Controlled auto-ignition (CAI), also known as HCCI combustion in a gasoline engine has been extensively researched due to their potential of improved engine efficiency and low NOx emission. However, the combustion timing and the phasing of conventional CAI combustion depend on the in-cylinder condition, such as temperature and combustible mixture strength and thus cannot be directly controlled. In this study, direct DME (Dimethyl Ether) injection was adopted to increase the ignitability of premixed gasoline/air charge and to trigger the auto ignition of premixed charge. Re-breathing valve strategies were used to obtain hot internal EGR to eliminate a need of intake heating. Firstly, the pilot valve opening event, including its opening and closing timing, valve lift and dwell duration between the main valve event, was analysed by the WAVE simulation. Based on the analysis a re-breathing cam lobe was manufactured and installed on a Ricardo E6 engine to achieve the intake rebreathing and exhaust rebreathing operations. The intake re-breathing was realised by the pilot intake valve opening during the exhaust stroke and the exhaust re-breathing was achieved by the secondary exhaust valve opening during the intake stroke. Effects of the pilot intake valve open timing, 2nd DME injection timing, split DME injection ratio, air/fuel ratio and compression ratio were examined during the intake rebreathing operation. Then the performance and emission characteristics of DME assisted gasoline CAI combustion were examined during the exhaust re-breathing operation. Finally, results of the intake and exhaust re-rebreathing operations were compared to the conventional SI operation. The experimental study found that both the intake and the exhaust re-breathing operations provided enough heat to initiate DME assisted gasoline CAI combustion. The direct DME injection enabled to control the start of combustion and phasing. The quantity of the first DME injection showed greater effect than its timing, whereas the injection timing of 2nd DME injection had more dominant effect than its quantity. The exhaust re-breathing strategy provided stratified and hotter internal EGR that does not impact negatively on the volumetric efficiency because exhaust gas was re-breathed from the exhaust port during the intake stroke. High load of both CAI and SI baseline operations were limited by knocking combustion and their low load were limited by incomplete combustion. Exhaust re-breathing operation extended substantially the operational range of the DME assisted gasoline CAI combustion. Extremely low NOx emissions were obtained by DME/gasoline CAI operations. Most importantly, the exhaust rebreathing method produced dramatically improved overall efficiency of 43% compared to 28% of SI operation at a typical part-load operation of 4.0-5.0bar IMEP. It was also found that slightly improved efficiency and the extended operation range could be obtained by 33%:67% split DME injection ratio at higher load, while 67%:33% split DME injection ratio at lower load.

The search for clean and efficient combustors is motivated by the increasingly stringent emissions regulations. New gas turbine engines are designed to operate under lean conditions with inhomogeneous reactants to ensure cleanliness and stability of the combustion. This ushers in a new mode of combustion, called the inhomogeneous reactants premixed combustion. The present study investigates the effects of inhomogeneous reactants on premixed combustion, specifically on the interactions of an initially planar flame with field of inhomogeneous reactants. Unsteady and unstrained laminar methane-air flames are studied in one- and two-dimensional simulations to investigate the effects of normally and tangentially (to the flame surface) stratified reactants. A three-dimensional DNS of turbulent inhomogeneous reactants premixed combustion is performed to extend the investigation into turbulent flames. The methaneair combustion is represented by a complex chemical reaction mechanism with 18 species and 68 steps. The flame surface density (FSD) and displacement speed S_d have been used as the framework to analyse the inhomogeneous reactants premixed flame. The flames are characterised by an isosurface of reaction progress variable. The unsteady flames are compared to the steady laminar unstrained reference case. An equivalence ratio dip is observed in all simulations and it can serve as a marker for the premixed flame. The dip is attributed to the preferential diffusion of carbon- and hydrogen- containing species. Hysteresis of S_d is observed in the unsteady and unstrained laminar flames that propagate into normally stratified reactants. Stoichiometric flames propagating into lean mixture have a larger S_d than lean flames propagating into stoichiometric mixtures. The cross-dissipation term contribution to S_d is small (~~10%) but its contribution to the hysteresis of S_d is not (~~50%). Differential propagation of the flame surface is observed in the laminar flame that propagates into tangentially stratified reactants. Stretch on the flame surface is induced by the differential propagation, which in turn increases the flame surface area.

Direct injection spark ignition (DISI) engines are the next generation of gasoline fuelled engines. Their greater fuel economy and reduced CO2 emissions compared with port fuel injection (PFI) engines has led to their popularity. However, DISI engines produce a greater number of particulate matter (PM) emissions than PFI engines. Concern over the health effects of PM emissions, and forthcoming European legislation to regulate them from gasoline powered vehicles has led to an increased interest in the study of PM formation, measurement, and characterisation. A model was developed by Aikawa et al, the PM index, correlating PM emissions with fuel composition. PM emissions are thought to be linked both to the vapour pressure (VP) and the double bond equivalent (DBE) of the components of the fuel. However, there was no independent control of these parameters and the study was undertaken on a PFI engine. In this thesis, experiments have been conducted to validate this model and extend it, as the PN index, to DISI engines. Fuels have been designed using Raoult’s law and UNIFAC (with careful consideration of octane number) such that the DBE and VP of the fuel mix could be varied independently. The design of the fuels was such that the component parts would co-evaporate upon injection into the cylinder, ensuring a homogeneous mixture of the components at the point of ignition. The PN index has been tested on a single cylinder engine, at a matrix of test points, using these model fuels, and their PM emissions have been analysed using a Cambustion DMS500. The results show that the PN index is followed closely using model fuels, provided that these model fuels contain a ‘light-end’ (in this case 5 % v/v n-pentane). Imaging of in-cylinder evaporation and in-cylinder measurement of hydrocarbons shows how the composition of model fuels affects their PM emissions. The PN index has also been tested using commercial fuels on a single cylinder engine and a Jaguar V8 engine; the results again show that the PN index is also an excellent predictor of PN emissions for market fuels from both of these engines. PN emissions have been evaluated from two fuels representing the EU5 reference fuel specification, developed using the PN index to give a difference in PM emissions. Testing these fuels on both a single cylinder engine and a Jaguar V8 engine has shown up to a factor of three variation in observed PN emissions. This has important implications for forthcoming European emissions legislation. The results of these tests were fed into the recommendations for the EU6 reference fuel specification. The PN index has also been investigated in a Jaguar V6 engine with five different fuels with a spread of calculated PN indices over a simulated NEDC. Here the PN emissions have been measured using two PN, and one PM instrument and the results compared. The results show that the trends of the PN index are followed, but not as closely as predicted. Detailed analysis shows that this discrepancy is due to other effects, for example cold start, dominating the PN emissions in certain phases. PN emissions have been measured from a highly boosted engine at a variety of operating points using 14 different fuels. It has been shown that for a large variety of engine operating parameters PN emissions from highly boosted engines behave as expected. When changing the fuels, the results show that a variation of over three orders of magnitude can be observed. The predictions of the PN index are inconclusive however, with further work suggested to fully evaluate the PN index on highly boosted engines.

The presence of gas in engine liquid cooling systems can have severe consequences for engine efficiency and life. The presence of stagnant, trapped gases will result in cooling system hotspots, causing gallery wall degradation through thermal stresses, fatigue and eventual cracking. The presence of entrained, transient gases in the coolant flow will act to reduce its bulk thermal properties and the performance of the system s coolant pump; critically the liquid flow rate, which will severely affect heat transfer throughout the engine and its ancillaries. The hold-up of gas in the pump s impeller may cause the dynamic seal to run dry, without lubrication or cooling. This poses both an immediate failure threat should the seal overheat and rubber components melt and a long term failure threat from intermittent quench cooling, which causes deposit formation on sealing faces acting to abrade and reduce seal quality. Bubbles in the coolant flow will also act as nucleation sites for cavitation growth. This will reduce the Net Positive Suction Head available (NPSHA) in the coolant flow, exacerbating cavitation and its damaging effects in locations such as the cylinder cooling liners and the pump s impeller. This thesis has analysed the occurrence of trapped gas (air) during the coolant filling process, its behaviour and break-up at engine start, the two-phase character of the coolant flow these processes generate and the effects it has on coolant pump performance. Optical and parametric data has been acquired in each of these studies, providing an understanding of the physical processes occurring, key variables and a means of validating numerical (CFD) code of integral processes. From the fundamental understanding each study has provided design rules, guidelines and validated tools have been developed, helping cooling system designers minimise the occurrence of trapped air during coolant filling, promote its breakup at engine start and to minimise its negative effects in the centrifugal coolant pump. It was concluded that whilst ideally the prevention of cooling system gases should be achieved at source, they are often unavoidable. This is due to the cost implications of finding a cylinder head gasket capable of completely sealing in-cylinder combustion pressures, the regular use of nucleate boiling regimes for engine cooling and the need to design cooling channel geometries to cool engine components and not necessarily to avoid fill entrapped air. Using the provided rules and models, it may be ensured stagnant air is minimised at source and avoided whilst an engine is running. However, to abate the effects of entrained gases in the coolant pump through redesign is undesirable due to the negative effects such changes have on a pump s efficiency and cavitation characteristics. It was concluded that the best solution to entrained gases, unavoidable at source, is to remove them from the coolant flow entirely using phase separation device(s).

Within this body of work several series of experiments will investigate the nature of complex combustion in an experimental single-cylinder engine emulating a modern passenger car size compression-ignition (CI) engine. Regimes of single, piloted single and piloted split-main injections will be tested and compared in terms of combustion characteristics, specific emission output and cyclic behaviour to determine how increased injection complexity affects the emissions and output of the modern CI engine. Through these tests, the effect of fuel-line stationary waves will be demonstrated and investigated, showing conclusively that optimised engine calibration is essential to account for injector-generated waves in any multiple injection scenario. This data will then be confirmed with a dedicated analysis using an injector rate measuring tube. The tests will then be expanded to include examination into the behaviour of injector needle-lift standard deviation over its operating cycle, in-cylinder pressure standard deviation behaviour and trends over the combustion cycle as well as IMEP variability. Through these tests a novel method to detect start of combustion will be proposed and compared to conventional methods. Low temperature combustion (LTC) will be tested under incremental injection complexity. Tests will be optimised for combustion phasing and injection pressure, with a view to analysis of emissions, output and cyclic behaviour to establish whether the knowledge gained about conventional combustion holds true under LTC. Optimization of engine parameters will be shown to result in easier to implement LTC regimes with superior emissions characteristics. Finally, LTC tests will be expanded to include 30% and 50% by volume gas-to-liquid fuel (GTL) blends in order to determine whether fuel characteristics further influence emissions, output and cyclic behaviour in LTC through complex injection regimes. How GTL-blend ratio affects trends in emissions and cyclic behaviour will also be examined and compared to conventional diesel fuel.

Today, the investigation of fuel economy improvements in internal combustion engines (ICEs) has become the most significant research interest among the automobile manufacturers and researchers. The scarcity of natural resources, progressively increasing oil prices, carbon dioxide taxation and stringent emission regulations all make fuel economy research relevant and compelling. The enhancement of engine performance solely using incylinder techniques is proving increasingly difficult and as a consequence the concept of exhaust energy recovery has emerged as an area of considerable interest. Three main energy recovery systems have been identified that are at various stages of investigation. Vapour power bottoming cycles and turbo-compounding devices have already been applied in commercially available marine engines and automobiles. Although the fuel economy benefits are substantial, system design implications have limited their adaptation due to the additional components and the complexity of the resulting system. In this context, thermo-electric (TE) generation systems, though still in their infancy for vehicle applications have been identified as attractive, promising and solid state candidates of low complexity. The performance of these devices is limited to the relative infancy of materials investigations and module architectures. There is great potential to be explored. The initial modelling work reported in this study shows that with current materials and construction technology, thermo-electric devices could be produced to displace the alternator of the light duty vehicles, providing the fuel economy benefits of 3.9%-4.7% for passenger cars and 7.4% for passenger buses. More efficient thermo-electric materials could increase the fuel economy significantly resulting in a substantially improved business case. The dynamic behaviour of the thermo-electric generator (TEG) applied in both, main exhaust gas stream and exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) path of light duty and heavy duty engines were studied through a series of experimental and modelling programs. The analyses of the thermo-electric generation systems have highlighted the need for advanced heat exchanger design as well as the improved materials to enhance the performance of these systems. These research requirements led to the need for a systems evaluation technique typified by hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) testing method to evaluate heat exchange and materials options. HIL methods have been used during this study to estimate both the output power and the exhaust back pressure created by the device. The work has established the feasibility of a new approach to heat exchange devices for thermo-electric systems. Based on design projections and the predicted performance of new materials, the potential to match the performance of established heat recovery methods has been demonstrated.

De nos jours, la conception de moteurs à combustion interne à allumage commandé exige une consommation de carburant réduite et des émissions polluantes faibles, tout en conservant une performance adéquate. Le coût élevé des essais expérimentaux vient en faveur de l'utilisation de la simulation numérique pour l'évaluation de nouvelles définitions techniques. La modélisation phénoménologique zéro-dimensionnelle de combustion permet d'évaluer les différentes définitions techniques en tenant compte de différents aspects de de la combustion à allumage commandé comme la géométrie, la flamme laminaire et l'impact de la turbulence. Ces modèles calculent également la concentration des espèces de gaz d'échappement. Afin de créer un modèle de combustion, qui pourra décrire la physique de la combustion, les aspects principaux de la combustion pré-mélangée laminaire et turbulent sont identifiés. Trois versions de modèles de combustion typiques sont comparées en termes de description physique du processus de combustion. Le résultat de cette comparaison a indiqué le modèle le plus pertinent (le modèle de densité de surface de flamme). Ce modèle est retenu et il est complété avec la modélisation physique des plusieurs phénomènes qui affectent le taux de dégagement de chaleur. Ces phénomènes sont l’interaction flamme-paroi, les réactions post flamme et l’étirement de flamme. Enfin, le modèle proposé est validé pour plusieurs configurations techniques. Chaque configuration a un impact sur un paramètre spécifique de moteur. Cette analyse montre quels sont les intervalles de confiance et les limitations du modèle proposé. / Nowadays, the design of Spark Ignition internal combustion engines is focused on the reduction of fuel consumption and low pollutant emissions, while conserving an adequate output power. The high cost of experimental testing comes in favor of the use of numerical simulations for the assessment of engine technologies. Phenomenological Zero-Dimensional combustion models allow evaluating various technical concepts since they take into account various aspects of spark ignition combustion such as chamber geometry, laminar flame characteristics (thickness and speed) and the impact of turbulence. Such models also calculate species concentration of the exhaust gases. In order to create a zero-dimensional combustion model, which can be able to describe correctly the physics of combustion, the key aspects of laminar and turbulent premixed combustion are identified. Three versions of typical combustion models are compared in terms of physical description of the combustion process. The result of this comparison indicated the most physically pertinent mod-el (the Flame Surface Density model). This model is retained and is enhanced with physical modeling of the several phenomena, which affect the heat release rate. Those phenomena are the wall-flame interaction, post-flame reactions and flame stretch. Finally, the proposed model is validated for several engine configurations. Each configuration has an impact on a specific engine parameter. This analysis shows which are the confidence intervals and the limitations of the proposed model.

Variable Valve Timing (VVT) presents a powerful tool in the relentless pursuit of efficiency improvements in the internal combustion engine. As the valves have such ultimate control over the gas exchange processes, extensive research effort in this area has shown how valve event timing can be manipulated to reduce engine pumping losses, fuel consumption and engine out emissions. Pumping losses may be significantly reduced by use of throttleless strategies, making use of intake valve duration for load control, while alternative cycles such as the Miller cycle allow modification of the effective compression ratio. More recently, the value of single valve operation in part load conditions is exploited, bringing with it the concept of asymmetric valve lifts. Work in this area found the side effect of asymmetric valve operation is a significant change in the behaviour of the in-cylinder flow structures, velocities and turbulence intensity. Work presented in this thesis exploits asymmetric valve strategies to modify the in-cylinder flow conditions. The Proper Orthogonal Decomposition (POD) is a method employed in the fluids dynamics field to facilitate the separation of coherent motion structures from the turbulence. In the presented work, the application of POD to in-cylinder flow analysis is further developed by the introduction of a novel method for identifying the POD modes representative of coherent motion and those representative of the turbulence. A POD mode correlation based technique is introduced and developed, with the resulting fields showing evidence of coherence and turbulence respectively. Experimental tests are carried out using a full length optically accessible, single cylinder research engine equipped with a fully variable valve train (FVVT) to allow full control of both valve timing and lift. In-cylinder flow is measured through the use of Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) at several crank angle timings during the intake stroke whilst the engine is operated under a range of asymmetric valve strategies. The exhaust valves and one intake valve have their respective schedules fixed, while the second intake valve schedule is adjusted to 80\%, 60\%, 40\%, 20\%, 0\% lift. The resulting PIV fields are separated into coherent motion and turbulence using the developed technique, allowing for analysis of each constituent independently. The coherent element gives insight to large scale flows, often of the order of magnitude of the cylinder. These structures not only give a clear indication of the overall motion and allow assessment of flow characteristics such as swirl and tumble ratio, but the variation in the spatial location of these structures provides additional insight to the cyclic to cycle variation (CCV) of the flow, which would not otherwise be possible due to the inclusion of the turbulent data. Similarly, with the cyclic variation removed from the turbulent velocity field, a true account of the fluctuating velocity, u' and derived values such as the Turbulent Kinetic Energy (TKE) may be gained. Results show how manipulation of a one intake valve timing can influence both the large scale motions and the turbulence intensity. By the reduction of lift, the swirl ratio is increased almost linearly as the typical counter-rotating vortex pair becomes asymmetric, before a single vortex structure is observed in the lowest lift cases. A switching mechanism between the two is identified and found to be responsible for increased levels of CCV. With the reduction in lift, TKE is observed not only to increase, but change the spatial distribution of turbulence. Of course, the reduction in valve lift comes with the penalty of a reduced valve curtain area. However, it was identified both in literature and throughout this study that the reduction in lift did not negatively influence the engine breathing as the same trapped mass was achieved under all cases with no adjustment of manifold pressure. While literature shows both bulk motion and turbulence are key in liquid fuel break-up during the intake stroke, the mixing effects under port-injected natural gas were investigated experimentally using Laser Induced Fluorescence (LIF). The valve strategy was found to have no significant effect on the mixture distribution at the time of spark.

The principle of controlled auto-ignition (CAI) is to mix fuel and air homogeneously before compressing the mixture to the point of auto-ignition. As ignition occurs simultaneously, CAI engines operate with lean mixtures preventing high cylinder pressures. CAI engines produce small amounts of nitrogen oxides (NOx) due to low combustion temperatures while maintaining high compression ratios and engine efficiencies. Due to simultaneous combustion and lean mixtures, CAI engines are restricted between low and mid load operations. Various strategies have been studied to improve the load limit of CAI engines. The scope of the project is to investigate the consequences of varying valve timing, as a method to control the mixture temperature within the combustion chamber and therefore, controlling the mixture auto-ignition point. This study presents computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modelling results of transient flow, inside a 0.45 litre Lotus single cylinder engine. After a validation process, a chemical kinetics model is combined with the CFD code, in order to study in-cylinder temperatures, the mixture distribution during compression and to predict the auto-ignition timing. The first part of the study focuses on validating the calculated in-cylinder velocities. A mesh sensitivity study is performed as well as a comparison of different turbulence models. A method to reduce computational time of the calculations is presented. The effects of engine speed on charge delay and charge amount inside the cylinder, the development of the in-cylinder flow field and the variation of turbulence parameters during the intake and compression stroke, are studied. The second part of the study focuses on the gasoline mixture and the variation of the valve timing, to retain different ratios of residual gases within the cylinder. After validation of the model, a final set of CFD calculations is performed, to investigate the effects of valve timing on flow and the engine parameters. The results are then compared to a fully homogeneous mixture model to study the benefits of varying valve duration. New key findings and contributions to CAI knowledge were found in this investigation. Reducing the intake and exhaust valve durations created a mixture temperature stratification and a fuel concentration distribution, prior to auto-ignition. It resulted in extending the heat release rate duration, improving combustion. However, shorter valve timing durations also showed an increase in heat transfer, pumping work and friction power, with a decrease of cylinder indicated efficiency. Valve timing, as a method to control auto-ignition, should only be used when the load limit of CAI engines, is to be improved.

The concepts of engine downsizing and down-speeding offer reductions in CO2 emissions from passenger cars. These reductions are achieved by reducing pumping and friction losses at part-load operation. Conventionally, rated torque and power for downsized units are recovered by means of turbocharging. The transient response of such engines is, however, affected by the static and dynamic characteristics of the turbo-machinery. Recent advances in engine simulation and control tools have been employed for the purpose of the research reported in this thesis to identify and verify possible air-path enhancements. A systematic method for evaluating various turbocharger assistance concepts is proposed and discussed in this thesis. To ensure a fair comparison of selected candidate systems, an easily reconfigurable controller providing a close-to-optimal operation, while satisfying physical limits, is formulated. This controller is based on the Model Predictive Control framework and uses a linearised mean value model to optimise the predicted behaviour of the engine. Initially, the controller was applied to a 1D simulation model of a conventional light-duty Diesel engine, for which the desired closed-loop features were verified. This procedure was subsequently applied to various air-path enhancement systems. In this thesis, a turbocharger electric assistance and various concepts based on compressed gas injection were considered. The capability of these systems to improve engine response during third gear tip-in manoeuvre was quantified. This investigation was also complemented with a parametric study of how effectively each of the considered methods used its available resources. As a result, injecting compressed gas into the exhaust manifold was identified as an effective method, which to date has attracted limited attention from engine research community. The effectiveness of the exhaust manifold assistance was experimentally verified on a light-duty Diesel engine. The sensitivity of the improvements to compressed gas supply parameters was also investigated. This led to the development of the BREES system: a low component count, compressed gas based system for reducing turbo-lag. It was shown that during braking manoeuvres a tank can be charged to the level sufficient for a subsequent boost assistance event. Such a functionality was implemented with a very limited set of additional components and only minor changes to the standard engine control.