IN-CYLINDER PRESSURE RECORDING AND DATA ACQUISITION SYSTEM

Michal Takts, Josef Bozek Resarch Center of Engine and Automotive Technology, Czech Technical University in Prague, Technicka 4, CZ 166 07, Praha 6, Czech Republic, takats@fsid.cvut.cz

IN-CYLINDER PRESSURE RECORDING AND DATA ACQUISITION SYSTEM

ABSTRACT: Integration of in-cylinder pressure measurement into a test bed measuring equipment is described. The system of automated data acquisition and the system for indication of a pressure pattern are described. Advantages of communication between two acquisition systems are mentioned. ABSTRAKT: V lnku je popsna integrace systmu snmn tlaku ve vlci do vybaven brzdovho stanovit. Popisuje se systm automatizovanho sbru dat a systm indikace tlakovch prbhu. Zmiuj se vhody vzjemn komunikace mezi uvedenmi systmy.

1. INTRODUCTION
The record of in-cylinder pressure pattern and its evaluation is one of the most powerful means for experimental optimization of internal combustion engines. Behavior of engine working cycle may be investigated using this technique. Conditions influencing mechanical and thermal load of engine part may be determined as well. The quantification of engine running roughness is also a very useful result of evaluation of in-cylinder pressure records. The use of in-cylinder pressure record is extremely powerful tool as far as experimental data are confronted with results of mathematical model of engine working cycle. In authors laboratory the acquisition and evaluation of in-cylinder pressure patterns was usually encompassed as a special experimental procedure only, applicable in selected cases to make the insight into engine behavior more complete. This means that the following procedure had to be applied for every case of the pressure indication: A pressure transducer and an angle encoder were installed and wired together with a charge amplifier and an acquisition device. During engine run in previously selected operating point the in-cylinder pressure traces were acquired and saved for further evaluation. The equipment for acquisition of in-cylinder pressure was disassembled and stored for the next use. The indication hole was plugged to enable further engine operation without in-cylinder pressure measurement. According to authors opinion such an in-cylinder pressure indication is applied in many laboratories in similar way as described above. In the article the in-cylinder pressure acquisition is considered as a standard part of experimental activity, which is exploited continuously during the whole process of experimental investigation on an engine test bed. For this purpose testing engines are equipped permanently with (preferably uncooled) pressure transducers and an angle encoder is permanently connected through either spring disc-type or bellow-type coupling at a front end of a crankshaft.

2. ACQUISITION OF INTEGRAL DATA

Various arrangements of data acquisition systems (DAQ) are used on engine test beds. In authors laboratory acquisition of engine outer parameter were performed as follows. Manifold pressures are converted to voltage values using pressure transducers. Manifold temperatures and temperatures of cooling water are sensed using appropriate types of thermocouples whose voltages are connected to multiplexed input of laboratory-grade voltage amplifier. Engine speed is measured using counter board calculating frequency of pulses from a mark ring installed on an engine or dynamometer shaft. Engine torque is converted to digital value using an absolute angle encoder installed on a shaft of pointer of dynamometer scales. Various arrangements are used for measurement of fuel consumption depending on the kind of fuel used. A fuel balance is used for measurement of liquid fuel consumption. Fuel flow is measured chronometrically and final value is send to the DAQ station via a serial interface. A metering orifice is used for measurement of gaseous fuel consumption. Pressure difference is converted to voltage value using a differential pressure transducer. The same kind of measuring channel is used for determination of intake manifold air flow.

Molar fractions of gaseous component of exhaust gas are measured using appropriate types of gas analyzers. Information is transferred to DAQ station either using analog outputs from analyzers or via serial interface from analyzers CPU. Opacity of exhaust gas is sensed using a laboratory-type opacimeter, which is connected to the DAQ station either through a serial interface or using its analog output. Various other values are acquired depending from an engine arrangement and actual research task. The connection to an engine ECU through a CARB connector [1] is an example of such measurement amendment. During the measurement the DAQ station works in a periodical mode at several levels of scanning. Most deeply nested cycle scans all analog input channels within 1/50 s. The records from particular channels are averaged and stored to a preliminary table. In this way the disturbing influence of electricity mains is strongly limited. Simultaneously the values of torque are decoded from digital inputs and preliminary stored. The described procedure is repeated within an adjusted interval. Then the values from the preliminary table are averaged for the whole interval and stored as a part of one row into the table with final results. Values, which were preliminary conditioned by the distributed part of an acquisition system are read once and appended to the same row in the final table. In this way the data structure containing full time-depending record of all measured values is created. The interval between two consecutive rows in the table is an adjustable parameter of the DAQ software. Usually, the interval is settled to 5 10 seconds (the shortest possible setting is 0 s in this case the procedures inside the most nested cycle are executed with the resulting row-to-row interval of approx. 0.4 s). Within the procedure of generation of one row in the full record, the derived values are calculated, such as engine power, efficiency, air excess, etc. These values are visualized in numerical displays within the program window at a computer monitor to make the whole experimental procedure user-friendly. Time-depending shapes of chosen values (chosen columns from the full record table) may be visualized in a graph. The example of appearance of teh DAQ program window is in fig 1. This time exhaust gas temperatures (both up- and downstream of the turbine) were chosen for a plot. The test bed crew can activate the routine generating a final description of measuring point whenever he wants. During this procedure: The actual row from the final time-depending record is appended to a short (brief?) record file. The whole content of a time-depending table is saved into a disk file. Usually the command activating the mentioned routine is released as soon as steady conditions are reached. Then the operating point is changed and after steady conditions are reached again a new line is appended to the short record file. The procedure is repeated until the whole characteristics is recorded. Courses of reaching steady state conditions followed by the changes of an operating point are well visible in fig. 1. As a scanning of sequence of operating points is over two files remain on DAQ station hard disk. One of them (the short record) contains one row for each operating point. In this file the same amount of data is stored as if they were recorded without any use of DAQ by fulfilling a table of measured data manually. The second file (the full record) contains a complete time-depending record of all measured values. Certain remarks, concerning arrangement of the DAQ system were made already in [1].

2. IN-CYLINDER PRESSURE RECORD

Typically, patterns of in-cylinder pressure are recorded simultaneously with records of steady-state integral parameters. If the DAQ system is used as it was described in the previous paragraph the acquisition of incylinder pressure pattern takes place simultaneously with a generation of a row for the short record. Typically more than one hundred cycles are recorded at this occasion. A special software equipment [2] was developed for the evaluation of such records. Certain examples of evaluation results are presented in fig.2. In this figure examples are introduced (from left to right) from evaluation of thermodynamical behavior of cylinder charge, statistical evaluation and Fourier transform of time-dependencies respectively. Certain, less conventional evaluation procedures are also applicable. In fig. 3 an example of the (treatment) repair of a damaged record is introduced. It is clearly visible in the left hand side of this figure (showing a statistical evaluation) that some false samples were triggered by an ElectroMagnetic Compatibility problem caused by engine spark ignition system?. They cause an illusive shift of the TDC position against the sample index and a sudden change of apparent value of IMEP occurs. If record is otherwise valuable it is possible to find damaged cycle (mid part of fig. 3 especially magenta colored T-s diagram shows

interesting shape) and to repair it by deleting false samples (the result is presented in the right-hand side of the figure). The sophisticated evaluation of a pressure record requires enough time and concentration of a test-bed operator. It is probably unreasonable to perform it during a current test bed experiment. Even if an on-line visualization of rate-of-heat-release patterns may be attractive for bystanders its usefulness for a test bed crew is at least disputable. Therefore, it is necessary to carefully optimize the depth and width of the on-line evaluation. The present state of a user interface of acquisition software as it is realized by [3] is introduced in fig. 4. In the top part of a window the shape of original output voltage from a charge amplifier is plotted by a black line. To make graphs more legible the maximal (green line) and minimal (red line) pressures are plotted for each of individual cycles. A plot of IMEPs for individual cycles is colored yellow. At the righthand side of the window the p - and p V diagrams are introduced. Various colors in these graphs identify particular piston strokes. In the numeric displays in the bottom part of a window the numerical results of evaluation are visualized, particularly the average value of IMEP and its standard deviation. If an angle encoder with more than one trace is used (only one trace is necessary as an external sampling clock) the second one may be exploited for the determination of engine speed, which is displayed in the lower left corner of a window. All this information is at disposal which enables the test bed crew to decide whether the acquired patterns are OK (as in fig.4), damaged and reparable (e.g. fig. 3) or completely wrong (example see in fig. 5 in this case false sampling impulse occurs during the whole duration of a record). Any presented information needs no other inputs for the evaluation but calibration parameters of measuring chain. Therefore the system can operate independent from any other source of information describing the actual state of an engine. It is even usable to use described system in field measurements. The further improvement of properties of the in-cylinder pressure acquisition is obtainable by an exchange of information with DAQ system.

3. DATA EXCHANGE BETWEEN DAQ AND INDICATION SYSTEMS

It is necessary for the further evaluation of an in-cylinder pressure pattern (as it is described in fig. 2 and 3) to enter certain amount of numerical inputs describing: - Engine geometry (bore, stroke, connecting rod length, compression ratio, valve timing) - Record specification (scaling [volts/bar], sampling interval) - Operating point (speed, mass of charge, air excess, residual gas content) - Heat transfer condition (surface areas and temperatures of walls) - Fuel specification (composition) Most of the listed inputs are either known beforehand (the whole engine geometry) or may be established with sufficient accuracy for starting of an evaluation process (and being precised step by step during the evaluation process itself wall temperatures, residual gas content, ...). To make the evaluation procedure user friendly it is possible to include the known (or default) values of particular inputs into a file containing binary record of in-cylinder pressure pattern as an ASCII header. For this reason the pull down menu with engine type appears in fig. 4. According to the chosen engine type input values for evaluation are read from a configuration file and appended to each pressure record. An on-line connection with DAQ system offers another possibility. An air excess value may be calculated from the exhaust gas composition (see displays LamB and LamT in fig. 1). The mass of charge may be evaluated from the fuel consumption and air excess value. Data are sent via a serial interface to the indicating device. The specification of operating point is included into the set of data, which are prepared for the creation of a record header. In this way the record header contains the complete set of inputs for further evaluation. Engine speed is also a part of message but a test bed crew may eventually decide to use the value directly measured by an indicating device as it is mentioned in the previous paragraph. Moreover, the specification of a measured point is also submitted. It is expressed in term of the row number in a short record as it is described in paragraph 2. The row number is included into the name of a file with a pressure record. The correct relationship between a DAQ output and outputs from an indication device is ensured in this manner. The whole mentioned process takes place automatically. Nevertheless, a test bed crew can judge the result of a pressure record and eventually reject the storage of a corrupted record (such as it is introduced in fig. 5) and start new acquisition. The activity of a DAQ system is postponed during recording and storage of an incylinder pressure pattern.

The above-mentioned procedure is activated once for each final point of an investigated curve. Of course, the in-cylinder pressure acquisition is active during the whole engine run. The connection between a DAQ main station and an indicating device ensures synchronization of the both parts of an acquisition system. For this purpose the DAQ station transmit message containing information about duration of interval between rows of the full record table. This message is transmitted before the DAQ station starts its own routine generating one row in the full time-depending record. By receiving this message an indicating device activates an acquisition of in-cylinder pressure data followed by the evaluation of a record. The length of a record is derived from the information about engine speed and the interval duration in such a way that an indicating device ends recording and evaluation sooner than the row in the full record is generated by the DAQ station. An indicating device transmits a message containing values of numerical results of pressure record evaluation, namely the IMEP value and its standard deviation. The DAQ station receives this information and includes it into the set of measured values. In this manner the complete timedepending record of IMEP and standard deviation of IMEP is at disposal as a part of the full record table. A graphical illustration of data exchange is introduced in fig. 6. A pressure record is relatively short. Only 24000 samples were calculated as a maximum possible length for 1500 RPM and 8 s row period. The values of mass of cylinder charge and air excess are displayed in the bottom left corner of a pressure acquisition software window and they are ready in the latest known release to be included into the output file as soon as a test bed crew decides to generate it. In the lower left corner of a DAQ window the numerical values are concentrated which are relevant from the point of view of pressure indication. In the final version of SW equipment an indicated torque is calculated by the DAQ station and considered to be the measured value. It may be presented in a graph (eventually together with the course of effective torque as it is realized in fig. 6). The existence of a complete time-depending record of integrated results of in-cylinder pressure evaluation is a main advantage of the mentioned system. 4. FINAL EVALUATION OF INTEGRAL DATA The automation of experimental investigations offers many advantages. They were many times presented and they are currently broadly accepted. According to the authors opinion the main advantage of the use of a DAQ system is an existence of the complete time history of measured data. Not only the discrete points are at disposal for a construction of resulting curve. Various kinds of errors may be eliminated by the selection of a representative value from a time sequence. To do it a software equipment [4] was developed purposely. This SW equipment performs the plot of a complete time-depending record (from the full record file) together with a broken line connecting points describing particular operating regimes (from the short record). A user can enter a presumably correct value of any point manually observing the result of modification on a screen. One example of the use of this SW is in fig. 7. This time the following issues were chosen for a plot (from top to bottom) - molar fraction of hydrocarbons in dry exhaust gas - indicated and effective torque - standard deviation of IMEP. Of-course, any other measured variable can be chosen for a plot in arbitrary combination. The SW equipment calculated all derived values using the measured points from a smoothed curve as inputs. Especially in the case of standard deviation history the smoothing procedure is very useful. Even very subtle changes of representative value may be determined even if fluctuations of time-depending curve is considerable. The relationship between an emission of hydrocarbons and running roughness (expressed in terms of StdIMEP) is well visible.

Acknowledgment The HW and SW equipment which is described in the article were assembled and tested in the framework of R&D activities supported by Ministry of Education of the Czech Republic, the Project #LN 00B073. AN example of results presented in the article originates from R&D activities subsidized by the Research project J04/98 212 200009 (Ministry of Education of the Czech Republic)

Abbreviations

ASCII CPU DAQ EMC IMEP TDC

American standard code for information interchange Central processor unit Data acquisition Electromagnetic compatibility Indicated mean effective pressure Top dead center

Fig1 Typical appearance of DAQ station screen Obr. 1 Typick vzhled obrazovky systmu automatizovanho sbru dat

Fig.2 Appearance of particular windows of INTEC software Obr.2 Vzhled jednotlivch oken programu INTEC

Fig. 3 Description of repair of damaged record Obr. 3 Popis postupu opravy pokozenho zznamu

Fig.4 Appearance of main window of in-cylinder pressure acquisition software Obr. 4 Vzhled hlavnho okna programu pro zznam prbhu tlaku ve vlci

Fig. 5 Corrupted record Obr. 5 Pokozen zznam

Fig. 6 Description of data exchange Obr. 6 Popis vmny dat

Fig.7 Integral data evaluation Obr. 7 Vyhodnocen integrlnch dat

REFERENCES
1 Takts M. Use of OBD data as a part of Data Acquisition System, In MECCA, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp 44-48. ISSN 1214-0821 2 Takts M. INTEC software for evaluation of in-cylinder pressure record (Josef Bozek Research Center 2002) 3 Takts M. ITIONLN - software for acquisition of in-cylinder pressure pattern (Josef Bozek Research Center 2003) 4 Takts M. GRAUT software for evaluation of time-depending record of measured data (Josef Bozek Research Center 2003)