Spark ignition feedback control by means of combustion phase indicators on steady and transient operation
In order to reduce fuel cost and CO2 emissions, modern spark ignition (SI) engines need to lower as much as possible fuel consumption. A crucial factor for efficiency improvement is represented by the combustion phase, which in an SI engine is controlled acting on the spark advance. This fundamental engine parameter is currently controlled in an open-loop by means of maps stored in the electronic control unit (ECU) memory: such kind of control, however, does not allow running the engine always at its best performance, since optimal combustion phase depends on many variables, like ambient conditions, fuel quality, engine aging, and wear, etc. A better choice would be represented by a closed-…
Performance Prevision of a Turbocharged Natural Gas Fuelled S.I. Engine
Natural gas represents today maybe the most valid alternative to conventional fuels for road vehicles propulsion. The main constituent of natural gas, methane, is characterized by a high autoignition temperature, which makes the fuel highly resistant to knocking: this allows a considerable downsizing of the engine by means of supercharging even under high compression ratio. Starting from these considerations, the authors realized a thermodynamic model of a 4-cilynder s.i. engine for the prevision of in-cylinder pressure, employing a two-zone approach for the combustion and adding sub-models to account for gas properties change and knocking occurrence. An extensive experimental campaign has …
Performances and Emissions Improvement of an S.I. Engine Fuelled by LPG/Gasoline Mixtures
As is known gaseous fuels, such as Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) and Natural Gas (NG), thanks to their good mixing capabilities, allow complete and cleaner combustion than normal gasoline, resulting in lower pollutant emissions and particulate matter. Some of the automobile producers already put on the market “bi-fuel” engines, which may be fed either with standard gasoline or with LPG. These engines, endowed of two separate injection systems, are originally designed for gasoline operation; hence they do not fully exploit the good qualities of LPG, such as its better knocking resistance, which would allow higher compression ratios. Moreover, when running with gasoline at medium high loads, …
A New Simple Friction Model for S. I. Engine
Internal combustion engine modeling is nowadays a widely employed tool for modern engine development. Zero and mono dimensional models of the intake and exhaust systems, combined with multi-zone combustion models, proved to be reliable enough for the accurate evaluation of in-cylinder pressure, which in turn allow the estimation of the engine performance in terms of indicated mean effective pressure (IMEP). In order to evaluate the net engine output, both the torque dissipation due to friction and the energy drawn by accessories must be taken into consideration, hence a model for the friction mean effective pressure (FMEP) evaluation is needed. One of the most used models accounts for engin…
A mathematical model for the prediction of the injected mass diagram of a S.I. engine gas injector
A mathematical model of gaseous fuel solenoid injector for spark ignition engine has been realized and validated through experimental data. The gas injector was studied with particular reference to the complex needle motion during the opening and closing phases, which strongly affects the amount of fuel injected. As is known, in fact, when the injector nozzle is widely open, the mass flow depends only on the fluid pressure and temperature upstream the injector: this allows one to control the injected fuel mass acting on the “injection time” (the period during which the injector solenoid is energized). This makes the correlation between the injected fuel mass and the injection time linear, e…
Preliminary Experimental Study on Double Fuel HCCI Combustion
AbstractThis paper regards an experimental study on a particular internal combustion engine process which combines Double Fuel combustion with Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) using mixtures of natural gas (NG) and gasoline. The tests performed on a CFR engine demonstrate that HCCI combustion can be achieved using NG-gasoline mixtures without knocking occurrence for low to medium engine load varying the proportion between the two fuels. The main advantage of this new combustion process relies on the noticeable higher engine efficiency obtained with respect to conventional spark ignition operation, and on the strong reduction of NOX emissions.
NOX reduction and efficiency improvements by means of the Double Fuel HCCI combustion of natural gas–gasoline mixtures
Abstract Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) and Double Fuel (DF) combustion represent two innovative processes sharing a strong potential for pollutant emissions and fuel consumption reduction. HCCI regards the auto-ignition of a homogeneous premixed charge of air and fuel, featuring very low NOX emissions and good efficiency. Double Fuel (DF) instead indicates the simultaneous combustion of gasoline and natural gas (or gasoline and LPG), premixed with air by the port injection of both fuels within same engine cycle. Since fuel mixtures enhances the HCCI performances widening the range of possible operating conditions, the authors tested the HCCI combustion process using natural…
A Refined Model for Knock Onset Prediction in Spark Ignition Engines Fueled With Mixtures of Gasoline and Propane
In the last decade, gaseous fuels, such as liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and natural gas (NG), widely spread in many countries, thanks to their prerogative of low cost and reduced environmental impact. Hence, bi-fuel engines, which allow to run either with gasoline or with gas (LPG or NG), became very popular. Moreover, as experimentally demonstrated by the authors in the previous works, these engines may also be fueled by a mixture of gasoline and gas, which, due to the high knock resistance of gas, allow to use stoichiometric mixtures also at full load, thus drastically improving engine efficiency and pollutant emissions with respect to pure gasoline operation without noticeable power los…
Calibration of a knock prediction model for the combustion of gasoline-LPG mixtures in spark ignition engines
Gaseous fuels, such as liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and natural gas (NG), thanks to their good mixing capabilities, allow complete and cleaner combustion than gasoline in spark ignition (SI) engines, resulting in lower pollutant emissions and particulate matter. In a previous work the authors showed that the simultaneous combustion of gasoline and LPG improves an SI engine efficiency with respect to pure gasoline operation with any significant power loss. The addition of LPG to the gasoline-air mixture produces an increase in knock resistance that allows running the engine at full load with overall stoichiometric mixture and better spark advance. In order to predict both performance and ef…
Octane Rating of Natural Gas-Gasoline Mixtures on CFR Engine
In the last years new and stricter pollutant emission regulations together with raised cost of conventional fuels resulted in an increased use of gaseous fuels, such as Natural Gas (NG) or Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), for passenger vehicles. Bi-fuel engines represent a transition phase product, allowing to run either with gasoline or with gas, and for this reason are equipped with two separate injection systems. When operating at high loads with gasoline, however, these engines require rich mixtures and retarded combustions in order to prevent from dangerous knocking phenomena: this causes high hydrocarbon (HC) and carbon monoxide (CO) emissions together with high fuel consumption. With t…
The Experimental Validation of a New Thermodynamic Method for TDC Determination
In-cylinder pressure analysis is becoming more and more important both for research and development purpose and for control and diagnosis of internal combustion engines; directly measured by means of a combustion chamber pressure transducers or evaluated by analysing instantaneous engine speed [1,2,3,4], incylinder pressure allows the evaluation of indicated mean effective pressure (IMEP), combustion heat release, combustion phase, friction pressure, etc...It is well known to internal combustion engine researchers that for a right evaluation of these quantities the exact determination of Top Dead Centre (TDC) is of vital importance: a 1° error on TDC determination can lead to evaluation err…
Knock onset prediction of propane, gasoline and their mixtures in spark ignition engines
Gaseous fuels, such as Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) and Natural Gas (NG), thanks to their excellent mixing capabilities and high knocking resistance, allow complete and cleaner combustion than gasoline in Spark Ignition (SI) engines, resulting in lower pollutant emissions, above all if particulate matter is considered. In previous works [1,2] the authors proved how the simultaneous combustion of gasoline and gaseous fuel (NG or LPG) may strongly reduce both fuel consumption and pollutant emissions with respect to pure gasoline operation without a significant power loss. These very encouraging results were obtained thanks to the strong knock resistance increase obtained adding gaseous fuel …
Three-mode pneumatic management of marine U-tank systems
Abstract This paper deals with a new pneumatic control strategy for the roll damping enhancement of marine U-tank stabilizers. The proposed technique consists in a three-mode operation, where the control is active only within a limited resonant range around the ship natural frequency, whereas the control valves are kept closed in the remaining frequency range. Moreover the connection valve between the two air chambers is either closed or partially opened for the low or high frequencies, respectively. The pressurized air for the active control is fed by a turbo-blower set aboard and operates accelerating the motion of the water mass in the U-duct. The theoretical analysis is conducted in the…
La combustione HCCI mediante miscele di gas naturale e benzina: una prima esperienza sperimentale
Si presentano in questo articolo i risultati di una sperimentazione volta a valutare la possibilità di effettuare una combustione HCCI (Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition) stabile mediante l’impiego di miscele di gas naturale (GN) e benzina. La combustione HCCI ha ottime prerogative di basso impatto ambientale, ma la sua realizzazione pone qualche problema di stabilità al variare delle condizioni di carico richieste al motore: lo studio condotto mostra come l’impiego di miscele di GN e benzina, la cui composizione permette di variarne la resistenza all’autoaccensione, consente di ampliare il campo di funzionamento stabile della combustione HCCI. In the last decade the HCCI combustion h…