Development of a Torsional Behavior Powertrain Model for Multiple Misfire Detection

Author(s):  
Fabrizio Ponti

Many methodologies have been developed in the past for misfire detection purposes based on the analysis of the instantaneous engine speed. The missing combustion is usually detected, thanks to the sudden engine speed decrease that takes place after a misfire event. Misfire detection and, in particular, cylinder isolation are nevertheless still a challenging issue for engines with a high number of cylinders, for engine operating conditions at low load or high engine speed, and for multiple misfire events. When a misfire event takes place, a torsional vibration is excited and shows up in the instantaneous engine speed wave form. If a multiple misfire occurs, this torsional vibration is excited more than once in a very short time interval. The interaction between these successive vibrations can generate false alarms or misdetection, and an increased complexity when dealing with cylinder isolation. This paper presents the development of a powertrain torsional behavior model in order to identify the effects of a misfire event on the instantaneous engine speed signal. The identified wave form has then been used to filter out the torsional vibration effects in order to enlighten the missing combustions even in the case of multiple misfire events. The model response is also used to speed up the setup process for the detection algorithm employed, thus evaluating, before running specific experimental tests on a test bench facility, the values for the threshold and the optimal setup of the procedure. The proposed algorithm is developed in this paper for an SI L4 engine; its application to other engine configurations is possible, as is also discussed in this paper.

Author(s):  
Fabrizio Ponti

Many methodologies have been developed in the past for misfire detection purposes based on the analysis of the instantaneous engine speed. The missing combustion is usually detected thanks to the sudden engine speed decrease that takes place after a misfire event. Misfire detection and in particular cylinder isolation is anyhow still a challenging issue for engines with a high number of cylinders, for engine operating conditions at low load or high engine speed and for multiple misfire events. When a misfire event takes place in fact a torsional vibration is excited and shows up in the instantaneous engine speed waveform. If a multiple misfire occurs this torsional vibration is excited more than once in a very short time interval. The interaction among these successive vibrations can generate false alarms or misdetection, and an increased complexity when dealing with cylinder isolation. The paper presents the development of a powertrain torsional behavior model in order to identify the effects of a misfire event on the instantaneous engine speed signal. The identified waveform has then been used to filter out the torsional vibration effects in order to enlighten the missing combustions even in the case of multiple misfire events. The model response is also used to quicken the setup process for the detection algorithm employed, evaluating before running specific experimental tests on a test bench facility, the values for the threshold and the optimal setup of the procedure. The proposed algorithm is developed in this paper for an SI L4 engine; Its application to other engine configurations is possible, as it is also discussed in the paper.


Author(s):  
Fabrizio Ponti

Misfire detection is a subject that has been deep studied during the last years and many methodologies have been developed for this purpose. Affordably detecting the misfire event and isolating the cylinder where the missing combustion took place can be considered a solved problem for engines with a limited number of cylinders. Misfire detection and in particular cylinder isolation is still challenging for engine operating conditions at very low load and high engine speed, for engines with a high number of cylinders, or when more than one misfire event is present within the same engine cycle (multiple misfire). In particular this last malfunctioning condition is very challenging, and its detection is enforced by the international regulations without requiring cylinder isolation, but only the number of misfiring cylinders. Many methodologies have been developed in the past based on the analysis of the instantaneous engine speed. The missing combustion effect on this signal is anyway very low when the number of cylinders is high and for engine operating conditions at low engine speed, giving rise to misdetection or false alarms as already mentioned. In addition when a misfire event takes place a torsional vibration is excited and shows up in the instantaneous engine speed waveform. If a multiple misfire occurs this torsional vibration is excited more than once in a very short time interval. The interaction among these successive vibrations can further generate false alarms or misdetection, and an increased complexity when dealing with cylinder isolation is necessary. The approach here presented permits enhancing existing misfire detection methods through optimized algorithm that allows correctly isolating the multiple misfiring cylinders over the entire engine operating range. This has been obtained by proper identifying the effect of the torsional vibration over the instantaneous engine speed. The identified waveform has been then used to filter out the torsional vibration effects in order to enlighten the effects of the missing combustions. In addition a proper instantaneous engine speed windowing has been introduced in order to increase the detection signal to noise ratio over the whole engine operating range. The integration of these two signal processing techniques has proven to be very effective on the engine investigated in this study, and it is easily extendible to other engine architectures. Particular care has been devoted to satisfy on-board implementation requirements in terms of memory allocation and computational power. The tests have been conducted on an L4 1.2 liter spark ignition engine mounted in a test cell. In-cylinder pressure signals have been acquired in order to validate the methodology here developed.


Author(s):  
Fabrizio Ponti

The diagnosis of a misfire event and the isolation of the cylinder in which the misfire took place is enforced by the On Board Diagnostics (OBD) requirements over the whole operating range for all the vehicles whatever the configuration of the engine they mount. This task is particularly challenging for engines with a high number of cylinders and for engine operating conditions that are characterized by high engine speed and low load. This is why much research has been devoted to this topic in recent years, developing different detection methodologies based on signals such as instantaneous engine speed, exhaust pressure, etc., both in time and frequency domains. This paper presents the development and the validation of a methodology for misfire detection based on the time-frequency analysis of the instantaneous engine speed signal. This signal contains information related to the misfire event, since a misfire occurrence is characterized by a sudden engine speed decrease and a subsequent damped torsional vibration. The identification of a specific pattern in the instantaneous engine speed frequency content, characteristic of the system under study, allows performing the desired misfire detection and cylinder isolation. Particular attention has been devoted in designing the methodology in order to avoid the possibility of false alarms caused by the excitation of this frequency pattern independently from a misfire occurrence. Although the time-frequency analysis is usually considered a time consuming operation and is not associated to on-board application, the methodology here proposed has been properly modified and simplified in order to obtain the quickness required for its use directly on-board a vehicle. Experimental tests have been performed on a 5.7 liter V12 spark ignited engine, with the engine mounted on-board a vehicle. The frequency pattern identified is not the same that could be observed when running the engine on a test bench, because of the different stiffness that the connection between the engine and the load presents in the two cases. This makes impossible to set-up the methodology here proposed only on a test bench, without running tests on the vehicle.


Author(s):  
Fabrizio Ponti

The diagnosis of a misfire event and the isolation of the cylinder in which the misfire took place is enforced by the onboard diagnostics (OBD) requirements over the whole operating range for all the vehicles, whatever the configuration of the engine they mount. This task is particularly challenging for engines with a high number of cylinders and for engine operating conditions that are characterized by high engine speed and low load. This is why much research has been devoted to this topic in recent years, developing different detection methodologies based on signals such as instantaneous engine speed, exhaust pressure, etc., both in time and frequency domains. This paper presents the development and the validation of a methodology for misfire detection based on the time-frequency analysis of the instantaneous engine speed signal. This signal contains information related to the misfire event, since a misfire occurrence is characterized by a sudden engine speed decrease and a subsequent damped torsional vibration. The identification of a specific pattern in the instantaneous engine speed frequency content, characteristic of the system under study, allows performing the desired misfire detection and cylinder isolation. Particular attention has been devoted to designing the methodology in order to avoid the possibility of false alarms caused by the excitation of this frequency pattern independently from a misfire occurrence. Although the time-frequency analysis is usually considered a time-consuming operation and not associated to onboard application, the methodology proposed here has been properly modified and simplified in order to obtain the quickness required for its use directly onboard a vehicle. Experimental tests have been performed on a 5.7l V12 spark-ignited engine run onboard a vehicle. The frequency characteristic of the engine-vehicle system is not the same that could be observed when running the engine on a test bench, because of the different inertia and stiffness that the connection between the engine and the load presents in the two cases. This makes it impossible to test and validate the methodology proposed here only on a test bench, without running tests on the vehicle. Nevertheless, the knowledge of the mechanical design of the engine and driveline gives the possibility of determining the resonance frequencies of the system (the lowest one is always the most important for this work) before running tests on the vehicle. This allows saving time and reducing costs in developing the proposed approach.


Author(s):  
Nicolo` Cavina

The diagnosis of misfire events (or missing combustions) is enforced by On-Board Diagnostics regulations (such as CARB OBD II or European OBD) over the whole engine operating range, for all vehicles equipped with spark ignition engines. Such regulations define both the minimum misfire frequency that is to be detected (related to catalyst damage and/or increased hydrocarbons emissions), and the various misfire patterns that the diagnostic algorithm should be able to detect. In particular, single (no more than one missing combustion per engine cycle) and multiple (more than one misfiring cylinder within the same engine cycle) misfire patterns are to be diagnosed, and the cylinder in which the misfire took place is to be isolated only when single misfires take place (cylinder identification is still not mandatory for multiple misfires). Various single misfire detection methodologies have been successfully developed in recent years (mostly based on the engine speed signal), and this type of misfire diagnosis is still challenging for engines with a high number of cylinders, especially during operating conditions characterized by high engine speed and low load. On the other hand, the detection of multiple misfires is still difficult even for the typical four cylinder engine, since their effects on the engine speed trend have not yet been clarified. In fact, a misfire occurrence is characterized by a sudden engine speed decrease and a subsequent damped torsional vibration. In case of multiple misfires, the engine speed oscillation induced by the first misfiring cylinder may still be present when the second missing combustion takes place, and the resulting engine speed waveform may be erroneously interpreted by the diagnostic algorithm, thus resulting in the improper cylinder being identified or missed detection of a misfiring cylinder. This paper deals with the identification of a specific pattern in the instantaneous engine speed trend, induced by a missing combustion and characteristic of the system under study, that allows performing the desired multiple misfire detection. The methodology has been designed in order to be run on-board, thus requiring low computational power and memory allocation. Its implementation has shown that false alarms can be avoided and correct cylinder isolation is possible, also in presence of multiple misfires. Experimental tests have been performed on a 1.2 liter spark ignition engine mounted in a test cell. Various multiple misfire patterns have been induced by controlling ignition and injection of the various cylinders. In-cylinder pressure signals have been acquired together with the instantaneous engine speed, in order to verify the capability of the methodology.


Author(s):  
Davide Moro ◽  
Stefano Pantaleoni ◽  
Gabriele Serra

The recent OBD requirements enforce the misfire’s diagnosis and the isolation of the cylinder where the missing combustion took place. Most of the common-used techniques developed are based on the engine’s angular speed, that is derived by the signal usually measured with an inductive or Hall-effect sensor already used for the engine’s control. The presence of single or multiple misfires (several misfires within the same engine’s cycle) induces torsional vibration in the powertrain, requiring specific filtering of the diagnostic signal to avoid false alarms. This paper presents some preliminary results, related to a 4 cylinder 1.2 liter engine mounted on an eddy-current brake test bench, obtained by a new diagnosis technique based on two speed sensors, placed near the toothed wheels used respectively for the engine and current brake’s control. The signals coming from the two sensors, applied to an equation derived by a torsional model of the engine powertrain, allow to evaluate an index based on the difference between engine and brake’s torque that highlights the misfire presence. It will be shown that this index does not require any particular calibration procedure. Experimental tests, in which single and multiple misfires are induced in several operating conditions, show clearly the algorithm’s robustness in misfire detection, especially in multiple misfire tests, where the misfiring cylinders are exactly detected.


2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Zhi-Sai Ma ◽  
Qian Ding

Many engineering systems change appreciably over a relatively short time interval due to their fast evolution in the dynamics. Time-varying (TV) system’s ambient excitation is usually difficult to measure under operating conditions, and its dynamics have to be determined without measuring the excitation. Therefore, short data-based output-only identification for TV systems with fast dynamic evolution is considered in this paper. Deterministic parameter evolution methods are known to track fast dynamic evolution by postulating TV model parameters as deterministic functions of time and selecting proper functional subspaces. However, these methods require a significant number of parameters to represent complicated time-dependencies and dynamics characterized by larger numbers of degrees-of-freedom. In such cases, the ordinary least squares estimation may lead to less accurate or even unreliable estimates. A ridge regression-based deterministic parameter evolution method is proposed to overcome ill-posed problems via regularization and subsequently assessed through numerical and experimental validation. Comparative results confirm the advantages of the proposed method in terms of achievable natural frequency and power spectral density tracking, accuracy, and resolution of TV systems with fast dynamic evolution, when the response data length is relatively short.


2019 ◽  
Vol 87 ◽  
pp. 01011
Author(s):  
Łukasz Grabowski ◽  
Paweł Karpiński ◽  
Konrad Pietrykowski

The misfire phenomenon is particularly unfavourable in aircraft engines because it affects the stability and reliability of work. This paper presents the algorithm for detecting ignition failure in a radial aircraft engine. The Crankshaft Velocity Fluctuation method was applied, which consists in analysing changes in the crankshaft speed signal as a function of time. A zero-dimensional model of the aircraft engine was developed in order to perform the research. The validation of the model was performed using the results from the test bench. The model was subjected to simulation tests in fixed operating conditions. Based on the engine speed signal obtained as a result of the simulation, the normalized second derivative of the signal was determined based on the adopted algorithm. On the basis of this derivative, a criterion was defined to assess the occurrence of the misfire phenomenon. The results of the calculations can be compared in future with the results of the real engine tests.


Author(s):  
Fabrizio Ponti ◽  
Luca Solieri

Torque-based engine control systems usually employ a produced torque estimation feedback in order to verify that the strategy target torque has been met. Torque estimation can be performed using static maps describing the engine behavior or using models describing the existing relationships between signals measured on the engine and the indicated torque produced. Signals containing information on the combustion development, suitable for this purpose, are, among others, the ion-current signal, the vibration signals obtained from accelerometers mounted on the engine block, or the instantaneous engine speed fluctuations. This paper presents the development and the identification process of an engine-driveline torsional behavior model that enables indicated torque estimation from instantaneous engine speed measurement. Particular attention has been devoted to the interactions between indicated and reciprocating torques, and their effects over instantaneous engine speed fluctuations. Indicated and reciprocating torques produce, in fact, opposite excitations on the driveline that show opposite effects on the engine speed wave form: For low engine speed, usually indicated torque prevails, while the opposite applies for higher engine speed. In order to correctly estimate indicated torque from engine speed measurement, it is therefore necessary to correctly evaluate the reciprocating torque contribution. Reciprocating torque is usually described using a wave form as a function of crank angle, while its amplitude depends on the value of the reciprocating masses. As mentioned before, knowledge of the reciprocating masses is fundamental in order to obtain correct estimation of the indicated torque. The identification process that has been set up for the engine-driveline torsional model enables to evaluate the relationship between torques applied to the engine and the corresponding engine speed wave form even without knowing the value of the reciprocating masses. In addition, once this model has been set up, it is possible to estimate with high precision the value of the reciprocating masses. Particular attention has also been devoted to the feasibility of the application of the identified model onboard for torque estimation; for this reason, the model has been developed in a very simple form. The approach proved to be effective both on gasoline and diesel engines, both for engine mounted on a test cell and onboard, with different engine configurations. Examples of application are given for some of the configurations investigated.


Author(s):  
Pan Zhang ◽  
Wenzhi Gao ◽  
Yong Li ◽  
Yanjun Wang

With the ever-stringent vehicles exhaust emission standard and higher requirements on on-board diagnostic technology, the importance of misfire detection in vehicle emission control is emerging. The performance of a traditional misfire detection algorithm predominantly depends on the features and classifier selected. Fixed and handcrafted features require either a reliable dynamic model of an engine or a large number of experiment data to define the threshold, and then, form a map. Since convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have an inherent adaptive design and integrate the feature extraction with classification functions into a compact learning framework, the misfire fault-sensitive features can be auto-discovered from raw speed signals. Furthermore, CNNs can detect the fault features of the misfire through network training with fewer engine operating conditions. In this paper, the theory and method of the misfire diagnosis based on CNNs are presented. The experimental data for network training and testing are sampled on a six-cylinder inline diesel engine. The misfire patterns containing every one-cylinder and two-cylinder misfire are tested under the wide speed and load conditions of the engine. The results show that when the engine operates under steady-state conditions, one-cylinder or two-cylinder complete misfires can be detected accurately by CNNs. In addition, one-cylinder partial misfire is employed to examine the adaptability of trained 1-D CNN. It turns out that when the partial misfire reaches the same level as half amount of the normal fuel injection quantity, one-cylinder partial misfire can be detected with accuracy more than 96%. At last, the misfire detection under the non-stationary conditions, such as acceleration or deceleration, is conducted. The results show the 1-D CNN performed well in a limited acceleration range, and network failure occurs when the absolute acceleration of the engine speed is more than 100 r/min/s.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document