Return to search

Evaluation of Spark Plug Technologies in Spark Ignition Engines by Pareto Front Optimization

The Internal Combustion Engines (ICEs) have played a significant role in transportation system to date and are expected to retain a significant market share through to 2050, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Improving the efficiency of the ICEs is one of the most promising and cost-effective approaches to increasing highways vehicle’s fuel economy. The tools to address critical barriers to commercializing higher efficiency, lower emissions, advanced ICEs for passenger and commercial vehicles are increasingly important in the rapidly evolving automotive sector.
In this research, a model based optimization strategy is developed for trade-off analysis of parts in Spark Ignition Internal Combustion Engines (SI-ICE). The trade-off analysis tool has been used as a complement to engine mapping to determine the operating region of an engine where a new part could lead to improvements in fuel efficiency, performance, and emissions.
To build the engine models, a Design of Experiment (DoE) was developed for performing the engine tests. For each spark plug set, the engine tests were conducted twice with an acceptable control of the parameters that affect engine outputs. The engine torque, Break Specific Fuel Consumption (BSFC) and break specific NOx emission were considered as the engine responses. Engine models were built according to the two-stage modeling strategy by means of black box modeling techniques. The accuracies of the models were 96%, 95% and 92% for the engine torque, BSFC and NOx outputs respectively.
For the optimization part, determination of the optimal spark timing for each spark plug was formulated as a multi-objective optimization problem searching for compromises among opposing objectives, i.e. engine torque, emission and fuel consumption. The optimization outputs were in form of Pareto fronts, enabling the selection of the best solutions in terms of different objectives by considering the higher level information.
The resulted Pareto fronts of the two spark plugs were compared at different operating points of the Ford Coyote engine and results showed that the two plugs are comparable. The marginal difference was at low load and low speed condition, where the newly designed spark plug was better than the conventional design. / Thesis / Master of Applied Science (MASc)

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:mcmaster.ca/oai:macsphere.mcmaster.ca:11375/24768
Date January 2019
CreatorsSadeghkazemi, Mehdi
ContributorsHabibi, Saeid, Mechanical Engineering
Source SetsMcMaster University
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis

Page generated in 0.0024 seconds