Homogeneous Charge

Compression Ignition
(HCCI) Engines

What is an HCCI Engine?

HCCI is a form of internal combustion
in which the fuel and air are
compressed to the point of auto
ignition.
That means no spark is required to
ignite the fuel/air mixture
Creates the same amount of power as
a traditional engine, but uses less fuel.

Traditional
combustion (left)
uses a spark to
ignite the mixture.
HCCI (right) uses
piston compression
for a more
complete ignition.

How Does It Work?

A given concentration of fuel and air will spontaneously
ignite when it reaches its auto-ignition temperature.
Its main characteristic is that the ignition occurs at several
places. This makes the fuel air mixture burn nearly
simultaneously.

Contd.
The concentration/temperature
several ways:

can

be

controlled

High compression ratio

Preheating of induction gases

The real challenge is to control the combustion.

Advantages
Can achieve up to 15% fuel savings
Lower peak temperature leads to
cleaner combustion/lower emissions
Can use gasoline, diesel, or most
alternative fuels

HCCI automobiles
could reduce
greenhouse gas
emissions

Disadvantages
Higher cylinder peak pressures
may damage the engine
Auto-ignition is difficult to control
HCCI Engines have a smaller
power range
RCCI are also being developed.
Prototype HCCI car from
Saturn

The Future of HCCI

The future of HCCI looks promising
Major companies such as GM,
Mercedes-Benz, Honda, and
Volkswagen have invested in HCCI
research.

Controlling HCCI
Controlling combustion in HCCI is a major problem.

Variable
Variable
Variable
Variable
Variable

compression ratio
induction temperature
exhaust gas percentage
valve actuation
fuel ignition quality

Lean Burn Engines

What are they

lean amount of fuel supplied to and burned in an
engines combustion chamber.
Gasoline burns best in internal combustion engines
when it is mixed with air in the proportions of 14.7:1.A
true lean-burn can go as high as 32:1.

Why are they required

In order to reduce these harmful exhaust emissions,
two basic approaches have been used Catalytic convertorsthat clean up the exhaust gases coming
from the engine
lean-burn engines which produce lower levels of emissions by
better combustion control and more complete fuel burning
inside the engine cylinders.

Engineers
have
known for years that
a leaner air to fuel
mixture is a frugal
engine.
The problems are, if
the mixture is too
lean, the engine will
fail to combust, and
a
lower
fuel
concentration leads
to less output.

Process in Lean Burn Engines

Lean-burn engines overcome these issues by employing
a highly efficient mixing process.
Special shaped pistons are used.Additionally, the
engines inlet ports can be shaped to cause swirl a
technique borrowed from direct injection diesel
engines.

Advantages
Very economic (both gasoline and diesel)
Lean burn engine also have advantage of decreasing
emissions. The amount of CO emitted is less as plenty
of oxygen is available to produce CO2.
Unburned HC emission is reduced by upto 80% in lean
burn engines.

 The downside of lean-burn technology is increased

exhaustNOxemissions (due to higher heat and
cylinder pressure).
So vehicle using them require more complex catalytic
convertors.

Stratified Charge
Engine

Applications

Advantages

Disadvantages

Catalytic Convertor
Modern vehicles try to keep the airto-fuel ratio very close to
thestoichiometricpoint.
Theoretically, at this ratio, all of the
fuel will be burned using all of the
oxygen in the air. Forgasoline, the
stoichiometric ratio is about 14.7:1.

 The fuel mixture actually varies from

the ideal ratio quite a bit during
driving, and it can be either lean or
rich.
The main emissions of a car engine
are: N2
CO2
H2O

 But because the combustion process

is never perfect, amounts of harmful
emissions are also produced in car
engines.
Catalytic converters are designed to
reduce all three Carbon monoxide
Hydrocarbonsorvolatile organic
compounds
Nitrogen oxides(NO and NO2, together
called NOx)

How Catalytic Converters Reduce

Pollution
In the catalytic converter, there are two different types
of catalyst at work, areduction catalystand
anoxidation catalyst. Both types consist of a ceramic
structure coated with a metal catalyst, usually
platinum, rhodium and/or palladium.
The idea is to create a structure that exposes the
maximum surface area of catalyst to the exhaust
stream.

 In modern day vehicles we have three- way catalytic

convertors because they are used to reduce the
concentration of three main pollutants.

Superchargers &
Turbochargers

 Supercharging is a practice in IC engine for improving

engine power output.
The power output of naturally aspirated engines
depends mainly on amount of air inducted per unit time
and degree of utilization of this air

 Three possible methods utilized to increase the air

consumption of an engine are as follows:
Increasing piston displacement
Running the engine at higher speeds (number of power
strokes)
Increasing the density of the charge

 The method of increasing the air capacity of an engine

is known as supercharging. The device used to increase
the air density is known as supercharger.
Supercharger is merely a blower or a compressor that
provides a denser charge to the engine.

IN SI engines
Supercharging in SI engine is employed only in aircraft
and racing car engines. Apart from increasing the
volumetric efficiency of the engine, supercharging
results in an increase in the intake temperature of the
engine.
This reduces the ignition delay and increases the flame
speed. Both these effects result in a greater tendency
to knock or preignite.
For this reason, the supercharged petrol engines
employ lower compression ratios.

In CI engines
In case of CI engines, supercharging does not result in
any
combustion
problem,
rather
it
improves
combustion.
Increase of pressure and temperature of the inducted
air reduces ignition delay, and hence the rate of
pressure rise results in a better, quieter and smoother
combustion.

Types of supercharger
Centrifugal type supercharger
Roots supercharger
Vane type supercharger

Turbocharging
Turbocharger: The blower/compressor and the turbine
are mounted on the same shaft. The compressor is run
by the turbine, and the turbine, in turn, is run by the
exhaust gases.

EGR
The purpose of EGR is to lower the combustion
chamber temperature. The temperature must be
controlled for two reasons:
High temp. increases amount of NOx
High combustion temperatures and pressure cause
detonation.

 EGR works by recirculating a portion of

engine'sexhaust gasback to the enginecylinders.

an

This dilutes the O2 in the incoming air stream and

provides gases inert to combustion to act as absorbents
of combustion heat to reduce peak in-cylinder
temperatures. NOx is produced in a narrow band of
high cylinder temperatures and pressures.

 Amount of EGR is controlled by Engine Management

System.
No EGR is used when maximum power is desired

Works Cited
Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homogeneous_Charge_Com
pression_Ignition November, 2008.
New HCCI Engine
http://videos.howstuffworks.com/multivu/3284-newhcci-engine-video.htm November, 2008
GM Takes New Combustion Technology Out of the Lab
and Onto the Road
http://www.gm.com/experience/fuel_economy/news/200
7/adv_engines/new-combustion-technology-082707.jsp