The Low Load Limit of Gasoline Partially Premixed Combustion Using Negative Valve Overlap

Partially premixed combustion has the potential of high efficiency and simultaneous low soot and NOx emissions. Running the engine in partially premixed combustion mode with high octane number fuels has the advantage of a longer premix period of fuel and air which reduces soot emissions, even at higher loads. The problem is the ignitability at low load and idle operating conditions. The objective is to investigate different multiple-injection strategies in order to further expand the low load limit and reduce the dependency on negative valve overlap in order to increase efficiency. The question is, what is the minimum attainable load for a given setting of negative valve overlap and fuel injection strategy. The experimental engine is a light duty diesel engine equipped with a fully flexible valve train system. The engine is run without boost at engine speed 800 rpm. The fuel is 87 RON gasoline. A turbocharger is typically used to increase the boost pressure, but at low engine speed and load the available boost is expected to be limited. The in-cylinder pressure and temperature around top-dead-center will then be too low to ignite high octane number fuels. A negative valve overlap can be used to extend the low engine speed and load operating region. But one of the problems with negative valve overlap is the decrease in gas-exchange efficiency due to heat-losses from recompression of the residual gases. Also, the potential temperature increase from the trapped hot residual gases is limited at low load due to the low exhaust gas temperature. In order to expand the low load operating region further, more advanced injection strategies are investigated.