Professional Documents
Culture Documents
External combustion: the combustion occurs at the exterior of the engine and the energy
is given by heat transfer (steam engine, steam turbine, Stirling motor)
Internal combustion: the combustion take place in confine space and the engine works
without heat transfer. We distinguish:
o Continuous combustion process: turbojet, gas turbine
o Intermittent combustion process: piston engine
The domains of application of piston engine are very numerous: transport of persons and goods
(railway, ship, airplane), energy production (electricity, pneumatic energy) or tools (agriculture
machine, mine construction).
The basic principle of the combustion engine is: To create a periodic reaction of controlled quantity of
oxygen and fuel in a confined space and use the resulting pressure in a variable volume to operate. The
summarize, the energy pass by
( ) ( )
The classical fuels are hydrocarbon or oil derivatives. There are also alternative fuels (biofuel,
hydrogen).
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( )
4-strokes engines: inlet compression combustion exhaust. Each stroke takes one
half of rotation and then a complete cycle take two rotations.
2-strokes engines: A complete cycle takes one rotation. Thus we combine several strokes
in one: inlet and outlet happens simultaneously.
Diesel engines (also named compression ignition (CI) engine): the mixture of air and fuel
is injected during the combustion strokes (not during the inlet) and then the compression
occurs only on air. Thus we can use a larger compression ratio without risk of explosion
Otto engine (or spark ignition engine): The mixture is already present before the spark.
The energy is given by a deflagration.
where is the volume of the piston displacement and is the air volume when the piston is at
the top dead centre (TDC).
55bars and the temperature is closed to 700-900°C. Strong metal is needed for this type of engine
(because of the high pressure). The high pressure also imposes a high pressure injection (to
counter the intern pressure of the combustion chamber). The injection is made by a nozzle. The
fuel ignites when it enters in the piston and then the temperature increases to 2000-3000°C and
the pressure to 70-115bars.
Cylinder arrangement
We can discuss the advantages and disadvantages
of more than one cylinder:
Advantages:
o Small degree of speed irregularities
(only a small fly wheel required)
o Almost constant torque
o Easy to balance
o Saving on R&D and production cost
o Decrease the centrifugal effect
(cylinder with smaller dimension)
and then permit a higher power (because
we can have higher rotation speed).
o One cylinder present problem of cooling,
combustion and thermal stresses for high
power delivery
Disadvantages:
o Precise finishing and strict standardization
are needed and then the cost increase.
o More wear due to smaller dimension and
higher rotation speed
o Difficult accessibility
o A particular attention must be port to the inlet, the exhaust and the cooling
Piston form
In the piston-conrod system, the piston
vibration creates leakage (losing air or
mixture). In the cross-head system, the
piston move perfectly up and down and
then the leakage disappears. But it is a
much heavy system. Then, it imposes a
lower rotation speed and then less
power production. Thus it is impossible
to use this type of systems for large motor like in trucks. But we can use it for energy production
where the dimension is not a problem (then we can have a very big motor for which the velocity
is not a big issue).
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Cylinder cooling
We can cool the engine by water or by air. The water cooling is more efficient. But with water,
we need a reservoir, we must be care of the corrosion, the water can freeze and then expand and
break mechanical parts (it is why we put glycol in the water). For small motor (like for MBK), we
use air fins to cool the piston.
Piston parts
The piston ring is used to seal the
piston. We must have a good sealing
because of the pressure difference
between compression and
decompression.
Valve actuation
The camshaft must be synchronised with the crankshaft. This can be made by a chain for
example. The cam can be on the combustion space or under it.
Rotary engine
The purpose of this engine is to create a rotation from a
rotation and then have a pure rotary engine (avoid
transmission problem). Most of the time, it is use in
spark ignition system (easier with a spark than with an
injector). By analysing, we see that the motor take three
inlet-outlet to perform one complete cycle. But at the
same time, the process occurs three times (but not on
the same step). This motor has the advantages of a 2-
stroke engine (one cycle for one explosion) and the ones of the 4-strokes engine (no loss of fuel).
The working principle is the following: During the first step, a mixture of air and fuel enter in
the motor. During the second one (upper right), the used air of a previous cycle is exhaust out of
the engine. The new mixture is compressed and the spark ignites. During the third step, the inlet
are closed and the explosion cause an expansion (translate in rotation here). During the last step,
the exhaust open and the used gases go out.
Operational parameters
Thus the maximum power is not localised at the same speed than
the maximum torque because for an increasing speed, the power
also increases.
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Construction data
We have the fixed parameters: bore B (dimension of the cylinder), the stroke S (distance
travelled by the piston). We have also the number of piston N. The compression ratio was
defined earlier
where . The compression ratio of a diesel engine is higher than for spark ignition
engine (permits higher temperature). In Otto engine, the compression ratio is limited by the
mixture: we can have knock if the compression is too high.
Some definition:
The specific power is the number of kilowatts produced per litre (displacement volume)
The specific weight is how many kilograms of fuel we need to produce one kilowatt.
Then the lower this parameter is, the lower the consumption
The air-fuel ration L and the air factor are defined like in previous courses (see later).
We can see that if the air-fuel ratio is stoichiometric.
is the effective efficiency. It is function of the energy losses in the engine: heat,
energy lost in exhaust gases, friction… For diesel, we have an efficiency of 45% and for a
Otto engine, we have a efficiency about 35%.
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The first graph gives the pressure in the cylinder in function of the position of the piston. The
complete line gives the pressure with combustion and the dashed one gives the pressure
without combustion. We see some particular points on the graph: EVC (exhaust valve closed),
IVC (inlet valve closed), EVO (exhaust valve open) and IVO (inlet valve open).
We see that the inlet valve is open a little bit before the top dead centre: We open the inlet valve
when the exhaust one is still open to use the depression created by this one.
In practice the ignition and combustion begin a little bit before the top dead centre, it is the pre-
ignition. The pressure is not maximum on the top dead centre, but continue to increase when the
piston start to go down. It is due to the fact that the deflagration is not finish when the piston
arrives on the top dead centre.
To ensure a clean mixture (without residue of combustion) we must give more time to the
exhaust. Thus we open the exhaust valve before the bottom dead centre. So we see that a part of
the pressure created is not used.
∫ ( ) ( )
Where is a motor coefficient which is 1 for a 2-stroke engine and ½ for a 4-stroke. ( ) is the
force-torque transfer function between piston and crankshaft. The is the difference of
pressure between the TDC and the BTC. It is averaged on all cylinders and for a lot of cycles.
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The filling
The filling is defined by
This parameter evaluates the difference between the mass of air (if the cylinder is filled with air)
and the mass of the fuel mixture inserted in the system. One can show that this parameter must
be as high as possible. The filling evolution is given in the following graph
The line B shows that at low time there is enough time to exchange heat and then the filling
decrease but for high speed the exchange becomes complicated and the filling increases. The
curve C indicates the effect of friction due to the fact that the fuel is not perfect. The curve G is a
tuning of the curve F made by improving the valve timing. This tuning is made by using the
resonance frequency effect. This is made at the level of the inlet manifold. First the mixture
enters in the piston and then the inlet manifold is closed. Thus the mixture is pushed in the inlet
and goes hit the bottom of the inlet. Then it is projected in the direction of the piston. If we open
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the inlet manifold exactly at the moment when the mixture arrives on the valve, the inlet
mixture (in the piston) will have a higher speed and then the filling will be easier. So we see that
the opening of the inlet manifold must be done at the resonant frequency of the system
mixture+manifold.
A last effect seen in the graph is the limitation due to sound speed (risk of chocking).
Notion of power
For a perfect theoretical engine, the power is given by
( )
But it is a pure theoretical system. In reality, we can define different sort of power:
The normalized effective power is the power measured on the crankshaft of the engine
including all aggregates: water pump, alternator, oil pump, air filter, exhaust system. It
represents the maximum power in continuous use. It can be measured by
where m.c. stand for measuring condition. So we see that the temperature and pressure of the
ambient have an effect on the power delivery (the power delivery of an engine on a plane
decrease when the plane goes up). We can analyse it: If the pressure decrease, the mass flow in
the piston will decrease. Then, there are less mass in the piston and then less power in the
engine (the filling decrease).
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We see in the graph the evolution of the power and the torque in function of the rotation speed.
We also see the fuel consumption .
We see that at low speed, there are only few turbulences. Turbulences are needed to improve the
capacity of the motor (better mix of the fuel and the air in the combustion chamber and then
better combustion). But too much turbulence can lead to a loss of energy.
At high speed, we see that there is not enough time to put all the exhaust gases out and there is a
loss of energy (scavenging losses). Indeed, if a part of the burned gases remains in the chamber,
the filling will be worst.
We see that for a certain speed, there exist a minimum of fuel consumption. We also see
maximums for the torque and the power (not on the same speed).
̇
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Another mean pressure is the one measure on the crankshaft . It is defined by the expansion
pressure that delivers the same labour as the crankshaft provides
Efficiency
Here also there are different types of efficiency computable. The first one is the perfect efficiency
(the one of theoretical model) given by
where is the mass of fuel and is the lowest combustion value (enthalpie). The
thermodynamic efficiency is the ratio of the indicated labour and the perfect one
̇
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where ̇ . It is the ratio between the effective power and the ideal power. For a diesel
engine, it is closed to 0.3-0.45 and for an Otto engine, it is closed to 0.25-0.30. Finally, we can
define the mechanical efficiency
̇
̇
The stoichiometric value is . thus if you burn one kilogram of fuel, you need to use 14.6
kilograms of air. The air factor is given by and is one if the system is stoichiometric. We
can also define the fuel factor . So the inlet heat is given by
( )
where ( ) is equal to if it is smaller or equal to 1 and is equal to 1 when the air factor is bigger
than 1. The first case correspond to rich mixture, the second one correspond to poor mixture.
Fuels
Fuel has en influence on the engine design, the power and torque, the consumption, and the
reliability and life span. There are different types of fuels: solid (only for test engine), liquid
(mostly used), and gaseous.
There are different types of liquid fuels: gas (methane, ethane, propane), petrol, gasoline (for
petrol engines), kerosene (tractor, gasturbines), gasoil, diesel, lubrication oil, asphalt…
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All this fuels are extracted from the crude oil which is a mixture of hydrocarbons (paraffin,
naftene, asphalt…). This crude oil is converted into the different fuel in the refinery. The first
step is to distillate the oil and the second one is to refine (cracking, reforming…). In reality, these
fuels are not pure substance. They are mixture of hydrocarbons with different structure and
molecular mass.
The most known fuels are the petrol and the diesel.
Petrol: It is an explosive fuel. Is boiling trajectory goes from 30°C to 200°C. Then it is
possible to have evaporated gases at ambient temperature. Its composition is 60-80%
paraffin, 15-30% naftenes, 0-10% aromatics (benzene) and 0-2% oilfines. Its density is
approximately 0.720-0.775 kg/l.
Diesel: It cannot explode at ambient temperature (not evaporated gases). It is mainly
composed of paraffin. Its boiling trajectory goes from 180°C to 370°C.
The vapour pressure must be limited to 60kPa during summer and 90kPa during winter. Thus
during summer, we use heavier hydrocarbures which do not evaporate.
The auto-ignition temperature is the lowest temperature at which the fuel ignites automatically.
For petrol, it is closed to 480-550°C and for Diesel, it is closed to 330-350°C. It is lower for diesel,
but is a good thing because in diesel engine, we use the auto-ignition process (the fuel is injected
by an injector and ignites automatically when it enter in the combustion chamber).
The octane number measure the knock stability, i.e. the presence of auto-ignition. The two limits
are the iso-octane which is 100% knock free and the iso-heptane which is 0%. So a
high octane number corresponds to a mixture which knocks hardly. It can be obtained by
adding oxygenises component like alcohol in the mixture (but alcohol increase volatility and
damage material).
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The deposit and the corrosion are a serious problem for diesel engine. They are originating from
fuel and dirty oil. A high paraffin concentration decreases the quantity of deposit. The sulphur
in fuel promotes deposits and cause chemical corrosion. Thus we need to decrease the quantity
of sulphur in the fuel.
The ignition delay is defined as the time between the injection and the spontaneous combustion.
It decreases with an increase of compression rate, inlet and temperature. Indeed, the larger these
values, the closer the auto-ignition limits are approached after compression. The ignition delay
can be measured by the cetane number.
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We can see that the octane number gives the slow burning property and the cetane number
gives the fast burning property.
Alternative fuels
There are three famous alternatives for fossil fuel: the methanol, the hydrogen and the biofuels.
Methanol
It is a derivative of oil, natural gas or coal. The problem of this fuel is that it evaporates very
quickly. The heat power (enthalpie) of the methanol is about a half of the one of petrol. Due to
large vaporisation heat, pre-heating is necessary. But as octane number is high, the compression
ratio can be increased.
Hydrogen
It has a high octane number and need a small ignition delay. It is suitable for petrol and diesel
engine. The main problem of the hydrogen is the storage problem. Indeed, hydrogen is an
explosive.
Biofuels
There are several types of biofuels (colza, wood, cereals…) and conversion technologies. It is not
neutral but has a positive balance. In another hand, there are a lot of different types of
biofuel and then some of them are very bad (environmentally). Another important aspect is that
the biofuel can be economically profitable.
The mixing is made by evaporation of the fuel and then mixing the gas with the inlet air. Then
we obtain a flammable, gaseous mixture of homogeneous quality.
The figure up-side provides the theoretical lay-out of the carburettor. We can compute the
velocity of the air by applying the Bernoulli’s equation
which gives
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√ ( )
where is the average density. We can also compute the velocity of the fuel by applying
Bernoulli between point a and s
( )
which gives
√ ( )
( )
̇ ̇
To accelerate (e.g. for large power demand), a rich mixture must be available during a short
time. Therefore, extra petrol should be injected during a short time. The main fuel nozzle cannot
be used immediately due to the flow inertia. This is why we use an accelerating pump. This is
made by a throttle. When the throttle is closed, there is an under pressure in A and then the
piston move to the right against the spring. When the throttle is open, there is no under pressure
in A and the spring push the piston to the left and extra fuel is ejected in the venturi.
Stationary running demands a rich mixture because atomizing and vaporisation are insufficient
at very low flow speed. Then we need a stationary regulation. For that, we add a stationary
nozzle. There will be an extra jet in B because air speed is there very high at closed throttle. In
addition, the mixture ratio can be controlled by means of calibrated restriction for the petrol and
a control screw for the air.
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The carburettor also contains a choke. Indeed, at cold start, a rich mixture is needed because the
vaporisation of petrol is still difficult in the cold intake manifold and cylinder. The idea is to add
an extra valve called choke placed before the venturi to reduce the air flow and induce locally a
large underpressure resulting in a rich mixture. The choke can be fully opened as soon as the
engine becomes warm. For this reason, the choke is, in most versions, automatically opened at
sufficient high engine temperature.
Fuel injection
The carburettors are outdated by indirect injection, because it has better performances and is
conform to emission requirement. And actually, the indirect injection is more and more replaced
by the direct injection. It has a higher power, a lower fuel consumption (and therefore CO2
emission). It also requires other catalysts ( ).
1. High power and torque: Better and more equal filling of cylinders. The air flow is not
disturbed (the intake manifold can be design on the air flow). And finally with the
injection, we give a better cylinder cooling and then increase the volumetric efficiency.
Indeed, by limiting the risk of knock, we can increase the volumetric ratio.
2. A lower specific fuel consumption: The cylinder receive optimal and equal fuel quantity
and the increasing of the volumetric ratio gives an efficiency raise.
3. It improve the adaptability and the response time: the system responds more rapidly to
load variation
4. It gives clean exhaust gases: The combustion is more complete and then there is less toxic
exhaust.
5. It can be integrated to other system.
The difference between the injection and the use of carburettor is that for the carburettor, we
make the mixing of air and fuel and then send it to the cylinder; with the injector, we send a
quantity of air and the injector sends a quantity of fuel computed in function of the air quantity.
The common rail guarantees that the pressure is at constant level. The injectors are controlled by
a CPU.
The figure upside shows the different sensor needed to control the injector. We measure the
volume and the temperature of the inlet air (and then have the mass of air). The CPU will
determined how long must be the injector opening to ensure the good quantity of fuel in the
mixture.
Direct injection
In direct injection, the fuel is directly injected into the cylinder (it is
comparable to the diesel injection). The cylinder filling is possible in two
different ways: laminated and homogeneous. The first one optimizes the
fuel consumption by adding turbulences in the cylinder (by decreasing
the section of the intake manifold). Then the mixture is better mixed and
we need less fuel to have the same efficiency. We use this technique when
we do not need too much power and torque. When we need a lot of
power and torque, we use the homogeneous filling (it is the normal
operating mode of the engine).
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There are two ways to provide a high voltage: by using a battery or a magneto. The battery
ignition can be made by coil ignition, transistor ignition or electronic ignition. The coil ignition is
made with two circuits: the primary (with low voltage and high current) and the secondary
(with high voltage). The spark is then created by breaking the current with a contact breaker. It
must be done at the good moment in order to produce the spark at the right time. The magneto
ignition is made with a permanent magneto which permits to create a voltage. For example, on
the old car, we had a manifold to turn in order to induce a current in the circuit (by magnetism)
and then create a spark to start the engine. The scheme shows the ignition system in an Otto
engine.
We see the ignition distributor (tête de delco) which sends the current to the right cylinder. In
the ignition coil, we distinguish the primary and secondary circuit. The battery provides a
tension of 12V for cars and 24V for trucks.
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( )
If we analyse the evolution of the tension across the spark plug, we see a big
increasing of the tension and then a fast decreasing. The increasing is the
tension across the plug which increases because the primary circuit was
break and then the tension of the secondary enhances. When the tension is
sufficiently high, the air is sufficiently ionised and then the spark occurs. At
this moment the tension decreases because the current pass. After that, we
see an oscillation in the circuit. It comes from the primary circuit which is
closed again. At this moment, the condenser is active and with the resistor
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and the inductance, they form a RLC circuit which creates oscillation.
We also see that if the engine turn slowly, there are less turbulences in the
cylinder and then less fuel closed to the spark and then the voltage must be
higher.
Pre-ignition
We make a pre-ignition because the deflagration takes a certain time: the flame front take a
certain time to arrive to the top of the piston. Then we ignite the system before the piston arrives
to the TDC to ensure good working conditions. The time the flame needs to arrive to the piston
top is given by where is the distance between the spark plug and the TDC and is the
flame speed. Thus the pre-ignition angle will be given by . But is
proportional to the dead volume and then
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But it is impossible to measure the flame speed into the cylinder, thus we need other parameters
to compute the ignition advance. But we know that the flame speed depends on the properties
of the fuel. One can see that when the octane number increases, the flame front speed also
increases (this is why pre-ignition angle is smaller for spark ignition engine). Thus we can use
this parameters to design the pre-ignition angle.
The following figure shows a system where the ignition is controlled electronically.
By analysing, we can see that knock causes high frequency vibration into
the cylinder. Thus we can use accelerometer (see the course about
vibration) to detect the knock into the motor. We filter the measuring to
keep only the high frequencies (because there are a lot of vibrations in the motor but we must
focus on the knock vibration). We need to measure the vibration very closed to the knock. Thus
we put the sensor directly on the cylinder or on the cylinder block.
One can show that the knock is caused by a very high temperature into the cylinder. Then a first
solution was to inject water into the combustion chamber. Because of the high temperature, it
evaporates directly and takes a part of the energy, and then decreases the temperature of the
cylinder. But this solution was not good for the life time of the engine. The actual solution is to
decrease the ignition advance when we detect knock.
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It is possible to have knock in only one cylinder. For example when the cylinder is at the end of
the cooling system, it is worst cooled and then more subject to knock. When knock is detected,
the ignition angle is changed (by the CPU). Then the ignition is made during the expansion of
the volume and the energy production is lower. Thus the temperature decrease and most of the
time the knock disappears. Mainly, we keep the ignition advance at this (small) level for about
200 rotations and then come back to the ideal pre-ignition angle. If the knock reappears, there is
a problem into the motor and the warning light turn on in the car interface.
1. Heating of the mixture to approximately 100°C. This point depend on the outside
temperature, the vaporisation of the fuel, the heating by the cylinder walls, the cooling
system, the pre-heating of incoming air and the presence of residual gases. To perform a
better heating of the incoming air, we can put the inlet and the exhaust manifold closed
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The figure on the right gives the variation of the pressure in the
combustion chamber in function of the position of the piston. We see
that the ignition provides a very large increasing of the pressure.
( ) ( )
So it is a function of the temperature and of the composition of the mixture. In turbulent regime,
the flame speed is given by
( )
where is a factor of form (of the combustion chamber) and is the piston speed (the more it is
high, the more there are turbulences). The flame speed is a big issue. Indeed, with a low flame
speed, there is a risk to have auto-ignition in the chamber.
The thermodynamic: combustion heat , the temperature, the pressure, the mixture
composition(for a rich or a lean mixture, the speed decreases),…
Aerodynamic: The speed is proportional to the rotation speed. Indeed, if the piston
speed increases, then the turbulences also increase and thus the flame speed can be
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faster. The augmentation of the turbulences decreases the volumetric efficiency (not a
good thing). In another hand, it permits a better cooling of the system by increasing the
heat losses. So we see that it is important to distinguish enough turbulences and too
much turbulences
Chemical factors: reaction kinetics, propagation mechanisms
Geometrical aspect: the shape of the combustion chamber
Kinematic aspect: the motion of the piston
The fuel: The octane number, the molecular structure, the additives (to increase the
octane number).
The mixture properties: The air factor: we obtain the highest combustion temperature for
(lightly rich mixture). When a part of the fuel does not oxidise and when
, we need to warm up the excess of air. Other important mixture properties are the
temperature of the inlet air and the presence of residual gases.
Operational parameters: Rotational speed (increasing it causes a decreasing of the
volumetric efficiency and an increasing of the turbulences, then the combustion
temperature decreases), the load (for heavy load, the combustion temperature increase
and also the knock sensitivity), the pre-ignition (increasing it make a decrease of the
combustion temperature and then decreases the knock sensitivity).
The compression ratio: if the ratio increases, the knock sensitivity increases.
Deposits in the combustion chambers: increases the knock sensitivity
The shape of the combustion chamber
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Like we said before, it is possible to detect the knock by measuring the vibration on the cylinder
block. Because the high frequencies are strongly damped, it is important to measure the
vibration as close as possible of the cause of vibration. Then we put several sensors to the
cylinder block. We know that the piezoelectric accelerometer work only under the Curie
temperature (the piezoelectric element become a dielectric above this temperature). Then we
must find another system to measure the vibration into the engine.
The glow ignition is the particular case where the auto-ignition is caused by hot point in the
chamber (spark, exhaust valve, glowing deposit…). We distinguish two different glow ignitions:
the early glow ignition (which causes a negative labour, a thermal load on parts of the cylinder
and the temperature increase with possible fracture or failure as consequences) and the late
glow ignition. The simple condition for glow ignition is to have a temperature higher than the
auto-ignition temperature of the mixture on a point of the chamber.
In order to avoid auto-ignition in the chamber, we need to have a small distance between the
spark plug and the walls of the combustion chamber (decreasing the time needed for the flame
front to go to the wall). We also need to avoid hot surface or ignition points. And finally, we
need a sufficient whirl (turbulence) because it give a higher speed of deflagration (and then
decrease the time needed for the flame front to go to the walls of the chamber).
There are some structural requirements which must be met by the design. First we must have
small bore, preferably limited to 150mm (note that it is not the case for diesel engine). We also
need a small distance between the plug and the exhaust valve. The cooling must be sufficient in
order to avoid knock, but not too effective because the efficiency of the motor is higher for high
temperature.
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Combustion chamber in the cylinder head: side valves, tube shaped, wedge shaped,
hemispherical…
Combustion chamber in the piston: bath tube
Combustion chamber in the piston and the cylinder heat: used with direct injection
engine
The figure on the left presents the side valve system. The main
disadvantage is the dimension of the combustion chamber which does
not permit optimal combustion. But the exhaust valve is closed to the
spark plug and we have a narrow space which causes the necessary
turbulences. This system works with small compression ratio.
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Here we present the bath tub shape. It provides a small distance between
the electrode and the walls. The long oval form of the chamber provides
enough turbulence. The mixture is squished (ecrasé) between the cylinder
head and the piston.
Directly injected engine are engines for which the combustion chamber is
localised into the piston. With this system, the turbulent mixture is pushed
to the spark plug. This system provides a combination of the roof shaped
combustion and the shaped piston.
The evolution of the greenhouse gases concentration is given in the following graphics
To make the analysis of the greenhouse gases more comprehensible, we computed the
equivalent in (comparison of the effect):
For the Otto engine, the most severe problem is the carbon monoxide. But it can be treated easily
even before send it to the atmosphere. For the diesel engine, the problem is more complex,
because the emissions contain soot which is a solid particle responsible of health damages. The
composition of the exhaust gases of an IC engine is given in the following table.
Nitrogen (N2)
It is gas not inflammable. It is colourless and not toxic. It represents 78% of the air. It is the major
part of the exhaust gases. We can see that only a small part of the resulting exhaust gases is
reactive: .
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Carbon dioxide
It is a not inflammable, colourless, and not toxic gases. It has a big impact on the ozone layer. It
is the most important greenhouse gas.
Carbon monoxide
It is a dangerous gas (can kill people). It is colourless, odourless, and explosive. It oxidises very
fast in open air to carbon dioxide.
The most important parameter to determine the emissions of carbon monoxide is the air factor.
They are particularly important for cold engine (start), acceleration and deceleration.
Nitrogen oxides
The is formed if high combustion temperatures are reached. They are mainly produced
from start of combustion to the point where the maximum pressure is reached. Its concentration
is higher when the air factor is stoichiometric. The emission of NOx also increases with high fuel
rate.
Unburned hydrocarbons
The source of UHC is the oil absorption/desorption, the carbon deposits, the incomplete
combustion, the combustion extinction at the walls and the leakage at exhaust valve.
The UHC will however be oxidised during the expansion and exhaust stroke and in the exhaust
system.
Causes of emissions
First, there is emission during the fuelling and also emissions which come directly from the fuel
tank (reservoir). Indeed, when the temperature rises, the fuel will evaporate resulting in an
overpressure into the tank. This can be avoided by an overpressure valve which emits the gas
into the atmosphere. This is a big problem because of the composition of the gas. Thus we add
an active carbon filter which filters the evaporated gases. There are also emissions which come
from the engine. These ones are characterized by the combustion parameters (pre-ignition and
composition of the mixture) and by the treatment of the exhaust gases (oxidation catalytic
converter, three-way catalytic converter, exhaust gas recirculation). An important parameter to
determine the emission of an engine is the fuel consumption. We can plot the emissions in
function of the air factor. The carbon monoxide emission will be caused by a non-complete
combustion (the carbon does not find enough oxygen to finish the combustion). This is why it is
very small for a lean mixture. The unburned gases follow a similar evolution as the fuel
consumption. There are always present in the exhaust gases and their quantity is proportional to
the quantity of fuel used. The NOx production depends on the heat produced into the engine.
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It is possible to modify the composition of the exhaust gases by reduction or oxidation. The
reduction consists in transforming the into carbon dioxide and nitrogen . There different
possible oxidation: oxidise the carbon monoxide into carbon dioxide or oxidise the UHC into
carbon dioxide and . The oxidation can be made into the oxidation catalytic converter. The
reactions into the converter are
( )
The principle of this catalytic converter is to add the reduction reaction to the two oxidation
ones:
The figure on the right shows the efficiency of the three ways catalytic converter in function of
the air factor.
To measure the impact of the car on the environment, we measure how much gram of toxic
gases are produced during a certain period. The evolution of the maximum allowed emissions is
given in the following graphs.
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Diesel Engine
There are different possible classifications for the diesel engines:
Function of the rotational speed: fast 500-5000rpm (trains, car) or slow 100-400rpm (ship)
On the basis of the cycle: 2-stroke, 4-strokes. Most of the time the slow running engine
are 2-stroke engine and the fast engines are 4-stroke engines.
On the basis of the number of piston per cylinder: 1 piston or 2 pistons. In the second
case, the combustion chamber is formed between the two pistons.
On the basis of the type of combustion chamber: separated combustion chamber (more
controlled combustion, less vibration, less noise) or combustion chamber in the piston
(direct injection).
On the basis of the engine construction: Piston connecting-rod mechanism, cross-head
mechanism. This last mechanism is made to decrease the leakage, but decrease also the
maximal speed of the engine. It also has a higher inertia and then is not used for traction
system where we always need to change the rotational speed.
1. The fuel is injected under the form of droplets in hot air which is under high pressure
2. The droplets are warm up and will start burning after some time (depending on the
pressure, turbulence, temperature, size of the droplets…)
The time which passes between the injection of the fuel and the spontaneous burning is
important for a good combustion process.
The droplets size plays also a vital role into the combustion process. The droplets must receive
enough heat to ignite. One can show that the heat received by the droplets is proportional to the
surface of the droplets and the heat required depends on the volume of the droplets. If we
assume spherical droplets, we will have
So we need very small droplets in order to have ignition (between 1µm and 100µm). When the
droplets start burning, they should find enough air in order to keep burning. If we put all the
droplets together, some of them will start burning and consume the air in their vicinity. Then
there will have an impact on the burning of the other droplets. Thus we see that the bore and the
volume of the cylinder play also a role in the combustion process.
The kinetic energy of the particle depends on their mass which depends on the volume
and the air friction on the particle will depends on their surface . The covered distance
in the combustion chamber will be proportional to the diameter . Thus we have two
opposite conditions: the droplets must be enough small to ignite, but in order to travel a
sufficiently long distance, they must have a certain dimension. This distance (that the droplet
must cover) depends also on the dimension of the combustion chamber. Then for a large
combustion chamber we will have large droplet (100µm) and for small combustion chamber, we
will have small droplet (3µm).
The distance travelled by the droplet is also function of the injection pressure and the injection
nozzle hole. We can make a link between the velocity of the droplet and the pressure: .
The droplets can also split into smaller droplets. The condition to have that is given by the
Weber number which must be bigger than 10 ( is the surface tension of the droplet).
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Ignition delay
The ignition delay is the time between the injection of the
fuel and the ignition. The ignition delay is a fixed time
which depends on the fuel and on the condition of the
motor. Thus when the engine runs faster, the scale of the
ignition delay becomes larger. At a certain point, the
droplets ignite after the TDC and then a part of them does
not ignites and the engine loses a part of its power.
Thus we see that the principle parameter for the design of the combustion chamber is the
diminution of the ignition delay. To ensure a burning of the droplet as soon as possible, oxygen
and turbulence must be present in the chamber. There are two types of combustion chambers:
which lead to higher fuel consumption, the less efficient combustion chamber, and the difficulty
with cold start (the engine is warmed later because the combustion
does not start on the final chamber).
We can also use direct injection and then put the combustion
chamber into the piston.
In the case of direct injection, it is possible to cool directly the piston (to
avoid mechanical problem). It is made with a small injector (which
operates at small pressure). It injects a small quantity of oil into the
piston. The oil is injected when the piston goes down (and then no need
of large pressure). For larger engine, it is also possible to cool down the
piston with water. In this case, the inertia becomes a problem. Indeed,
injecting too much water will increase the inertia of the piston and then
decrease the rotational speed of it.
Inlet air
In the figure on the left, we see the natural turbulences which occur
when the air comes from the inlet manifold.
The inlet air must be pre-heated in order to deal with the cold start and
to reduce the soot emission. Indeed, if the temperature and the
pressure are lower, the ignition delay is longer and the fuel does not
burn completely. This induces soot in the exhaust gases. There are two
methods to pre-heat the air: the flame heater and the glow plug. For
example, there is a glow plug in the whirl chamber which pre-heats the
air (during a very short time) before the injection of the fuel.
For a direct injection engine, the glow plug is placed like on the
figure on the right.
Injection
The purpose of an injection system is to inject the adapted fuel quantity as droplets in the
combustion chamber at the correct moment. The droplets must have the correct size (this
parameters serves to design the injector nozzle holes) and must be send with enough high
pressure (the droplets must go far enough in the chamber in order to find oxygen). The quantity
of fuel injected must be adapted to the engine’s parameters.
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The injection can be done in one or several steps. Indeed, in order to improve the knock
resistance, we can start by injection a very small quantity of fuel (a pilot) which will burn but
cannot cause knock. Then the combustion is started and we can inject the rest of the fuel.
Sometimes, we also delay a small part of the injected fuel (this last part is injected at the end of
the expansion). Then the droplets will burn in the soot filter and burn the soot residue. It is
made to clean the filter and to reduce the soot production.
The injection system is composed by the fuel tank, the fuel filter, a low pressure fuel pump, a
high pressure fuel injector, and an injection nozzle. There are several types of injection system:
The old systems: inline fuel injection pump with mechanical regulation, and axial piston
distribution injection pump (regulation mainly mechanical)
The actual systems: common rail injection system, pump nozzle unit (unit injector
system), and electronically regulated.
The figure upside gives a view of the control sleeve in the inline fuel injection pump system.
If we look on the figure downside, we see a spring. As soon as the pressure will be higher than
the spring, the piston will be pushed on the valve and then open it and permits to the fuel to go
to the injector. The pressure is obtained by compressing the fuel on the piston. The device which
compresses the fuel in the system is connected to the camshaft (like seen in the figure upside-
right). Then the system is synchronous with the engine rotation.
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The following figures give the general lay out of the common rail system.
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The following graphs give the evolution of the pressure in the injection pattern during the
displacement of the piston.
On point 1, we see the pre-ignition effect. The point 2 shows the main injection phase. The curve
3 shows the steep pressure gradient (with the common rail system). The point 4 shows the two-
stage pressure gradient (with a double spring valve). The curve 5 shows the gradual pressure
gradient (conventional fuel injection) and the curve 6 the gradual pressure drop (inline and
distributor injection). The curve 7 shows the steep pressure drop. 8 shows the advance post
injection and 9 the retarded post injection.
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Another possibility to inject the fuel in the system is the unit injector.
Here, the pressure is done at the last moment in order to avoid every
friction loss. The purpose of the unit injector is to produce the larger
pressure at the injector itself. On the figure, we see a unit injector
where we find the return pump (1), the pump body (2), the pump
plunger (3), the cylinder head (4), the spring retainer (5), the tension
nut (6), the stator (7), the armature plate (8), the solenoid valve needle
(9), the solenoid valve tension nut (10), the high pressure plug (11), the
low pressure plug (12), the solenoid travel stop (13), the restriction
(14), the fuel return (15), the fuel supply (16), the injector spring (17),
the pressure pin (18), the shim (19), the injector (20).
Three factors permit a better efficiency: the higher compression ratio, the greater excess of air,
the absence of throttle flap and consequently the absence of throttle-related losses.
The soot particles arise as a result of a not optimal combustion in the diesel engine (too large
ignition delay, slower combustion…). The particles are about 0.05µm. They are detrimental for
health. The emission of soot can be reduced by very precise control of the diesel injection. The
number of soot emission increases drastically during idling (marche au ralenti) and in congested
traffic conditions.
“A diesel particulate filter (or DPF) is a device designed to remove diesel particulate matter or soot from
the exhaust gas of a diesel engine. Wall-flow diesel particulate filters usually remove 85% or more of the
soot, and under certain conditions can attain soot removal efficiencies approaching 100%. Some filters are
single-use, intended for disposal and replacement once full of accumulated ash. Others are designed to
burn off the accumulated particulate either passively through the use of a catalyst or by active means such
as a fuel burner which heats the filter to soot combustion temperatures. This is accomplished by engine
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programming to run (when the filter is full) in a manner that elevates exhaust temperature or produces
high amounts of NOx to oxidize the accumulated ash, or through other methods. This is known as "filter
regeneration". Cleaning is also required as part of periodic maintenance, and it must be done carefully to
avoid damaging the filter. Failure of fuel injectors or turbochargers resulting in contamination of the filter
with raw diesel or engine oil can also necessitate cleaning. The regeneration process occurs at road speeds
higher than can generally be attained on city streets; vehicles driven exclusively at low speeds in urban
traffic can require periodic trips at higher speeds to clean out the DPF. If the driver ignores the warning
light and waits too long to operate the vehicle above 40 miles per hour (64 km/h), the DPF may not
regenerate properly, and continued operation past that point may spoil the DPF completely so it must be
replaced. Some newer diesel engines, namely those installed in combination vehicles, can also perform
what is called a Parked Regeneration, where the engine increases RPM to around 1400 while parked, to
increase the temperature of the exhaust.”1
To decrease the emission of NOx, we use a selective catalytic reduction. This catalyser uses a simple
reaction to reduce the concentration in NOx. Indeed, by mixing NOx with ammonia, we obtain a solution
of nitrogen and water. This type of catalyser can reduce about 90% the concentration in NOx.
The following graphs show the classical lay out for diesel emission reduction system.