Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Applied Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apenergy
h i g h l i g h t s
a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t
Article history: The free-piston engine generator (FPEG) is a linear energy conversion system, which is known to have
Received 15 March 2016 greater thermal efficiency than an equivalent and more conventional reciprocating engine. The piston
Received in revised form 15 July 2016 motion of a FPEG is not restricted by a crankshaft-connection rod mechanism, it must be controlled to
Accepted 16 July 2016
overcome challenges in the starting process, risk of misfire, and unstable operation. In this paper, the glo-
Available online 27 July 2016
bal control structure for a FPEG prototype is presented. A Cascade control strategy is proposed for the pis-
ton stable operation level, and PID controllers are used for both of the outer loop and inner loop. The
Keywords:
measured top dead centre of the previous stroke and the piston velocity during the current stroke are
Free-piston engine
Generator
taken for controller feedback, and the injected fuel mass is used as the control variable. The proposed cas-
Control strategy cade control implemented in the FPEG is shown to have good performance, the piston returns to a stable
Cascade control state in 0.5 s. Compared with a single loop control strategy, the performance of cascade control is
improved in terms of the control delay, peak error and settling time.
2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
1. Introduction the operation of FPEs, combustion takes place in the internal com-
bustion chamber, and the high pressure exhaust gas pushes the
1.1. Background piston assembly backwards. The chemical energy from the air fuel
mixture is then converted to the mechanical energy of the moving
The free-piston engine (FPE) is a linear energy conversion sys- piston assembly. Due to this linear characteristic, a FPE requires a
tem, and the term free-piston is widely used to distinguish its lin- linear load to convert this mechanical energy for the usage of the
ear characteristics from those of a conventional reciprocating target application [1]. As the load is coupled directly to the piston
engine [13]. Without the limitation of the crankshaft mechanism, assembly, the technical requirements for the free-piston engine
as known for the conventional engines, the piston is free to oscil- loads are high, which are summarised as:
late between its dead centres. The piston assembly is the only sig-
nificant moving component for the FPEs, and its movement is (1) The load must provide satisfactory energy conversion effi-
determined by the gas and load forces acting upon it [4]. During ciency to make the overall system efficient.
(2) The load may be subjected to high velocity.
(3) The load may be subjected to high force from the cylinder
Corresponding author. gas.
E-mail addresses: b.jia@newcastle.ac.uk (B. Jia), andrew.smallbone@ncl.ac.uk (A.
Smallbone).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2016.07.081
0306-2619/ 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
B. Jia et al. / Applied Energy 179 (2016) 11661175 1167
(4) The load device may be subjected to heat transfer from the changes was investigated using decentralised PID, PDF and distur-
engine cylinders. bance feed forward. It was identified that PDF feedback control was
(5) The size, moving mass and load force profile are feasible to more suitable for the FPEG than a conventional PID controller. The
be coupled with the designed FPEs. engine was found to be sensitive to immediate electric load
changes, whilst the effect of cycle-to-cycle combustion variations
Reported load devices for the FPEs include air compressors, was reported as not critical. It was concluded that the control of
electric generators and hydraulic pumps [57]. In this research, the FPEG was a challenge, but the proposed control strategy was
the FPE is connected with a linear electric generator (free-piston technically feasible [21].
engine generator, FPEG) and is investigated with the objective to To reduce the time delay in the control loop, a predictive con-
utilise the configuration within a hybrid-electric automotive vehi- trol system was further proposed by Mikalsen and Roskilly. The
cle power system. Since the FPEG was first proposed, it has piston TDC was predicted from the piston velocity in the
attracted interest from all over the world. Different research meth- compression stroke, rather than measured from the previous
ods and prototype designs have been reported using the FPEG con- operation cycle to improve the dynamic performance of the con-
cept [811]. However, to date, none of these have been troller. Significant improvement was observed using the proposed
commercially realised in part due to the challenges of system control method compared with a conventional PI feedback con-
control. troller, including a faster response and lower error [20]. The pro-
In conventional engines, the crankshaft mechanism provides posed control scheme was put forward to make use of a more
piston motion control, defining both the outer positions of the pis- advanced fuzzy control system which could take the nonlinear
ton motion (the dead centres) and the piston motion profile. Due to and multi-variable characteristic of the control problem into
the high inertia of the crankshaft system, the piston motion cannot consideration [20].
be influenced in the timeframe of one cycle [12]. In the free-piston
engine, the piston motion is determined by the instantaneous sum
of the forces acting on the mover, and the piston motion is there- 1.3. Summary
fore influenced by the progress of the combustion process [13].
Moreover, the piston motion profile may be different for different As the piston motion of FPEG is not restricted by a crankshaft
operating conditions. Variations between consecutive cycles due connection rod mechanism, the piston is free to move between its
to cycle-to-cycle variations in the in-cylinder processes are also TDC and BDC, and the movement is only controlled by the gas and
possible [7,14,15]. Overcome controlling of the FPEG engine is a load forces acting upon it. This induces problems such as difficul-
challenging task. ties in the starting process, misfire, unstable operation and com-
plex control strategy [2,4,22]. For different configurations, the
1.2. Literature review control objectives vary and these are summarised in Table 1. To
meet these challenges, a robust control system is required for the
A model-based controller was developed for the European FPEG. Control of piston TDC position is crucial for stable operation.
Commission-funded Free Piston Energy Converter (FPEC) project. It should be controlled within tight limits to ensure a sufficient
The controller was implemented in a real-time control prototype compression ratio for ignition and efficient combustion, but must
system and tested on a FPEG simulation model [16]. The controller also to avoid mechanical contact between the piston and cylinder
consisted of an observer, and output power controller, an ignition head.
time controller, and a servo controller that was used to control the As the piston is free to move between its instantaneous TDC and
velocity of the moving mass. The outer control loop was used to BDC positions, and this movement is only controlled by the gas and
meet the output power requirement, and the inner loop was used load forces acting upon it. This creates challenges in the starting
to set the optimal ignition timing for ignition. The electromagnetic process, risk of misfire, and unstable operation [23,24]. In this
force and the input fuel mass were selected as control inputs, paper, control challenges for the FPEG will be analysed and the glo-
and output power and ignition timing were the control outputs bal control structure will be presented. As the control of piston
[16]. dead centres are crucial for the FPEG compared with conventional
Johansen et al. proposed a control structure for the FPE [1719], reciprocating engines, the piston motion control is selected as the
which was a multi-level control system. The upper level was the main objective in this research. A Cascade control method is pro-
supervisory control and optimisation, aimed to perform logic con- posed to be implemented, and the controller performance will be
trol and adapt the operating characteristic. The next level was the simulated and discussed.
piston motion control, where commands were given to the timing
subsystems to control the piston motion. At the lowest level there
was timing control, i.e. fuel injection timing and valve timing for
each cycle. A hierarchical multi-rate electronic control system Table 1
was developed for an experimental engine, focusing on piston Control objectives for different configurations.
motion parameter estimation, valve and injector timing, and a pis- FPEG Control objectives
ton motion control system. The present results showed that the configuration
Similarity Difference
current state of the art electronic control technology provided
Single piston o System demand for o Control of rebound device
the required processing capacity and resolution to implement the
energy o Engine operating frequency
required control system functionality of modern high-speed FPEs. o Reach target TDC (speed)
A major challenge was to optimise the engine and control system Opposed Ensure com- o Synchronization control
to get sufficiently high reliability, fault tolerance and robustness piston pression ratio o Rebound device control
[18,19]. Avoid mechan- o Engine operating frequency
ical contact (speed)
Mikalsen and Roskilly discussed the basic features of a single Dual piston o Timing control o Accurate BDC control (TDC for
piston FPEG under development at Newcastle University and Valve timing the other side)
investigated engine control issues using a full-cycle simulation Ignition timing
model [13,20,21]. The control structure was similar to that pre- Injection
timing
sented by Johansen. The response of the engine to rapid load
1168 B. Jia et al. / Applied Energy 179 (2016) 11661175
heat release process; Hu is the low heating value of the fuel with the 2 mm to 24 mm (engine stroke length from 20 mm to 20 mm).
combustion efficiency (J/kg); C v is the heat capacity at constant vol- The engine TDC is sensitive to the injected fuel mass amount,
ume (J/m3 K); V 0 is the cylinder volume at the beginning of the and small variations in the current engine can lead to large changes
compression stroke (m3). in TDC and compression ratio. For an engine with a stroke length of
40 mm, as considered here, a TDC variation of 1% of the stroke
3.2. System input and output analysis length would be equivalent to 0.4 mm and would produce a com-
pression ratio variation of approximately 1.0. However, the influ-
As the control system is aimed for piston stable running control, ence of the injected fuel mass on the engine speed is not that
the piston is controlled to reach and maintain the target TDC, xTDC . obvious compared with that on the piston TDC, the equivalent
The solution to Eq. (1) can be obtained according to vibration the- engine speed is limited within the range from 700 to 1500 rpm
ory [33], and the piston displacement is then defined by: with the fuel mass changes from a wide range from 90% to 90%.
could in principle be further improved with optimised control operation of the FPEG, the piston profile is similar to that of a con-
parameters. stant amplitude and frequency oscillation system [5,15,43]. The
The error of cascade control is demonstrated in Fig. 10, with the FPEG system is finally described by a forced mass-spring vibration
error of the single loop control as well as the error without active system under external excitation, which is designed specifically for
control compared in the same figure. The maximum error happens use in control applications. From the validation results, the fast-
at the first cycle after the disturbance occurs. With the designed response model can predict the piston amplitude and operation
cascade control, the error for piston TDC begins to decrease from frequency with acceptable accuracy. Details for the model simpli-
the first cycle onwards. Whilst with the single loop PID control, fication and validation can be found in our previous publications
the error decreases from the second cycle as the controller is unable [32]. Four typical points for the disturbance occurrence are high-
to update the injected fuel mass only when an error for the first lighted in Fig. 11, which are:
cycle is detected. The purple lines in Fig. 10 are 0.1 mm from the
TDC, and the orange lines are the settling time, i.e. the time it takes o Point a between the BDC and the middle stroke during stroke
for the controller to bring the response within these bounds. It is 1# (marked as Stroke 1# a).
obvious that, by implementing the cascade control, the outcome o Point b between the middle stroke and the TDC during stroke
is better in terms of both peak error and the observed settling time. 1# (marked as Stroke 1# b).
As the disturbance may occur anywhere during the operation of o Point c between the TDC and the middle stroke during stroke 2#
the FPEG, the performance of the proposed cascade control is sim- (marked as Stroke 2# c).
ulated with different disturbance occurrence times. According to o point d between the middle stroke and the BDC during stroke
our previous simulation and experimental investigation on the 2# (marked as Stroke 2# d).
Fig. 10. Cascade control error analysis. Fig. 11. Illustration of disturbance occurrence time.
1174 B. Jia et al. / Applied Energy 179 (2016) 11661175
Fig. 12. Cascade control performance with different time of disturbance occurrence.
As demonstrated in Fig. 12, the error of the cascade control on For the single loop controller, shown in Fig. 13, the peak errors
the piston TDC varies with different disturbance onset time. When- are the same whenever the disturbance occurs. The piston TDC for
ever the disturbance takes place, the controller performance the previous cycle is the only feedback, thus it does not take action
proved acceptable, and the system returned to a stable state in less until the next cycle. As a result, since the disturbance occurs in the
than 10 cycles (approximately 0.5 s). It is observed that if the dis- current cycle, the error will not be detected immediately during
turbance occurs earlier before the piston arrives the middle stroke, the same cycle, and the timing of the disturbance is of little impor-
the peak error will be reduced compared with those which takes tance to the controller performance.
place afterwards. This is because once a disturbance occurs shortly
after TDC/BDC (Stroke 1# a and Stroke 2# c), an error on the piston
velocity will be detected by the controller at the middle of the 4. Conclusions
stroke, and the control variable will be updated in the current
stroke. However, if the disturbance takes place after the piston As the piston motion of FPEG is not restricted by a crankshaft
arrives the middle of the stroke (Stroke 1# b and Stroke 2# d), connection rod mechanism, the piston is free to move between its
the controller will not take action until the subsequent stroke. As two dead centres, and the movement is only controlled by the gas
a result, the proposed cascade control implemented in the FPEG and load forces acting upon it. This induces problems such as dif-
system is more effective when the disturbance occurs before the ficulties in the starting process, misfire, unstable operation and
piston arrives the middle position. complex control strategy. Control of piston TDC position is crucial
Fig. 13. Single-loop control error with different time of disturbance occurrence.
B. Jia et al. / Applied Energy 179 (2016) 11661175 1175
for stable operation. In this paper, the global control structure for [11] Johnson TA, Leick MT. Experimental evaluation of the free piston engine
linear alternator (FPLA). Sandia National Laboratories; 2015.
the FPEG prototype is presented, which is a multi-layer control sys-
[12] Heywood JB. Internal combustion engine fundamentals. New York: Mcgraw-
tem including the engine start/restart control level, supervisory hill; 1988.
control level, piston control level, timing control level, actuator [13] Mikalsen R, Roskilly AP. The control of a free-piston engine generator. Part 1:
control level, and the prototype level with actuators and sensors. Fundamental analyses. Appl Energy 2010;87:127380.
[14] Zhao Z, Zhang F, Huang Y, Zhao C. An experimental study of the cycle stability
Cascade control strategy is proposed for the piston stable operation of hydraulic free-piston engines. Appl Therm Eng 2013;54:36571.
level, and PID controllers are used in both of the outer loop and [15] Jia B, Tian G, Feng H, Zuo Z, Roskilly AP. An experimental investigation into the
inner loop. Both of the measured TDC of the previous stroke and starting process of free-piston engine generator. Appl Energy 2015;157:
798804.
the piston velocity during the current stroke are taken for feed- [16] Hansson J. Analysis and control of a hybrid vehicle powered by free-piston
back, and the injected fuel mass is used as the control variable. energy converter. Phd Dissertation; 2006.
According to the simulation results, the proposed cascade con- [17] Johansen T, Egeland O, Johannessen EA, Kvamsdal R. Free-piston diesel engine
dynamics and control. In: American Control Conference, 2001 Proceedings of
trol implemented in the FPEG shows good performance, and it is the 2001. IEEE 2001. p. 457984.
feasible for both immediate load decrease and increase. The system [18] Johansen TA, Egeland O, Johannessen EA, Kvamsdal R. Free-piston diesel
returns to the stable state in 0.5 s, which is acceptable. Compared engine timing and control-toward electronic cam-and crankshaft. IEEE Trans
Control Syst Technol 2002;10:17790.
with single loop control, the performance is improved by imple- [19] Johansen TA, Egeland O, Johannessen EA, Kvamsdal R. Dynamics and control of
menting the cascade control in terms of the control delay, peak a free-piston diesel engine. J Dyn Syst Meas Contr 2003;125:46874.
error and settling time, and it is more effective when the distur- [20] Mikalsen R, Jones E, Roskilly AP. Predictive piston motion control in a free-
piston internal combustion engine. Appl Energy 2010;87:17228.
bance occurs before the piston arrives the middle position in each
[21] Mikalsen R, Roskilly AP. The control of a free-piston engine generator. Part 2:
stroke. The model we used have been validated with the test data Engine dynamics and piston motion control. Appl Energy 2010;87:12817.
from a running prototype, which means the results from this paper [22] Jia B, Zuo Z, Feng H, Tian G, Roskilly AP. Investigation of the starting process of
is feasible to be used in the real prototype. Meanwhile, the algo- free-piston engine generator by mechanical resonance. Energy Procedia
2014;61:5727.
rithms for the fast-response model and the PID controllers in the [23] Goldsborough SS, Van Blarigan P. A numerical study of a free piston IC engine
cascade control strategy are simple and flexible, and they can be operating on homogeneous charge compression ignition combustion. SAE
easily coupled with real-time Hardware-in-the-Loop control Technical Paper; 1999.
[24] Mikalsen R, Roskilly AP. Performance simulation of a spark ignited free-piston
application. engine generator. Appl Therm Eng 2008;28:172633.
[25] Hanipah MR. Development of a spark ignition free-piston engine
generator. Newcastle University; 2015.
Acknowledgement [26] Kiencke U, Nielsen L. Automotive control systems: for engine, driveline, and
vehicle. Meas Sci Technol 2000;11:1828.
This work was funded using the EPSRC Impact Acceleration [27] Taylor CF. The internal-combustion engine in theory and practice: combustion,
fuels, materials, design. MIT Press; 1985.
Account EP/K503885/1. Data supporting this publication is openly [28] Zulkifli S, Karsiti MN, Aziz ARA. Rectangular current commutation and open-
available under an Open Data Commons Open Database License. loop control for starting of a free-piston linear engine-generator. In: Power and
Additional metadata are available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.17634/ energy conference, 2008 PECon 2008 IEEE 2nd international. IEEE; 2008. p.
108691.
160151-1. Please contact Newcastle Research Data Service at [29] Wu W, Hu J, Yuan S. Semi-analytical modelling of a hydraulic free-piston
rdm@ncl.ac.uk for access instructions. engine. Appl Energy 2014;120:7584.
[30] Kim J, Bae C, Kim G. Simulation on the effect of the combustion parameters on
the piston dynamics and engine performance using the Wiebe function in a
References free piston engine. Appl Energy 2013;107:44655.
[31] Guzzella L, Onder C. Introduction to modeling and control of internal
[1] Mikalsen R, Roskilly AP. A review of free-piston engine history and combustion engine systems. Springer Science & Business Media; 2009.
applications. Appl Therm Eng 2007;27:233952. [32] Jia B, Smallbone A, Feng H, Tian G, Zuo Z, Roskilly AP. A fast response free-
[2] Jia B, Zuo Z, Feng H, Tian G, Smallbone A, Roskilly AP. Effect of closed-loop piston engine generator numerical model for control applications. Appl Energy
controlled resonance based mechanism to start free piston engine generator: 2016;162:3219.
simulation and test results. Appl Energy 2016;164:5329. [33] Harris CM, Piersol AG, Paez TL. Harris shock and vibration handbook. New
[3] Feng H, Guo C, Yuan C, Guo Y, Zuo Z, Roskilly AP, et al. Research on combustion York: McGraw-Hill; 2002.
process of a free piston diesel linear generator. Appl Energy [34] Li K, Zhang C, Sun Z. Precise piston trajectory control for a free piston engine.
2016;161:395403. Control Eng Pract 2015;34:308.
[4] Mikalsen R, Roskilly AP. The design and simulation of a two-stroke free-piston [35] Marlin TE. Process control. New York: McGraw-Hill; 1995.
compression ignition engine for electrical power generation. Appl Therm Eng [36] Huang H-P, Chien IL, Lee Y-C, Wang G-B. A simple method for tuning cascade
2008;28:589600. control systems. Chem Eng Commun 1998;165:89121.
[5] Jia B, Smallbone A, Zuo Z, Feng H, Roskilly AP. Design and simulation of a two- [37] strm KJ, Hgglund T. Advanced PID control. ISA-the instrumentation,
or four-stroke free-piston engine generator for range extender applications. systems, and automation society; Research Triangle Park, NC 27709; 2006.
Energy Convers Manage 2016;111:28998. [38] Ang KH, Chong G, Li Y. PID control system analysis, design, and technology.
[6] Lee C-p. Turbine-compound free-piston linear alternator engine. Stony Brook IEEE Trans Control Syst Technol 2005;13:55976.
University; 2014. [39] strm KJ, Hang CC, Persson P, Ho WK. Towards intelligent PID control.
[7] Zhang S, Zhao C, Zhao Z. Stability analysis of hydraulic free piston engine. Appl Automatica 1992;28:19.
Energy 2015;157:80513. [40] Johnson MA, Moradi MH. PID control. Springer; 2005.
[8] F. Kock, J. Haag, H.E. Friedrich. The Free Piston Linear Generator-Development [41] Tan KK, Wang Q-G, Hang CC. Advances in PID control. Springer Science &
of an Innovative, Compact, Highly Efficient Range-Extender Module. SAE Business Media; 2012.
Technical Paper2013. [42] Roskilly T, Mikalsen R. Marine systems identification, modeling and control.
[9] Jia B, Zuo Z, Feng H, Tian G, Roskilly AP. Development approach of a spark- Butterworth-Heinemann; 2015.
ignited free-piston engine generator. SAE Technical Paper; 2014. [43] Feng H, Guo C, Jia B, Zuo Z, Guo Y, Roskilly T. Research on the intermediate
[10] Kosaka H, Akita T, Moriya K, Goto S, Hotta Y, Umeno T. et al. Development of process of a free-piston linear generator from cold start-up to stable operation:
free piston engine linear generator system Part 1 Investigation of numerical model and experimental results. Energy Convers Manage
fundamental characteristics. SAE Technical Paper; 2014. 2016;122:15364.