Torch Ignition: Ideal for Lean Burn Premixed-Charge Engines

1994 ◽  
Vol 116 (4) ◽  
pp. 793-798 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. S. Mavinahally ◽  
D. N. Assanis ◽  
K. R. Govinda Mallan ◽  
K. V. Gopalakrishnan

Sluggish flame initiation and propagation, and even potential misfiring, become major problems with lean-fueled, premixed-charge, spark-ignited engines. This work studies torch ignition as a means for improving combustion, fuel economy, and emissions of a retrofitted, large combustion chamber with nonideal spark plug location. A number of alternative configurations, employing different torch chamber designs, spark-plug locations, and materials, were tested under full-load and part-load conditions. Results indicate a considerable extension of the lean operating limit of the engine, especially under part-load conditions. In addition, torch ignition can lead to substantial thermal efficiency gains for either leaner or richer air-fuel ratios than the optimum for the conventional ignition system. On the richer side, in particular, the torch-ignited engine is capable of operating at maximum brake torque spark timings, rather than compromised, knock-limited spark timings used with conventional ignition. This translates into thermal efficiency improvements as high as 8 percent at an air-fuel ratio of 20:1 and full load.

Author(s):  
Satoru Goto ◽  
Sadao Nakayama ◽  
Yoshiharu Ono ◽  
Yoshifumi Nishi

Abstract Lean-burn gas engines are operating worldwide because of having an advantage of lower NOx emission and higher thermal efficiency than those of stoichiometric gas engines. The modern lean-burn gas engines, especially medium and large size, have the pre-combustion chamber technology. On the contrary, there are some problems that originate in the spark plug. Particularly near the ignition plug located in the center, the fuel gas density is lean, affected by the lean-gas mixture coming from the main combustion chamber during the compression stroke and the fuel gas density near the wall is rich. The lifetime of ignition plug is likely to be shorter than those used in the conventional theoretical mixture gas combustion engine, because the required voltage for the plug is high, which reaches 20–25 kV or more. The authors and their colleagues have studied a combustion method of using micro-pilot fuel oil instead of spark plug as an ignition source in recent four years to provide a solution for the above mentioned technical problems. The energy of micro-pilot fuel oil is equivalent to 1% of the total thermal input, but the energy of the pilot fuel oil is several thousands times of the spark ignition. According to the author’s study, NOx emission level is defined by the amount of pilot fuel oil. But only about 1% fuel can meet the NOx target. NOx emission level meets TA-Luft of 500 mg/m3N @ 5% O2. Even the regulation of 200 ppm @ 0% O2 in the Japanese large cities can be achieved, this level is almost corresponding to the half TA-Luft. This paper describes the performance being desired for gas engines through the service-experience in co-generation fields and also describes the newly developed gas engine corresponding to a 1000 kW class, which has micro-pilot fuel oil ignition method. This engine has the same performance of a diesel engine, BMEP of 2.3 MPa and brake thermal efficiency of 43%.


Author(s):  
Luigi Tozzi ◽  
Emmanuella Sotiropoulou ◽  
Jessica Adair ◽  
Domenico Chiera

The quest for high engine brake thermal efficiency (BTE) in medium size (140mm – 190mm bore), lean-burn gas applications becomes increasingly difficult as lower emission levels (250mg/Nm3 NOx) are targeted. A traditional approach to offsetting this negative trend has been to design the piston and the intake ports to create high turbulence and homogeneous mixtures leading to faster combustion burn rates with leaner mixtures. This paper proposes a new combustion strategy aimed at optimizing fuel-air mixture stratification in the main combustion chamber. This would result in maximum fuel concentration within a passive prechamber plug leading to high turbulence flame jet (HTFJ) penetration in the main combustion chamber and, therefore, faster combustion burn rates. Experimental correlation of a combustion model is provided for flame jet ignition in a quiescent, mildly stratified combustion chamber through three different cases. The first case uses a traditional J-gap spark plug; the second, a prechamber plug that is not optimized for the fuel distribution present in this combustion chamber. Finally, the third case makes use of a prechamber plug that has been configured to have properly oriented HTFJ. These three cases constitute the basis of the proposed combustion strategy leading to significant increase in engine brake thermal efficiency (BTE).


Author(s):  
Myoungjin Kim ◽  
Sihun Lee ◽  
Wootae Kim

In-cylinder flows such as tumble and swirl have an important role on the engine combustion efficiencies and emission formations. In particular, the tumble flow, which is dominant in-cylinder flow in current high performance gasoline engines, has an important effect on the fuel consumptions and exhaust emissions under part load conditions. Therefore, it is important to know the effect of the tumble ratio on the part load performance and optimize the tumble ratio of a gasoline engine for better fuel economy and exhaust emissions. First step in optimizing a tumble flow is to measure a tumble ratio accurately. In this research the tumble flow was measured, compared and correlated using three different measurement methods: steady flow rig, 2-Dimensional PIV, and 3-Dimensional PTV. Engine dynamometer test was performed to find out the effect of the tumble ratio on the part load performance. Dynamometer test results of high tumble ratio engine showed faster combustion speed, retarded MBT timing, higher exhaust emissions, and a better lean burn combustion stability. Lean limit of the baseline engine was expanded from A/F=18:1 to A/F=21:1 by increasing a tumble ratio using MTV.


2016 ◽  
Vol 819 ◽  
pp. 443-448 ◽  
Author(s):  
S.F. Zainal Abidin ◽  
Mohd Farid Muhamad Said ◽  
Azhar Abdul Aziz ◽  
Mohd Azman Abas ◽  
N.I. Arishad

In automotive engine applications, the spark ignition (SI) engines can operate at various engine speed and load conditions. However, most of the time was spend at part load operations, where they operate below their rated output especially during cruising or idling. The needs of improvement in term of engine efficiency at part load operation become more popular among the engine manufacturers. One of the main reasons for efficiency dropped at part load conditions is the flow restrictions at the throttle valve opening area due to nearly-close position to control amount of inducted air into the cylinder, which leads to increasing in pumping losses. Hence, there are a lot of studies and investigations have been carried out to tackle these problems without sacrificing the original performance. This paper will investigate further the engine efficiency, performance as well as fuel economy by using one-dimensional (1-D) simulation tool. A baseline simulation model of a 1.6 liters four cylinders, port fuel injection engine has been developed based on the actual engine geometries. This baseline model applied predictive combustion to predict the amount of cylinder pressure based on actual ignition and injection timing on bench. The simulated results show a very good agreement with the measured data. Additionally, this study also proved that the deactivation half of the cylinders can significantly reduce the pumping losses of fired cylinder while eliminated the pumping work of unfired cylinders.


2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 42
Author(s):  
Fatkur Rhohman ◽  
Susdi Subandriyo ◽  
Hesti Istiqlaliyah

In automotive, many various modifications are made to improve engine performance. One that is done is to maximize the combustion that occurs in the combustion chamber. By maximizing the ignition system in the combustion process, it is expected to enlarge sparks from spark plugs. One of the components affecting the combustion process is Magnet, serves to generate electricity that will become a high voltage electric current and allow the occurrence of spark jumps on the spark plug. In this study, the independent variable is the modified tregger magnet which is reversed 0.50, to 9.50 and 90. in general there is no significant difference. Fcount value for result on magnetic trigger type = 3.00 <F (0.05; 2.24) = 3.40 (rejected H0) means reversing the 90 and 9.50 magnetic triggers does not significantly influence. In addition, Fcount for 6000, 7000, 8000 rpm engine yield = 1.00 <F (0.05; 2.24) = 3.40 (Rejected H0) means the engine's rotation rate has no significant effect. So there is no effect of fuel consumption on the modified magnetic trigger, nor at rpm 6000, rpm 7000 and rpm 8000.


2020 ◽  
Vol 142 (8) ◽  
Author(s):  
Muhammed Fayaz Palakunnummal ◽  
Priyadarshi Sahu ◽  
Mark Ellis ◽  
Marouan Nazha

Abstract Due to recent regulation changes to restricted fuel usage in various motor-sport events, motor-sport engine manufacturers have started to focus on improving the thermal efficiency and often claim thermal efficiency figures well above equivalent road car engines. With limited fuel allowance, motor-sport engines are operated with a lean air–fuel mixture to benefit from higher cycle efficiency, requiring an ignition system that is suitable for the lean mixture. Prechamber ignition is identified as a promising method to improve lean limit and has the potential to reduce end gas auto-ignition. This paper analyses the full-load performance of a motor-sport lean-burn gasoline direct injection (GDI) engine and a passive prechamber is developed with the aid of a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) tool. The finalized prechamber design benefited in a significant reduction in burn duration, reduced cyclic variation, knock limit extension, and higher performance.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (13) ◽  
pp. 3894
Author(s):  
Arthur Favrel ◽  
Nak-Joong Lee ◽  
Tatsuya Irie ◽  
Kazuyoshi Miyagawa

This paper proposes an original approach to investigate the influence of the geometry of Francis turbines draft tube on pressure fluctuations and energy losses in off-design conditions. It is based on Design of Experiments (DOE) of the draft tube geometry and steady/unsteady Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations of the draft tube internal flow. The test case is a Francis turbine unit of specific speed Ns=120 m-kW which is required to operate continuously in off-design conditions, either with 45% (part-load) or 110% (full-load) of the design flow rate. Nine different draft tube geometries featuring a different set of geometrical parameters are first defined by an orthogonal array-based DOE approach. For each of them, unsteady and steady CFD simulations of the internal flow from guide vane to draft tube outlet are performed at part-load and full-load conditions, respectively. The influence of each geometrical parameter on both the flow instability and resulting pressure pulsations, as well as on energy losses in the draft tube, are investigated by applying an Analysis of Means (ANOM) to the numerical results. The whole methodology enables the identification of a set of geometrical parameters minimizing the pressure fluctuations occurring in part-load conditions as well as the energy losses in both full-load and part-load conditions while maintaining the requested pressure recovery. Finally, the results of the CFD simulations with the final draft tube geometry are compared with the results estimated by the ANOM, which demonstrates that the proposed methodology also enables a rough preliminary estimation of the draft tube losses and pressure fluctuations amplitude.


Author(s):  
R. Bhargava ◽  
G. Negri di Montenegro ◽  
A. Peretto

The knowledge of off-design performance for a given gas turbine system is critical particularly in applications where considerable operation at low load setting is required. This information allows designers to ensure safe operation of the system and determine in advance thermo-economic penalty due to performance loss while operating under part-load conditions. In this paper, thermo-economic analysis results for the intercooled, reheat (ICRH) and recuperated gas turbine, at the part-load conditions in cogeneration applications, have been presented. Thermodynamically, a recuperated ICRH gas turbine based cogeneration system showed lower penalty in terms of electric efficiency and Energy Saving Index over the entire part-load range in comparison to the other cycles (non-recuperated ICRH, recuperated Brayton and simple Brayton cycles) investigated. Based on the comprehensive economic analysis for the assumed values of economic parameters, this study shows that, a mid-size (electric power capacity 20 MW) cogeneration system utilizing non-recuperated ICRH cycle provides higher return on investment both at full-load and part-load conditions, compared to the other same size cycles, over the entire range of fuel cost, electric sale and steam sale values examined. The plausible reasons for the observed trends in thermodynamic and economic performance parameters for four cycles and three sizes of cogeneration systems under full-load and part-load conditions have been presented in this paper.


Author(s):  
R. L. Evans

Two different methods to improve the thermal efficiency and reduce the emissions from lean-burn natural gas fuelled engines have been developed, and are described in this paper. One method used a “squish-jet” combustion chamber designed specifically to enhance turbulence generation, while the second method provided a partially stratified-charge mixture near the spark plug in order to enhance the ignition of lean mixtures of natural gas and air. The squish-jet combustion chamber was found to reduce Bsfc by up to 4.8% in a Ricardo Hydra engine, while the NOx – efficiency tradeoff was greatly improved in a Cummins L-10 engine. The partially stratified-charge combustion system extended the lean limit of operation in the Ricardo Hydra by some 10%, resulting in a 64% reduction in NOx emissions at the lean limit of operation. Both techniques were also shown to be effective in increasing the stability of combustion, thereby reducing cyclic variations in cylinder pressure.


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