An Experimental Study on the Ignition Probability and Combustion Flame Characteristics of Spark-Ignited Direct-Injection CNG

Abstract

For the SI engines, at only full load, the pumping loss has a negligible effect, while at part load conditions, the pumping loss increases. To avoid the pumping loss, the spark-ignited engines are designed to inject gasoline directly into the combustion chamber. In the spark-ignited direct-injection engines, ignition probability is important for successful combustion and the flame propagation characteristics are also different from that of pre-mixed combustion. In this paper, a visualization experiment system is designed to study the ignition probability and combustion flame characteristics of spark-ignited directinjection CNG fuel. The visualization system is composed of a combustion chamber, fuel supply system, air supply system, electronic control system and data acquisition system. It is found that ambient pressure, ambient temperature and ambient air flow velocity are important parameters which affect the ignition probability of CNG-air mixture and flame propagation characteristics and the injected CNG fuel can be ignited directly by a spark-plug under proper ambient conditions. For all cases of successful ignition, the flame propagation images were digitally recorded with an intensified CCD camera and the flame propagation characteristics were analyzed.