Reduction of pressure rise rates in boosted HCCI engine using advanced valve actuation strategies

Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) is a promising low temperature combustion technology which offers high fuel efficiency and extremely low exhaust emissions. However, there are still some pending issues to be resolved before the technology will achieve mass production level. Namely, combustion controllability should be improved and HCCI operating range should be widen. The latter is constrained by excessive combustion rates under high loads. In this study, advanced variable valve actuation strategies were applied to control auto-ignition timings and combustion rates. The examinations were conducted using single-cylinder research engine fuelled with directly injected gasoline. The HCCI combustion was achieved using negative valve overlap technique. The engine was run under boosted conditions, in an operation regime where acceptable pressure rise rate (PRR) level is usually exceeded. Selected valve timing sweeps were carried out within a scope of the experiments to evaluate PRR reduction potential. The obtained results manifested superior combustion controllability. Late exhaust valve closing enabled reduction of the amount of internally re-circulated exhaust, which propagated to the main event combustion. From the intake side, two effects were observed, i.e. variability of the intake air aspiration and variability of the apparent compression ratio. Both phenomena were found to affect combustion timings and rates.