Proceedings of TFMS 2012 National Conference on Thermal, Fluid and Manufacturing Science January 20 21, 2012 Surat, Gujarat,

, India

Combustion Control with Trapped Residual Gas (TRG) for 4-Stroke HCCI/CAI Engines
Santosh B Trimbake
Assistant Professor Department of Mechanical Engineering College of Military Engineering Pune Maharashtra 411031

santoshtrimbake @ yahoo.co.in Mobile No: +919960431466

Abstract: Over the last decade, an alternative combustion
technology, commonly known as homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) or controlled auto-ignition (CAI) combustion, has emerged that has the potential to achieve efficiencies in excess of GDI engines and approaching those of current CI engines, with very low NOx emissions and virtually no smoke emissions. While the potential benefits of this new combustion technology are significant, this combustion mode faces its own set of challenges, such as difficulty in controlling the combustion phasing, a restricted operating range, and high hydrocarbon emissions. The most successful and practical approach to HCCI/CAI combustion initiation and control in a gasoline engine is through the use of large amounts of burned gases by trapping them within the cylinder or through internal recirculation, as their thermal energy will heat the charge to reach auto-ignition temperature and help to tame the heat release rate. This paper presents the review of combustion control technology with residual gas trapping using variable valve actuation for 4 stroke HCCI/CAI engine. Advancements in combustion control with residual gas trapping technology has been reviewed as reported in the literature, as it can realized in both single/multi-cylinder production type PFI (Port Fuel Injection) and DI (Direct Fuel Injection) gasoline engines using the NVO (negative valve overlap) approach. Initially the various aspects of residual gas trapping for PFI gasoline engine have been presented. Subsequently, DI which offers more independent control over CAI output and combustion phasing, has been discussed. Further how fuel injection timing can be used as an effective means to control CAI combustion has been evaluated. cylinder as it is compressed by the piston. In some regards, HCCI incorporates the best features of both SI and CI. Most engines employing HCCI to date have dual mode combustion systems in which traditional SI or CI combustion is used for operating conditions where HCCI operation is more difficult. Typically, the engine is cold-started as an SI or CI engine, then switched to HCCI mode for low- to mid-load operation to obtain the benefits of HCCI in this regime, which comprises a large portion of typical automotive driving cycles. For high-load operation, the engine would again be switched to SI or CIDI operation. Research efforts are underway to extend the range of HCCI operation .Combustion control is the biggest challenge to HCCI engines becoming a commercial success. Trapped Residual gas method (TRG) with variable valve actuation (VVA) seems to be one of the most effective and practical combustion control approach for four-stroke gasoline engines (PFI/DI)

2 FUNDAMENTALS OF CAI/HCCI GASOLINE ENGINES: CAI combustion is achieved by controlling the

temperature, pressure and composition of the air/fuel mixture so that auto-ignited combustion can start at the right time and will proceed without causing a runaway heat release rate. There is no direct control over the ignition timing as in a SI or CI engine In an ideal case, CAI/HCCI combustion can be described as controlled auto ignition of a premixed fuel/air mixture and involves the simultaneous reactive envelopment of the entire fuel/air mixture without a flame front. As shown fig1, the initiation of combustion always occurs at multiple sites in the premixed fuel/air mixture. The heat release process is much faster than the conventional SI combustion and is more closely described by a constant volume heat addition process, This combustion mode also results in a more uniform and repeatable heat release in comparison with that of SI operation. The cumulative heat release in such an engine is therefore the sum of the heat released Q from the complete mixture in the cylinder, m, each combustion reaction, dq i and where k is the total number of heat release reactions, and q is the heat released from the i th heat release reaction involving per unit mass of fuel and air mixture (fig 2).

Keywords: CAI, HCCI, PFI, DI, Control, NVO & Residual gas trapping 1 INTRODUCTION: HCCI is an alternative piston-engine
combustion process that can provide efficiencies as high as CI, engines while, unlike CI engines, producing ultra-low NOx and PM emissions. HCCI engines operate on the principle of having a dilute, premixed charge that reacts and burns volumetrically throughout the

2.1 Requirements For HCCI: The HCCI combustion process puts two major requirements on the conditions in the cylinder: (a) The temperature after compression stroke should equal the auto ignition temperature of the fuel/air mixture. (b) The mixture should be diluted enough to give reasonable burn rate.

Trapped Residual Gas (TRG) using VVA (Variable valve actuation): Here residual gas from the
previous cycle is trapped for next cycle by VVA and used as driving force for charge temperature to attained auto ignition temperature Amount and temperature of TRG is the tool to control the combustion. Variable compression ratio (VCR): VCR engine has the potential to achieve satisfactory operation in HCCI mode over a wide range of conditions because the compression ratio can be adjusted as the operating conditions change. Thermal control In this methodology, thermal energy from exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) and compression work from a supercharger are either recycled or rejected to obtain satisfactory combustion. Ignition-enhancing additives HCCI engine control could be achieved by using two fuels with different octane ratings.

Fig 1 HCCI combustion process

5. PRINCIPLE OF CAI/HCCI OPERATION WITH RESIDUAL GAS TRAPPING: The principle of CAI operation
with residual gas trapping is to initiate CAI combustion and to control the subsequent heat release rate by trapping large and variable amounts of residual gases in the cylinder. The burned gases from the previous cycle are trapped in the cylinder by closing the exhaust valves relatively early. Unlike spark ignition operation, the engine load is controlled primarily by the exhaust valve timing/lift. As the load is decreased, the exhaust valve closure (EVC) is advanced so that more burned gases are trapped, and the intake valve opening (IVO) is retarded accordingly to avoid backflows of residuals into the intake ports. This leads to negative valve overlap, NVO (fig 3) which is in contrast to positive valve overlap normally used in SI engines in order to maximize the volumetric efficiency Combustion control by retained residual gas is often called controlled autoignition, CAI. Fig 4 shows how residual gas can be retained using a NVO and fig 5 shows the valve timing diagram for residual gas trapping . The larger amount of residuals trapped will lead to less fresh charge being admitted into the cylinder and hence less fuel being burned. Conversely, retarded EVC will lead to reduced amount of residuals and hence more fresh charge to be flowed into the cylinder for greater work output. It is important to note that such operations are carried out with wide open throttle and hence there are no pumping losses associated with a partly closed throttle as in the SI operation. From above discussion it can be realized that Variable valve actuation (VVA) needs to be used to control the timing / lift of exhaust valve and inlet valve to control the initial charge temperature by retaining variable amount of residual gas. VVA exists in many flavors with different degrees of freedom. VVA could be implemented in an engine with mechanical, magnetic, or hydraulic valve actuators. There are systems that merely provide cam phasing on the intake/exhaust cam shaft. Other systems provide cam profile switching, CPS, or combinations of cam phasing and CPS. Finally there are systems that provide fully variable valve

Fig 2 heat released in HCCI combustion 3 CHALLENGES FOR HCCI COMBUSTION [1]: HCCI combustion is achieved by controlling the temperature, pressure, and composition of the fuel and air mixture so that it spontaneously ignites in the engine. This control system is fundamentally more challenging than using a spark plug or fuel injector to determine ignition timing as used in SI and CI engines, respectively. The recent advent of electronic engine controls has enabled consideration of HCCI combustion for application to commercial engines. Even so, several technical barriers must be overcome to make HCCI engines applicable to a wide range of vehicles and viable for high volume production. Significant challenges include: Controlling Ignition Timing and Burn Rate Over a Range of Engine Speeds and Loads Extending the Operating Range of HCCI to High Engine Loads Cold-Starts and transient response with HCCI Engines Minimizing Hydrocarbon and Carbon Monoxide Emissions 4 ADVANCEMENTS IN COMBUSTION CONTROL TECHNOLOGIES [1]: Combustion control is the biggest
challenge to HCCI engines becoming a commercial success. For this reason, several methods have been proposed for achieving HCCI engine control over the wide range of operating conditions required for typical transportation-engine applications. Control technologies reported in the literature have demonstrated some degree of success. Some of the proposed methods include:

timing as well as lift (electro-hydraulic / electro-magnetic VVA system). The NVO approach is attractive since many production engines have VVA capability that allows CPS and cam phasing.

timings, which could be continuously changed by up to 40 degrees crank angle. All experiments were carried out when the coolant reached 90 0 C or over in order to minimize the effects of coolant temperature.

6.1 Performance and combustion characteristics

It was found that the largely increased trapped residuals alone were sufficient to achieve CAI in this engine and with VCT, a range of loads between 0.5 and 4 bar BMEP and engine speeds between 1000 and 3500 rpm ( fig 6) were mapped for CAI fuel consumption and exhaust emissions. The measured CAI results were compared with those of Spark Ignition (SI) combustion in the same engine but with standard camshafts at the same speeds and loads. There was a linear correlation between the residual fraction and engine output, independent of the engine speed (fig 7). The higher the residual fraction was, the lower the torque became. As the engine was operated at WOT, the mass in the cylinder was more or less the same and only the mixture concentration changed . Fig 8 shows variation of the maximum rate of pressure rise with residuals or load. In most cases, the maximum rate of pressure rise decreased with residuals or increased with load, so was the peak cylinder pressure. The rate of maximum pressure rise varied between 1 and 7 bar/CA.

Fig 3 Illustration of NVO strategy (dashed) as opposed to the normal positive valve overlap strategy (solid).

Fig 4 In-cylinder P- diagram with residual gas trapping

Fig 6 CAI operation range with residual gas trapping

6.2 Fuel consumption and emission characteristics

Fig 9 to12 compare the fuel consumption and emission results of the CAI combustion mode and SI mode from the same engine. The comparison showed more than 30% reduction in BSFC (Fig 9) is seen . Up to 99% reduction in NOx at low loads(fig 10) is seen with CAI operation But it should be noted that CAI combustion in the 4stroke gasoline engine had been always associated with higher CO emissions than the SI combustion until the residual gas trapping method was employed.(fig 12). Fig 11 shows that the unburned HCs were much higher from CAI combustion than that from SI combustion with port-fuel injection, but they were on a par with those from the stratified charge direct injection gasoline engine

Fig 5 Valve timing diagrams for different operation strategies.

6. CAI OPERATION IN A FOUR-STROKE PORT FUEL INJECTION (PFI) GASOLINE ENGINE

J. Li & et. al. [2] first investigated the performance and emission characteristic on 4-cylinder production type PFI gasoline engine using substantially standard components, modified only in cam dimensions to control the gas exchange process in order to significantly increase the trapped residuals. operating with CAI and equipped with Variable Cam Timing (VCT) .The engine used was a Ford 1.7 Litre Zetec SE 16-valve 4-cylinder PFI gasoline engine with sequential fuel injection strategy to ensure that the same mixture preparation event was applied to each of the four cylinders The intake and exhaust camshafts were equipped with two independent VCT system with a pair of special camshafts of reduced lift and the compression ratio was kept at 10.3. The fuel used was the standard unleaded gasoline of RON 95. During the tests the throttle was kept at wide open and the air flow was changed by varying the cam

7 EFFECT OF DI ON CAI COMBUSTION IN THE 4STROKE GASOLINE ENGINE During the CAI operation,
engine output is principally controlled by the EVC timing. As the engine load or speed increases, combustion starts earlier and burns faster, leading to too rapid a rate of heat release and very high peak cylinder pressure as well as higher fuel consumption.

Fig 7 Effect of residual fraction on maxi. Rate of Pressure rise.

Fig 11 Changes in BSHCs emissions (%) with CAI combustion relative to SI.

Fig 8 Relationship between residual fraction & engine o/p

Fig 9 Changes in BSFC (%) with CAI combustion relative to SI.

Fig 10 Changes in BSNOx emissions (%) with CAI combustion At the low load region, the very retarded combustion causes large cyclic variation and even partial burn therefore, it will be desirable and necessary to find other means capable of more independent control over the combustion phasing from the engine load, in order to improve the CAI combustion and its operational range Research done at the Brunel Universitys laboratory [35] has shown that direct fuel injection into the cylinder can be used as one of the most effective means of controlling the combustion phasing for optimised engine performance and emissions. This section will present some of the main findings from such studies

Fig 12 Changes in BSCO emissions (%) with CAI combustion relative to SI. There are three significant phases occurring sequentially in the CAI engine cycle with negative valve overlap, namely, residuals trapping, residuals conditioning and CAI combustion. Each phase has an effect on the following, with the end-of-cycle conditions feeding back to the first phase in order to sustain the CAI operation continuously. The residual trapping phase is controlled primarily by the exhaust valve closing timing (variable early EVC) and the trapped residuals temperature Once trapped, the mass of the residuals is fixed for the subsequent cycle, but its temperature and pressure are variable during the residuals conditioning phase according to re-compression and reexpansion and further heat subtraction and heat addition if fuel can be injected directly into the residuals during that period. At the end of the residuals conditioning phase which also marks the beginning the intake period (variable late IVO), the released temperature and pressure of the residuals will affect the intake air flow, the charge dilution (residuals/total volume ratio) and the combustible charge temperature, while direct fuel injection during the intake and compression periods will affect the charge homogeneity or stratification as well as charge temperature and quantity, leading up to the CAI combustion phase which is characterized by the CAI ignition timing, heat release rate, IMEP, ISFC and exhaust emissions. The final exhaust gas temperature after CAI is then fed back to the next cycle to initiate the next residuals trapping phase Initially single fuel injection timing strategy has been used to study its effect on combustion characteristics which has been further grouped into three categories [7] : ( i ) Early injections during the negative valve overlap period, in which fuel is injected into the hot residual gas in the cylinder for the

purpose of reforming the fuel or initiating the minor combustion if possible, and improving ignitability; (ii) Mid-injections during the intake stroke and early compression stroke to create a homogeneous mixture of different charge temperature or quantity; (iii) Late injections during the late compression stroke for charge/thermal stratification. 7.1 Early injections during the NVO period R Standing & et al. [ 5 ] Investigated the effects of injection timing and valve timings on CAI operation in a multi-cylinder DI gasoline engine having displacement volume of 1.6 liters and a compression ratio of 11.5. A high pressure swirl injector mounted below and between the two intake valves was operated at an injection pressure of 100 bars. Both intake and exhaust camshafts were equipped with VVT devices and their cam lobes were machined to produce maximum valve lifts around 2 mm. fig13 shows the effect of fuel injection timings on the main combustion process. It can be seen that the earlier the fuel injection took place during the negative valve overlap period, the more advanced the start of main combustion when the engine operated with a lean fuel air mixture. However, in the case of stoichiometric mixture shown in fig 14 fuel injection at 20 BTDC during the recompression phase led to the earliest combustion, followed by 40 BTDC and TDC injections. Delayed injection into the intake stroke resulted in the most retarded combustion and the lowest peak pressure in both stoichiometric and lean mixtures. In addition it can be seen that the early injections into lean burned mixtures led to more advanced combustion than for stoichiometric mixtures. In order to understand better the underlying mechanisms, detailed analysis has been carried out at Brunel University [6] on the physical and chemical processes taking place within the cylinder by means of 3-D full cycle engine simulation. The simulation programme is based on the KIVA3v with improvements in turbulence, the gas/wall heat transfer, spray atomization, ignition and combustion and it takes into account the gas exchange processes that are crucial to the residual gas trapping method. The Shell ignition model was chosen and has been modified to simulate the auto-ignition process in low temperature combustion. For the high temperature combustion, a characteristic time combustion model is used. The transition from auto-ignition to the main combustion process is based on the local cell temperature: when the temperature of a cell exceeds 1080K, high temperature combustion model is activated for such a cell. The simulation programme was validated against engine experiments before it was applied to study CAI combustions. The main combustion characteristics for injections during the NVO period are summarised in Table 1. The value of net IMEP is closely related to combustion phasing and pumping loss. Both too early combustion phasing and higher pumping losses contribute to lower IMEP values with injections at 40 and 20 ATDCoverlap, as compared with the injection at 75 ATDCoverlap. Comparing the cases with injections at 75 ATDCoverlap and TDCoverlap, the combustion phasings of those two injection cases are quite similar, however the higher pumping losses result in lower IMEP with injection at TDCoverlap

and underlying mechanism of mid and late injections on CAI combustion were examined Figure 15 shows the pressure and heat release rate varying with injection timings. Comparing the two injections during the intake stroke, the start of combustion is slightly retarded with later injection timing(SOI at 150 ATDC Overlap), leading to lower peak pressure. Table.2 shows that there is little difference in the compression temperature between the two injections during the intake stroke. The delayed start of combustion with later injection is therefore likely related to the time available for fuel to mix with air and subsequent low temperature chemical reactions. However, the combustion phasing is advanced, as the injection is retarded further into the compression stroke (SOI at 218 ATDC Overlap). This is more likely due to the in-cylinder mixture stratification. Based on the above studies, the mechanisms of combustion phasing control by injection timing in a lean-burn CAI DI gasoline engine can be summarized herewith. The factors include the thermal/chemical effects caused by early injection during the NVO period, or charge cooling effect by injection during the intake stroke, or fuel stratification effect by late injection at the compression stroke. Heat release or thermal effect associated with injection during the NVO period has a dominant effect on advancing the start of main combustion. The chemical effect is secondary and its presence promotes the first stage of ignition during the compression stroke. However, injection during the negative valve overlap period can also slow down the main combustion process, if the in-cylinder temperature during the recompression process is reduced significantly due to charge cooling effect and hence less or no heat release reactions can take place during the recompression and reexpansion. The late injection during the compression stroke can lead to an advanced combustion due to charge stratification, whilst the injection during the intake stroke slows down the start of main combustion by charge cooling effects.

Fig 13 In cylinder pressure and heat release with various injection timing for lean mixtures

7.2 Mid and late injections during the intake and compression strokes Using the same 3-D full cycle engine simulation, the effect

Fig14 In cylinder pressure and heat release with various injection timing for stoichiometric mixtures

Table 1 Effect of early fuel injection timing on CAI combustion at 1500 rpm & = 1.2

engines using the NVO approach with VVA technology that allows CPS and cam phasing. It is achieved by trapping copious amount of burned gases in the cylinder through EVC early. Such engines are characterized with superior fuel economy due to the lack of throttling loss and extremely low NOx emissions. However, the range of CAI operation needs to be significantly extended not only to the high load region but also the low load region to take advantage the fuel economy and low emission benefits across the vehicle driving modes. DI is one such technology which offers more independent control over CAI output and combustion phasing for optimized performance and emissions as compared to PFI. It has shown that fuel injection timing in DI can be used as an effective means to control CAI combustion.

REFERENCES
1. Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition(HCCI) Technology , A Report by Office of Transportation Technologies ,U.S. Department of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, 2001. 2. Li, J., Zhao, H., and Ladommatos, N., Research and development of controlled auto-ignition (CAI) combustion in a four-stroke multicylinder gasoline engine, SAE paper 2001-01-3608, 2001. 3. Leach, B., Zhao, H., Li, Y., Ma, T., Control of CAI combustion through injection timing in a GDI engine with an air-assited injector, SAE Paper 2005-01-0134, 2005. 4. Li, Y., Zhao H., Bruzos N., Ma T., and Leach B., Effect of Injection Timing on Mixture and CAI Combustion in a GDI Engine with an Air-Assisted Injector, SAE Paper 2006-01-0206, SAE Special Publication SP-2005, 2006. 5. Standing, R., Kalian, N., Ma, T., Zhao, H., Effects of injection timing and valve timings on CAI operation in a multi-cylinder DI gasoline engine, SAE paper 2005- 01-0132, 2005. 6. Cao, L, Zhao, H., Jiang. X, Kalin, N., Investigation into the Effect of Injection Timing on Stoichiometric and Lean CAI operations in a 4-Stroke GDI Engine, SAE Paper 2006-01-0417, 2006. 7. Hua Zhao HCCI and CAI engines for the automotive industry 1st ed., Woodhead Publishing Limited ,ISBN 978-1-84569-128-8, 2007.
Authors brief bio-data and photograph

Fig 15 Pressure & heat rate profiles with mid & late injections Table 2 Effect of mid & late fuel injection timing on CAI combustion at 1500 rpm & = 1.2

CONCLUSION: CAI combustion control has been realized in

both single / multi-cylinder production type PFI and DI gasoline

Shri Santosh B. Trimbake presently Assistant professor in Mechanical Engg Dept of College of Military Engineering Pune 411031 affiliated to JNU, New Delhi. Author is M Tech (Thermal & Fluids Engg) from IIT Powai. Area of interest is I C Engines & Refrigeration & Air Conditioning. He Possesses total experience of 14 years, out of which 5 years served in Defence Industry (Ordnance factory) & remaining 9 years in teaching

santoshtrimbake@yahoo.co.in

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