Experimental study on the effects of the Miller cycle on the performance and emissions of a downsized turbocharged gasoline direct injection engine

Abstract

The Miller cycle has been proven to be an effective way to improve the thermal efficiency for gasoline engines. However, it may show insufficient power performance at certain loads. In this study, the objective is to exploit the advantages of the Miller-cycle engines over the original Otto-cycle engines. Therefore, a new camshaft profile with early intake valve closure was devised, and two various pistons were redesigned to obtain higher compression ratio 11.2 and 12.1, based on the original engine with compression ratio 10. Then, a detailed comparative investigation of the effects of Miller cycle combined with higher compression ratio on the performance and emission of a turbocharged gasoline direct injection engine has been experimentally carried out based on the engine bench at full and partial loads, compared to the original engine. The results show that, at full load, for a turbocharged gasoline direct injection engine utilizing the Miller cycle, partial maximum power is compromised about 1.5% while fuel consumption shows a strong correlation with engine speed. At partial load, since the Miller effect can well reduce the pumping mean effective pressure, thus improves the fuel economy effectively. In addition, the suppression of the in-cylinder combustion temperature induced by the lower effective compression ratio contributes to the reduction of nitrogen oxide emission greatly. However, the total hydrocarbon emission increases slightly. Therefore, a combination of the Miller cycle and highly boosted turbocharger shows great potential in further improvement of fuel economy and anti-knock performance for downsized gasoline direct injection engines.