Ignition Criterion Studies on Lean and Diluted Mixtures for Clean Combustion in Automotive Engines

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Worldwide efforts with cutting-edge technologies are making significant progresses to improve the understanding, therefore the design and control of clean combustion engines. The lean and diluted fuel-air mixtures are effective to improve the efficiency and emissions of spark ignition (SI) engines, but are more difficult to ignite than a stoichiometric and homogeneous mixture. Traditionally, gasoline is injected during intake stroke, either at an intake port or directly into a cylinder. The cylinder charge usually reaches full homogeneity at the end of cylinder compression. Thereon, providing the air/fuel ratio (AFR) is stoichiometric, spark ignition succeeds with little difficulty, even with limited spark energy and duration. However, the burning efficiency of a stoichiometric cylinder charge is insufficient, and usually 6~8% of injected fuel skips combustion. An overall lean mixture can improve the burning efficiency, and reduces the reliance on intake throttling under partial loads. The use of exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) also reduces the pumping loss, while lowing the flame temperature and the nitrogen oxides (NOx) formation. When operating with lean and diluted mixtures, an engine needs to boost the intake air to retain full power. In synergy with automotive downsize and hybridization, the intake boost is also necessary for a small engine to produce more power at a higher efficiency.The proposed research establishes a strategy to study the criteria of ignition. Optically-accessible combustion cells will be used to study the ignition criteria of premixed mixtures, with precisely-controlled AFR, temperature, pressure, and dilution. Single cylinder research engines will be used to study the impact of in-cylinder flow and homogeneity, under independently-controlled fuel injection, intake boost, and EGR. Volatile fuels, including gasoline, ethanol, methane, and propane, will be injected at the intake port or directly into the cylinder, in single or multiple injection events. The spark and corona ignition with controls on the ignition energy, duration, events, sites, and volume will be investigated.The results of this research will provide guidelines for improving the fuel efficiency of SI engine clean combustion, specifically to the forming of a locally-ignitable mixture that encapsulates the gap of a sparkplug in transience to succeed the flame kernel formation and combustion. This research provides an ideal scenario for training HQP.