Fuel Injection Strategies for Alcohol Utilization in Combustion Engines

The approach of this research is to enlarge the knowledge about the methodologies to increase the maximum achievable load degree in the context of gasoline CAI engines. This work is the continuation of a previous work related to the study of the water injection effect on combustion, where this strategy was approached. The operating strategies to introduce the water and the interconnected settings were deeply analyzed in order to optimize combustion and to evaluate its potential to increase the maximum load degree when operating in CAI. During these initial tests, the engine was configured to enhance the mixture autoignition. The compression ratio was high compared to a standard gasoline engine, and suitable fuel injection strategies were selected based on previous studies from the authors to maximize the reactivity of the mixture, and get a stable CAI operation. Once water injection proved to provide encouraging results, the next step dealt in this work, was to go deeper and explore its effects when the engine configuration is more similar to a conventional gasoline engine, trying to get CAI combustion closer to production engines. This means, mainly, lower compression ratios and different fuel injection strategies, which hinders CAI operation. Finally, since all the previous works were performed at constant engine speed, the engine speed was also modified in order to see the applicability of the defined strategies to operate under CAI conditions at other operating conditions. The results obtained show that all these modifications are compatible with CAI operation: the required compression ratio can be reduced, in some cases the injection strategies can be simplified, and the increase of the engine speed leads to better conditions for CAI combustion. Thanks to the analysis of all this data, the different key parameters to manage this combustion mode are identified and shown in the paper.

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Influence of fuel injection strategies on efficiency and particulate emissions of gasoline and ethanol blends in a turbocharged multi-cylinder direct injection engine

International Journal of Engine Research ◽

10.1177/1468087419838393 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 22 (1) ◽

pp. 152-164 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Ripudaman Singh ◽

Taehoon Han ◽

Mohammad Fatouraie ◽

Andrew Mansfield ◽

Margaret Wooldridge ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Thermal Efficiency ◽

Fuel Injection ◽

Direct Injection ◽

Injection Timing ◽

Multiple Injection ◽

Fuel Mass ◽

Direct Injection Engine ◽

Fuel Blends ◽

Ethanol Blends ◽

Injection Strategies

The effects of a broad range of fuel injection strategies on thermal efficiency and engine-out emissions (CO, total hydrocarbons, NOx and particulate number) were studied for gasoline and ethanol fuel blends. A state-of-the-art production multi-cylinder turbocharged gasoline direct injection engine equipped with piezoelectric injectors was used to study fuels and fueling strategies not previously considered in the literature. A large parametric space was considered including up to four fuel injection events with variable injection timing and variable fuel mass in each injection event. Fuel blends of E30 (30% by volume ethanol) and E85 (85% by volume ethanol) were compared with baseline E0 (reference grade gasoline). The engine was operated over a range of loads with intake manifold absolute pressure from 800 to 1200 mbar. A combined application of ethanol blends with a multiple injection strategy yielded considerable improvement in engine-out particulate and gaseous emissions while maintaining or slightly improving engine brake thermal efficiency. The weighted injection spread parameter defined in this study, combined with the weighted center of injection timing defined in the previous literature, was found well suited to characterize multiple injection strategies, including the effects of the number of injections, fuel mass in each injection and the dwell time between injections.

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