As a non-intrusive method for engine working condition detection, the engine surface vibration contains rich information about the combustion process and has great potential for the closed-loop control of engines. However, the measured engine surface vibration signals are usually induced by combustion as well as non-combustion excitations and are difficult to be utilized directly. To evaluate some combustion parameters from engine surface vibration, the tests were carried out on a single-cylinder diesel engine and a new method called Fourier Decomposition Method (FDM) was used to extract combustion induced vibration. Simulated and test results verified the ability of the FDM for engine vibration analysis. Based on the extracted vibration signals, the methods for identifying start of combustion, location of maximum pressure rise rate, and location of peak pressure were proposed. The cycle-by-cycle analysis of the results show that the parameters identified based on vibration and in-cylinder pressure have the similar trends, and it suggests that the proposed FDM-based methods can be used for extracting combustion induced vibrations and identifying the combustion parameters.
