A spark ignition (SI) engine operating with a lean burn has the potential for higher thermal efficiency, and lower nitrogen oxide emissions than that of stoichiometric operation. However, a lean or highly diluted mixture leads to poor combustion stability impacting detrimentally upon engine performance. An experimental investigation was carried out, on a 4-valve single cylinder gasoline engine with a split intake tract and two identical production port-fuel injectors installed, allowing independent fuel delivery to each intake valve. The main objective of the study was to extend the limit of lean combustion through the introduction of charge stratification. Novel port fuel injection strategies such as, dual split injection, multiple injections and phased injection, were developed to achieve this goal. In parallel, a model of the engine was developed in the Ricardo WAVE software. The model was used to calculate parameters such as in-cylinder residual gas, for different test points. Combustion stability was improved for the engine conditions tested. At 1000 rpm and 1.0 bar gross indicated mean effective pressure (GIMEP), the lean combustion limit was extended from a 14:1 air-to-fuel ratio (AFR) to 17.5:1. At 1500 rpm and 1.5 bar GIMEP the lean combustion limit was extended from 17.5:1 to approximately 21:1 AFR. Finally for 1800 rpm and 1.8 bar GIMEP, lean combustion was improved from 21: 1 AFR to 22: 1 An experimental spark plug, with an infrared detector, was used to measure the variation in fuel distribution at the spark plug gap. It showed that the different fuel injection strategies generated different levels of fuel concentration. It was identified that injections in a single port created fuel stratification in the spark plug area but were more prone to cycle to cycle variations in fuel concentration. These variations did not correlate with combustion stability or flame speed propagation at the speeds and loads tested. The most important parameter to influence the flame propagation speed was found to be the variation in local lambda with crank angle just after the ignition timing. It was shown that the fastest flame propagation speeds did not necessarily result in the lowest CoV in GIMEP. Finally the fuel injection strategies were investigated for highly dilute conditions, achieved by means of internal residual gas trapping, with the aim of promoting (spark-assisted) compression ignition combustion conditions.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:589940 |
| Date | January 2011 |
| Creators | Lourenco Cardosa, Tiago José Peres |
| Publisher | University of Brighton |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | https://research.brighton.ac.uk/en/studentTheses/70452fa8-4e63-42dd-8403-05dc6d8d4d60 |
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