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Advanced combustion engines dominate all automotive applications. Future high efficiency clean combustion engines can contribute significantly to sustainable transportation. Effective ignition strategies are studied to enable lean and diluted combustion under considerably high-density mixture and strong turbulences, for improving the efficiency and emissions of future combustion engines. Continuous discharge and multi-site ignition strategies have been proved to be effective to stabilize the combustion process under lean and EGR diluted conditions. Continuous discharge strategy uses a traditional sparkplug with a single spark gap and multiple ignition coil packs. The ignition coil packs operate under a specific time offset to realize a continuous discharge process with a prolonged discharge duration. Multi-site ignition strategy also uses multiple ignition coil packs.

The combustion of dual-fuel engines usually uses a pilot flame to burn out a background fuel inside a cylinder under high compression. The background fuel can be either a gaseous fuel or a volatile liquid fuel, commonly with low reactivity to prevent premature combustion and engine knocking; whereas the pilot flame is normally set off with the direct injection of a liquid fuel with adequate reactivity that is suitable for deterministic auto-ignition with a high compression ratio. In this work, directly injected butanol is used to generate the pilot flame, while intake port injected ethanol or butanol is employed as the background fuel. Compared with the conventional diesel-only combustion, dual-fuel operations not only broaden the fuel applicability, but also enhance the potential for clean combustion, in high efficiency engines. The amount of background fuel and the scheduling of pilot flame are investigated through extensive laboratory experiments.

Corona ignition is a promising technology that has been demonstrated to be capable of improving the reliability of lean combustion. However, arcing is unavoidable during corona discharge. The high current surge during arcing can cause excessive damage to the corona ignition system. In this work, a control framework is proposed to help reduce and prevent arcing from happening in a corona ignition system. Experimental results are demonstrated to show the effectiveness of the proposed methodology.

This empirical work investigates the impacts of thermodynamic parameters, such as pressure and temperature, and fuel properties, such as fuel Cetane number and aromatic contents on ignition delay in diesel engines. Systematic tests are conducted on a single-cylinder research engine to evaluate the ignition delay changes due to the fuel property differences at low, medium and high engine loads under different EGR dilution ratios. The test fuels offer a range of Cetane numbers from 28 to 54.2 and aromatic contents volume ratios from 19.4% to 46.6%. The experimental results of ignition delays are used to derive an ignition delay model modified from Arrhenius’ expression. Following the same format of Arrhenius’ equation, the model incorporates the pressure and temperature effects, and further includes the impacts of intake oxygen concentration, fuel Cetane number and aromatic contents volume ratio on the ignition delay.

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.

Common-rail fuel systems have been recognized as an effective means to shape the heat release rate. In this paper measured cylinder pressure and fuel injection data for a common-rail diesel engine were analyzed to develop an empirical heat release rate model. A set of discrete Wiebe functions, one to describe the pilot injection combustion and the other to describe the main injection combustion, have been proposed to model the heat release data. The coefficients in the model were adjusted to match the observed heat release diagram. An expression for ignition delay for pilot injection and main injection has also been suggested for test conditions.

To overcome the unfavorable operation conditions caused by lean/diluted charges in modern Spark Ignited (SI) engines, various advanced ignition systems have been proposed in the past. Among them, the dual-coil and multi-coil Transistor Coil Ignition (TCI) systems with offset discharge strategy caused significant attention in literature because they can generate a continuous spark with high spark energy being delivered into the cylinder. Comparing with the dual-coil system, a multi-coil system is capable to apply more flexible control strategies and generate a higher discharge current. However, the spark energy and transfer efficiency of the multi-coil system are still worthy to investigate as they are important performance indicators for a TCI system. In this paper, the discharge characteristics of the dual-coil and triple-coil strategies under both quiescent and flow conditions were studied firstly by experimental methods.

Empirical and analytical investigations are conducted to evaluate the thermal response of exhaust pipe plenums at different levels of exhaust gas recirculation and through a variety of fuel delivery strategies. The effectiveness of different combustion control techniques is evaluated for moderating the engine-out exhaust temperature. Comparison of the external fuel injection with in-cylinder post injection for enabling aftertreatment is provided which indicates the stronger temperature raising potential of the external fuel injection. This research attempts to quantify the thermal response of the exhaust pipe plenums and its effects on the gas temperature at the inlet of the aftertreatment devices. The measurement and modeling of the dynamic thermal response in this research intend to improve the performance of diesel aftertreatment devices.

The ever-growing demand to meet the stringent exhaust emission regulations have driven the development of modern gasoline engines towards lean combustion strategies and downsizing to achieve the reduction of exhaust emission and fuel consumption. Currently, the inductive ignition system is still the dominant ignition system applied in Spark Ignited (SI) engines. It is popular due to its simple design, low cost and robust performance. The new development in spark ignition engines demands higher spark energy to be delivered by the inductive ignition system to overcome the unfavorable ignition conditions caused by the increased and diluted in-cylinder charge. To meet this challenge, better understanding of the inductive ignition system is required. The development of a first principle model for simulation can help in understanding the working mechanism of the system in a better way.

Advanced combustion engines, as power sources, dominate all aspects of the transportation sector. Stringent emission and fuel efficiency standards have promoted the research interest in advanced combustion strategies and alternative fuels. Owing to the comparable energy density to the existing fossil fuels and renewable production, alcohol and ether fuels may be a suitable replacement, or an additive to the gasoline/diesel fuels to meet the future emission standards with minimal modification to current engine geometry. Furthermore, lean and diluted combustion are well-researched pathways for efficiency improvement and reduction of engine-out emissions of modern engines. However, lean-burn or EGR dilution can introduce combustion inefficiencies in the form of excessive hydrocarbon, carbonyl species and carbon monoxide emissions.

The effectiveness of after-treatment systems depends on the exhaust gas temperature, which is low during cold-start. As a result, Euro III, Euro IV and FTP75 require that the emissions tests include exhaust from the beginning of cold start. It is proved that 50%∼80% of HC and CO emissions are emitted during the cold start and the amount of unburned fuel from the crevices during starting is much higher than that under warmed engine conditions. The piston crevices is the most part of combustion chamber crevices, and results of mathematical simulations show that the piston crevice contribution to HC emissions is expected to increase during cold engine operation. Based on the transient HC test data and the double zone combustion model, this paper presents the study of the crevice HC Mechanism of the first firing cycle at cold start on an LPG SI Engine. A fast-response flame ionization detector (FFID) was employed to measure transient HC emissions of the first firing cycle.

Multi-spark discharge (MSD) ignition is widely used in high-speed internal combustion engines such as racing cars, motorcycles and outboard motors in attempts to achieve multiple sparks during each ignition. In contrast to transistor coil ignition (TCI) system, MSD system can be greatly shortened the charging time in a very short time. However, when the engine speed becomes higher, the ignition will be faster, electrical energy stored in the ignition system will certainly become less, especially for MSD system. Once the energy released into the spark plug gap can’t be guaranteed sufficiently, ignition will become more difficult, and it will get worse in some harsh environment such as strong turbulence or lean fuel conditions. With these circumstances, the risks of misfire and partial combustion will increase, which can deteriorate the power outputs and exhaust emissions of internal combustion engine.

This paper presents a study of LPG lean burn in a motorcycle SI engine. The lean burn limits are compared by several ways. The relations of lean burn limit with the parameters, such as engine speed, compression ratio and advanced spark ignition etc. are tested. The experimental results show that larger throttle opening, lower engine speed, earlier spark ignition timing, larger electrode gap and higher compression ratio will extend the lean burn limit of LPG. The emission of a LPG engine, especially on NOx emission, can be significantly reduced by means of the lean burn technology.

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.

This work presents the study of the methane jet flame in a pressurized vitiated co-flow burner (PVCB). The lift-off length and the stabilization of the methane jet flame under different environment pressures, co-flow temperatures, co-flow rates and jet velocities have been studied, and a chemical numerical simulation based on Gri-mech 3.0 was analyzed as well. The results could provide theoretical supports for the research of natural gas engine combustion stabilization control to increase its thermal efficiency. The experimental results show that the lift-off length decreases obviously (104.22mm to76.14mm) with the increase of the environment pressure (1to1.5bar, 1073K) and temperature (119.34mm to 43.74mm from 1058K to 1118K, 1bar), meanwhile, it also increases with the increment of the co-flow rate and jet velocity.

Many studies show that under diesel engine operating conditions, SCR reductant sprays will impinge on the wall of exhaust pipes. In order to understand this impinging process of SCR reductant spray, and to analyze what factors affect it, a test bench was set up by means of high speed video camera. At atmospheric pressure, SCR spray was injected on a heated metal wall, the impacts of wall temperature, injection pressure, injection height and angle on developing characteristics of SCR reductant spray after impinging on the heated wall have been researched and analyzed. The results show that the heated wall temperature has a great impact on the spray developing process, when wall temperature is lower than 405K, after water evaporated the crystallized urea will remain on the wall to block exhaust pipes. When wall temperature is higher, the atomization and evaporation of SCR reductant spray will be better, and the hydrolysis process of urea will be faster.

One-dimensional transient modeling techniques are adapted to analyze the thermal behavior of lean-burn after-treatment systems when active flow control schemes are applied. The active control schemes include parallel alternating flow, partial restricting flow, and periodic flow reversal (FR) that are found to be especially effective to treat engine exhausts that are difficult to cope with conventional passive flow converters. To diesel particulate filters (DPF), lean NOx traps (LNT), and oxidation converters (OC), the combined use of active flow control schemes are identified to be capable of shifting the exhaust gas temperature, flow rate, and oxygen concentration to more favorable windows for the filtration, conversion, and regeneration processes. Comparison analyses are made between active flow control and passive flow control schemes in investigating the influences of gas flow, heat transfer, chemical reaction, oxygen concentration, and converter properties.

Diesel fueling and exhaust flow strategies are investigated to control the substrate temperatures of diesel aftertreatment systems. The fueling control includes the common-rail post injection and the external supplemental fuel injection. The post injection pulses are further specified at the early, mid, or late stages of the engine expansion stroke. In comparison, the external fueling rates are moderated under various engine loads to evaluate the thermal impact. Additionally, the active-flow control schemes are implemented to improve the overall energy efficiency of the system. In parallel with the empirical work, the dynamic temperature characteristics of the exhaust system are simulated one-dimensionally with in-house and external codes. The dynamic thermal control, measurement, and modeling of this research intend to improve the performance of diesel particulate filters and diesel NOx absorbers.

In this work, an active injection control strategy is developed for enabling clean and efficient combustion on an ethanol-diesel dual-fuel engine. The essence of this active injection control is the minimization of the diffusion burning and resultant emissions associated with the diesel injection while maintaining controllability over the ignition and combustion processes. A stand-alone injection bench is employed to characterize the rate of injection for the diesel injection events, and a regression model is established to describe the injection timings and injector delays. A new combustion control parameter is proposed to characterize the extent of diffusion burning on a cycle-to-cycle basis by comparing the modelled rate of diesel injection with the rate of heat release in real time. The test results show that the proposed parameter, compared with the traditional ignition delay, better correlates to the enabling of low NOx and low smoke combustion.

Combustion diagnostics of highly diluted mixtures are essential for the estimation of the combustion quality, and control of combustion timing in advanced combustion systems. In this paper, a novel fast response flame detection technique based on active plasma is introduced and investigated. Different from the conventional ion current sensing used in internal combustion engines, a separate electrode gap is used in the detecting probing. Further, the detecting voltage across the electrode gap is modulated actively using a multi-coil system to be slightly below the breakdown threshold before flame arrival. Once the flame front arrives at the probe, the ions on the flame front tend to decrease the breakdown voltage threshold and trigger a breakdown event. Simultaneous electrical and optical measurements are employed to investigate the flame detecting efficacy via active plasma probing under both quiescent and flow conditions.