (DISI) engine with a pent-roof combustion chamber by the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code. The Extended Coherent Flame Combustion Model (ECFM), implemented in the AVL-Fire codes, was employed. The key parameters of spray characteristics related to computing settings, such as skew angle, cone angle and flow per pulse width with experimental measurements were compared. The numerical analysis is mainly focused on how the tumble flow ratio and geometry of piston bowls affect the motion of charge/spray in-cylinder, the formation of stratified mixture and the combustion and emissions (NO and CO₂) for the wall-guided stratified-charge spark-ignition DISI engine.

Internal combustion Rankine cycle (ICRC) engine uses oxygen instead of air as oxidant during the combustion process, therefore totally eliminates the emission of NOx. CO2 could be captured after separated from the exhaust gas, the latter are mainly water vapor and CO2, through condensation at a relatively low price, and thus an ultra-low emission working cycle is achieved. Moreover, water is heated up by exhaust gas and injected into the cylinder during the combustion process to control combustion temperature, and evaporation of the water mist would increase working fluid inside the cylinder, therefore enhance indicated thermal efficiency. This study investigates the combustion characteristics of a quasi ICRC on a single-cylinder SI engine fueled with propane. Gas mixture of O2/CO2 is employed to simulate EGR in order to control in-cylinder temperature.

A novel reciprocating engine version of oxy-fuel combustion cycle combined with water direct injection (known as internal combustion rankine cycle) is presented in this paper. Water is injected near top dead center to control the reaction rate of the oxy-fuel mixture, as well as the peak in-cylinder temperature. The evaporation of the water mist will increase the mass of working gas inside the cylinder, and enhances the thermo efficiency and MEP. Moreover, the injected water is heated up through heat exchangers by both engine coolant and exhaust gas, and the waste heat is effectively recovered this way. This study investigates the combustion and emission characteristics of ICRC under different engine loads based on a single-cylinder, air-cooled SI engine fueled with propane. An extra diesel injector is employed to inject water with high injection temperature (160°C).

Research studies have suggested that changes to the ignition system are required to generate a more robust flame kernel in order to secure the ignition process for the future advanced high efficiency spark-ignition (SI) engines. In a typical inductive ignition system, the spark discharge is initiated by a transient high-power electrical breakdown and sustained by a relatively low-power glow process. The electrical breakdown is characterized as a capacitive discharge process with a small quantity of energy coming mainly from the gap parasitic capacitor. Enhancement of the breakdown is a potential avenue effectively for extending the lean limit of SI engine. In this work, the effect of high-power capacitive spark discharge on the early flame kernel growth of premixed methane-air mixtures is investigated through electrical probing and optical diagnosis.

To improve the cold start performance and to reduce the misfire occurrence at cold start, the start-up strategy of total stoichiometric ratio combined with local rich mixture was applied in the study. The effect of injection strategy (the 1st injection timing, 2nd injection timing, 1st and 2nd fuel injection proportion and ignition timing) on the cold start HC emissions in the initial 10 cycles were investigated in a Two stage direct injection (TSDI) gasoline engine. The transient HC and NO emissions in the initial 10 cycles were analyzed, when the fuels are injected in the only 1st cycle and in the followed all cycles. The transient misfiring HC emissions were compared between the single and two-stage injection modes. In addition, the unburned HC (UBHC) emissions in the 1st cycle are compared among the TSDI engine, Gasoline direct injection (GDI) engine, Port fuel injection (PFI) engine and Liquefied petroleum gaseous (LPG) engine at the stoichiometric ratio.