Effect of Pilot Injection with Various Starts of Second Injection Command (SOIC2) and Fuel Injection Pressures on Gasoline Compression Ignition Combustion

Abstract

This experimental study was conducted using a single-cylinder compression ignition (CI) engine with a pilot injection strategy to determine the effect of fuel injection pressure and the timing of the second start of injection (SOI2) on combustion and emission characteristics. This experiment used a mixture of 80% commercial gasoline (G80%) and 20% soybean biodiesel (B20%), by volume. The pilot injection strategy was applied with varying SOI2. Meanwhile, the first start of injection (SOI1) was constant at -350° ATDC and 900 bar fuel injection pressure. A range of fuel injection pressures from 400 to 900 bars and varied injection timing from -44 to -36 CA ATDC was applied at SOI2 to analyze the effect of injection timing and injection pressure on combustion characteristics and emissions. The increasing fuel injection pressure of GB20 in early injection timing will cause a longer ignition delay. The autoignition resistance of GB20 and the improvement of spray velocity enhance the wall wetting probability, consequently reducing the autoignition capability as fuel deposits were formed in the cylinder wall vicinity. Closer injection timing to TDC inhibits spray penetration due to higher room pressure and density, causing lower ignition delay. For GB20, 700 bar fuel injection pressure became the turning point in the ignition delay due to a lower fuel penetration velocity as a higher fuel injection pressure was applied. NOx emissions were identified as a sign of high temperature produced during combustion. The lowest CO2 emissions and the longest ignition delay appeared at the 700-bar injection pressure. Because incomplete combustion resulted in fuel deposits in the vicinity of the cylinder and temperature decrease, injection timings earlier than 40°CA BTDC initiated low thermal reaction (LTR) conditions, causing a temperature decrease during combustion.