Combustion and emissions of gasoline, anhydrous ethanol, and wet ethanol in an optical engine with a turbulent jet ignition system

Abstract

Turbulent jet ignition is a pre-chamber ignition system for an otherwise standard gasoline spark ignition engine. Turbulent jet ignition works by injecting chemical active turbulent jets to initiate combustion in a premixed fuel/air mixture. The main advantage of turbulent jet ignition is its ability to ignite and burn completely very lean fuel/air mixtures in the main chamber charge. This occurs with a very fast burn rate due to the widely distributed ignition sites that consume the main charge rapidly. Rapid combustion of lean mixtures leads to lower exhaust emissions due to more complete combustion at lower combustion temperature. The purpose of the paper is to study the combustion characteristics of gasoline, ethanol, and wet ethanol when operated with the pre-chamber combustion system and the ability of the pre-chamber ignition to extend the lean-burn limits of such fuels. The combustion and heat release process was analyzed and exhaust emissions measured. Results show that the effect of turbulent jet ignition system on the lean-burn limit and exhaust emissions varied with fuels. The lean limit was extended by using fueled pre-chamber furthest, to λ = 1.71 with gasoline, followed by λ = 1.77 with wet ethanol and λ = 1.9 with ethanol. NOx emissions were significantly reduced with increased lambda for each fuel under stable combustion conditions. For ethanol, at maximum lean limit lambda 1.9, the NOx emissions were almost negligible due to lower combustion temperature.