Professional Documents
Culture Documents
2013-01-1629
Published
04/08/2013
Eric K. Anderson
Los Alamos National Laboratory
William P. Attard
Adam Brown
Innovative Scientific Solutions Inc.
Paul Litke
Air Force Research Laboratory
ABSTRACT
An experimental study is performed to investigate the
possibility of relaxing the octane requirement of a Rotax 914
engine equipped with a pre-chamber jet ignition system. A
pre-chamber jet igniter with no auxiliary fuel addition is
designed to replace the spark plug in cylinder two of the test
engine and is evaluated across engine speeds ranging from
2500 to 5500 RPM. Experiments are performed across both
normally aspirated and boosted configurations using regular
87 AKI gasoline fuel. Normally aspirated results at 98 kPa
manifold absolute pressure show a 7-10 burn rate
improvement with the jet ignition combustion system. Tests
to determine the maximum load at optimal combustion
phasing (no spark retard) are then conducted by increasing
boost pressure up to maximum knock limits. Boosted jet
ignition results demonstrate that 17 bar IMEPn can be
achieved using 87 AKI gasoline fuel, which is the highest
documented load achieved with this combustion system at
stoichiometric conditions without dilution. A 3 bar IMEPn
increase over spark ignition combustion is also observed in
the same test engine, corresponding to a 25 kPa boost
pressure increase across the speed range. When comparing
the 87 AKI jet ignition results to those of the baseline spark
ignition OEM engine which requires 100 low lead (> 99.5
INTRODUCTION
Currently small scale propulsion and power systems utilized
in U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) Unmanned Aircraft
Systems (UAS) typically use commercially available, off-theshelf, propulsion solutions. These propulsion systems may be
modified, but, by and large, they have not been optimized for
DoD performance requirements. There have been recent
OBJECTIVES
The specific objectives of this study were to:
Compare spark ignition and jet ignition combustion at
normally aspirated stoichiometric conditions with maximum
airflow (98 kPa MAP) across the full speed range up to
5500 RPM.
Quantify the burn rate enhancement with jet ignition
combustion at normally aspirated stoichiometric conditions
and compare it to that found in the literature.
Determine maximum load levels limited by knock of
boosted spark ignition and jet ignition combustion without
compromising the combustion phasing (no spark retard)
across the speed range up to 5500 RPM.
Quantify the intake air temperature effects on load for
boosted spark ignition and jet ignition combustion across the
speed range.
EXPERIMENTAL SETUP
Test Engine Configuration
Experiments were carried out at the Air Force Research
Laboratory's Small Engine Research Laboratory at Wright-
Figure 10. (Left) Jet impingement from the AFRL jet ignition system that is clearly visible on the piston crown, showing that
further burn rate and subsequent knock benefits are achievable with an optimized pre-chamber nozzle/orifice package for this
two-valve engine configuration. (Right) Evenly distributed jet penetration towards the end-gas from Attard's four-valve work.
It is well established that an effective method of mitigating
knock in gasoline engines involves burning the mixture
rapidly to reduce the time that the end-gas spends at elevated
pressure and temperature. The burn rate data presented in
Figure 7, Figure 8, Figure 9 indicates that the AFRL jet
igniter improves combustion burn rates, particularly early in
combustion, and thus has the potential to reduce the knock
propensity or octane requirement of the engine. However, the
potential benefit of further optimization of the nozzle to
minimize the jet impingement on the piston crown and hence
improve main-chamber combustion burn rates is evident from
the data available in the literature. Although the jet
impingement
previously
discussed
has
obvious
disadvantages, some benefits include modulated heat release
to limit the main-chamber in-cylinder charge consumption
and hence maximum pressure rise rates.
FUTURE WORK
When compared with the baseline spark ignition system,
engine experimental results have shown further potential to
improve the main-chamber energy release (10-90% MFB) for
jet ignition combustion. Previous studies [2, 14] have
documented a 50% improvement in 10-90% MFB times with
jet ignition combustion, hence further burn rate enhancement
and consequently knock limit extension is expected. Several
fundamental combustion studies are underway to better
understand and analyze jet ignition combustion, including
optical bomb and rapid compression machine studies. It is
envisioned that a directional jet igniter (nozzle nonsymmetrical about the central axis) is a major step forward in
avoiding the jet impingement on the piston crown (displayed
in Figure 10) and hence enhance the combustion process.
Figure 20 displays some early conceptual work on the nozzle
design, with the drawback being that some indexing or
orientation is required when installing the jet igniter to
position the jets correctly in the combustion system.
be noted that the spark ignition and jet ignition heat release
profiles are actual experimental data from the literature. It is
expected that maximum pressure rise rate limitations (NVH
combustion noise) and the associated engine limitations (peak
cylinder pressure) will limit the practical application of these
fast burn combustion concepts at boosted, stoichiometric,
high load operating conditions without the use of dilution.
However, timing the initiation (staggering) of each
combustion mode to consume some of the in-cylinder charge
early may be one way forward to increase the burn duration
and hence limit the pressure rise rates while still enabling
knock limit benefits. Hence, the SAJI concept is considered
to be a very promising combustion mode concept for future
development. With this concept, some of the main-chamber
charge is consumed first using the conventional spark ignition
flame propagation process, with the remaining charge
consumed by the jet ignition process after some time delay.
The system would require varying spark timing between two
ignition sources (spark plug and jet igniter), and the jet igniter
would have to be fired before the spark ignition flame front
consumed the charge in the jet igniter region to ensure
adequate pre-chamber combustion. Depending on the
location of the spark plug for the conventional spark ignition
combustion system and the jet igniter, further knock limit
benefits would be realized with this concept but with
modulated heat release to fulfill engine durability and NVH
limitations. Additionally, the conventional spark plug will
enable robust cold start operation at subzero temperatures,
which is anticipated to be challenging for any pre-chamber
combustion system due to the increased combustion surface
area as demonstrated in the early pre-chamber developments
completed by Watson [25].
CONCLUSIONS
A pre-chamber jet ignition combustion system was developed
for a Rotax 914 aircraft engine and evaluated across engine
speeds ranging from 2500 - 5500 RPM. Experiments were
performed for both normally aspirated and boosted
configurations using regular 87 AKI gasoline fuel. Normally
aspirated results at 98 kPa manifold absolute pressure
highlighted a 7-10 burn-rate improvement with the jet
ignition combustion system. Tests to determine the maximum
load at optimal combustion phasing (no spark retard) were
then conducted by increasing boost pressure up to maximum
knock limits. Boosted jet ignition results demonstrated that
17 bar IMEPn could be achieved using 87 AKI gasoline fuel,
which is the highest documented load achieved with this
combustion system at stoichiometric conditions without
dilution. A 3 bar IMEPn increase over spark ignition
combustion was also observed in the same test engine as a
result of the knock limit extension associated with the prechamber, corresponding to a 25 kPa boost pressure increase
across the speed range. Varying boosted intake air
temperature up to 82C across the speed range also
highlighted that the jet igniter could match spark ignition load
with a 35C increase in intake air temperature due to the
knock limit extension.
When comparing the 87 AKI jet ignition results to the
baseline spark ignition OEM engine which requires 100 low
lead (> 99.5 MON) aviation gasoline, experimental results
showed that peak torque at 4500 RPM can be matched,
however peak power is slightly reduced by 9% at 5500 RPM.
Hence, it is estimated that this particular jet igniter offers a
>10 octane number improvement over the baseline spark
ignition system. This demonstrates that retrofitted prechamber jet igniter technology is one potential method of
eliminating the requirement for high octane leaded fuel for
the aviation industry. Experimental burn rate results and
visual images of the jet impingement on the piston crown
show that further pre-chamber nozzle and jet optimization is
required to achieve the full knock limit benefits of this
combustion system as demonstrated in the literature. It is
estimated that only half of the knock limit benefit has been
realized with this particular jet igniter and engine package.
However, results to date are very encouraging for future
work. Moreover, the recent research completed on prechamber jet ignition combustion systems highlights many
synergies for future boosted powertrains as engine
downsizing grows in popularity to meet global and
environmental concerns.
REFERENCES
1. Unmanned Systems Integrated Roadmap FY2011-2036,
Department of Defense, Editor 2011.
2. Attard, W., Blaxill, H., Anderson, E., and Litke, P.,
Knock Limit Extension with a Gasoline Fueled PreChamber Jet Igniter in a Modern Vehicle Powertrain, SAE
The Engineering Meetings Board has approved this paper for publication. It has
successfully completed SAE's peer review process under the supervision of the session
organizer. This process requires a minimum of three (3) reviews by industry experts.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of SAE.
ISSN 0148-7191
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors would like to acknowledge the support of the Air
Force Office of Scientific Research and the Air Force
Research Laboratory, the technical support of David Burris
and Jacob Baranski, and the fabrication efforts of Richard E.
Ryman.
DEFINITIONS/ABBREVIATIONS
AFRL - Air Force Research Laboratory
AKI - anti-knock index
ATDC - after top dead center
Avgas - low lead aviation gasoline
CA - crankshaft angle
CA50 - crankshaft angle where 50% MFB occurs
CAD - computer aided design
CFR - cooperative fuels research
CoV - coefficient of variation
CR - compression ratio
DoD - Department of Defense
IMEPg - gross indicated mean effective pressure
IMEPn - net indicated mean effective pressure
MAP - manifold absolute pressure
MFB - mass fraction burn
NVH - noise, vibration, and harshness
OEM - original equipment manufacturer
RPM - revolutions per minute
SI - spark ignition
SAJI - spark-assisted jet ignition
TDC - top dead center
UAS - unmanned aerial systems
- equivalence ratio
Positions and opinions advanced in this paper are those of the author(s) and not
necessarily those of SAE. The author is solely responsible for the content of the paper.
SAE Customer Service:
Tel: 877-606-7323 (inside USA and Canada)
Tel: 724-776-4970 (outside USA)
Fax: 724-776-0790
Email: CustomerService@sae.org
SAE Web Address: http://www.sae.org
Printed in USA