Reducing Cold Start Hydrocarbon Emissions from Port Fuel Injected Spark Ignition Engines with Improved Management of Hardware & Controls


Book Description

(Cont.) By timing split injection such that the second injection event hits the overlap back flow, a small mixture preparation and emissions benefit was achieved. Earlier IVO results in a longer back flow period, however the impact on mixture preparation is small. The observed reduction in HC emissions resulted from a higher residual gas fraction due to early IVO, which yielded later combustion phasing, which in turn yielded increased post-flame oxidation. Under steady-state cold coolant conditions, operation of a 4-cylinder engine with three cylinders running rich and the fourth used to pump air into the exhaust manifold resulted in near total oxidation of CO and HC at sufficiently retarded spark timing. Exhaust gas temperatures and enthalpy flow rates were significantly higher than for the conventional engine configuration at fast idle. Using this strategy to perform real cold starts proved challenging without the additional hardware needed for sufficient control over air flow to the engine.




Control Strategy for Hydrocarbon Emissions in Turbocharged Direct Injection Spark Ignition Engines During Cold-start


Book Description

Gasoline consumption and pollutant emissions from transportation are costly and have serious, demonstrated environmental and health impacts. Downsized, turbocharged direct-injection spark ignition (DISI) gasoline engines consume less fuel and achieve superior performance compared with conventional port fuel injected spark ignition (PFI-SI) engines. Although more efficient, turbocharged DISI engines have new emissions challenges during cold start. DISI fuel injection delivers more liquid fuel into the combustion chamber, increasing the emissions of unburned hydrocarbons. The turbocharger slows down activation (warm-up) of the catalytic exhaust after-treatment system. The objective of this research is to find a control strategy that: 1. Accelerates warm-up of the catalyst, and 2. Maintains low emissions of unburned hydrocarbons (UBHCs) during the catalyst warm-up process. This research includes a broad experimental survey of engine behaviour and emission response for a modern turbocharged DISI engine. The study focuses on the idle period during cold-start for which DISI engine emissions are worst. Engine experiments and simulations show that late and slow combustion lead to high exhaust gas temperatures and mass flow rate for fast warm-up. However, late and slow combustion increase the risk of partial-burn misfire. At the misfire limit for each parameter, the following conclusions are drawn: 1. Late ignition timing is the most effective way to increase exhaust enthalpy flow rate for fast catalyst warm-up. 2. By creating a favourable spatial fuel-air mixture stratification, split fuel injection can simultaneously retard and stabilize combustion to improve emissions and prevent partial-burn misfire. 3. Excessive trapped residuals from long valve overlap limit the potential for valve timing to reduce cold-start emissions. 4. Despite their more challenging evaporation characteristics, fuel blends with high ethanol content showed reasonable emissions behaviour and greater tolerance to late combustion than neat gasoline. 5. Higher exhaust back-pressure leads to high exhaust temperature during the exhaust stroke, leading to significantly more post-flame oxidation. 6. Post-flame oxidation in the combustion chamber and exhaust system play a critical role in decreasing the quantity of catalyst-in emissions due to hydrocarbons that escape primary (flame) combustion. A cold start strategy combining late ignition, 15% excess air, and high exhaust backpressure yielded the lowest cumulative hydrocarbon emissions during cold start.




Automotive Spark-Ignited Direct-Injection Gasoline Engines


Book Description

The process of fuel injection, spray atomization and vaporization, charge cooling, mixture preparation and the control of in-cylinder air motion are all being actively researched and this work is reviewed in detail and analyzed. The new technologies such as high-pressure, common-rail, gasoline injection systems and swirl-atomizing gasoline fuel injections are discussed in detail, as these technologies, along with computer control capabilities, have enabled the current new examination of an old objective; the direct-injection, stratified-charge (DISC), gasoline engine. The prior work on DISC engines that is relevant to current GDI engine development is also reviewed and discussed. The fuel economy and emission data for actual engine configurations have been obtained and assembled for all of the available GDI literature, and are reviewed and discussed in detail. The types of GDI engines are arranged in four classifications of decreasing complexity, and the advantages and disadvantages of each class are noted and explained. Emphasis is placed upon consensus trends and conclusions that are evident when taken as a whole; thus the GDI researcher is informed regarding the degree to which engine volumetric efficiency and compression ratio can be increased under optimized conditions, and as to the extent to which unburned hydrocarbon (UBHC), NOx and particulate emissions can be minimized for specific combustion strategies. The critical area of GDI fuel injector deposits and the associated effect on spray geometry and engine performance degradation are reviewed, and important system guidelines for minimizing deposition rates and deposit effects are presented. The capabilities and limitations of emission control techniques and after treatment hardware are reviewed in depth, and a compilation and discussion of areas of consensus on attaining European, Japanese and North American emission standards presented. All known research, prototype and production GDI engines worldwide are reviewed as to performance, emissions and fuel economy advantages, and for areas requiring further development. The engine schematics, control diagrams and specifications are compiled, and the emission control strategies are illustrated and discussed. The influence of lean-NOx catalysts on the development of late-injection, stratified-charge GDI engines is reviewed, and the relative merits of lean-burn, homogeneous, direct-injection engines as an option requiring less control complexity are analyzed.




A Study to Quantitatively Analyze Cold Start Emissions for a Gasoline Direct Injection Engine


Book Description

The gasoline direct injection (GDI) technology is a technology with which the gasoline is directly injected in the cylinder. GDI technology has been gaining popularity among vehicle manufacturers due to multiple advantages it presents compared with the port fuel injection technology, and has been widely implemented in the light-duty passenger vehicles on the US market. One weakness of the GDI engine is the excessive hydrocarbon (HC) emission during the cold start, where the engine speed, cylinder and piston top temperature and engine fuel rail pressure are all far from optimal. Given the more stringent Tier 3 HC emissions regulations enforced by United States Environmental Protection Agency and California Air Resources Board, a detailed research on the GDI engine cold start HC emissions was essential to facilitate the compliance with HC emission standards from the modern GDI engines. A novel experimental system was designed, prototyped and installed. The in-house instrumentation and control system was designed based on the National Instruments hardware and aimed to control the Ford 2.0 L GDI engine and realize the engine cold start using custom engine powertrain parameters. The novel gas collection and analysis system was designed and prototyped to allow a cycle-based emission analysis. The entire study was carried out using three steps. First, the validation experiment was conducted to validate whether the designed system hardware and software operated as desired, and to provide some basic qualitative understanding of the GDI engine cold start profiles. Second, the preliminary quantitative analysis was carried out using both gasoline and iso-pentane as fuel to further understand the contributing factors of the cold start HC emissions for GDI engines. In the final step, a parametric study, multiple parametric sweeps were carried out for various powertrain parameters to identify the quantitative effect of each parameter on the engine power output and emission performances respectively. The initial validation experiment results showed that the designed novel experimental system performed as expected, and that HC emissions actually decreased monotonically among the first five firing cycles of the cold start. The preliminary quantitative analysis revealed that for gasoline-fueled cold starts not all the injected fuel was collected in the exhaust gas. The non-collected fuel was potentially due to fuel wall wetting and piston top impingement, which could be the main reason for the HC emissions. The parametric study found that the main contributing factor of the HC emissions for the very first firing cycle was the injected fuel that did not evaporate in time for combustion but still in time for the emissions. The parametric study also found that the HC emissions increased with injected equivalence ratio. The change in fuel rail pressure had a complicated effect on the HC emissions at the first firing cycle. The increase in injection times, from 2 to 4 injections given the same amount of total injected fuel, did improve the fuel evaporation and combustion status, and led to higher power output and lower HC emissions given the same injected fuel mass. The study showed that the key to mitigate the HC emissions during the GDI engine cold start was improving the fuel evaporation and air-fuel profile, so as to minimize the fuel wall wetting and piston top impingement effect