Advanced Internal Combustion Engine

Anshuman Chachan K.V.Durga Prasad

Mechanical Engineering
Mahaveer Institute Of Science & Technology
Hyderabad.

Abstract Background

In this manuscript, research on hydrogen internal . Electrical generators capable of high conversion
combustion engines is discussed. The objective of this efficiencies and extremely low exhaust emissions will
project is to provide a means of renewable hydrogen no doubt power advanced hybrid vehicles and
based fuel utilization. The development of a high stationary power systems. Fuel cells are generally
efficiency, low emissions electrical generator will considered to be ideal devices for these applications
lead to establishing a path for renewable hydrogen where hydrogen or methane are used as fuel.
based fuel utilization. A full-scale prototype will be However, the extensive development of the IC engine,
produced in collaboration with commercial and the existence of repair and maintenance industries
manufacturers. The electrical generator is based on associated with piston engines provide strong
developed internal combustion engine technology. It incentives to remain with this technology until fuel
is able to operate on many hydrogen-containing fuels. cells are proven reliable and cost competitive. In
The efficiency and emissions are comparable to fuel addition, while the fuel cell enjoys high public
cells (50% fuel to electricity, 0~NOx). This electrical relations appeal, it seems possible that it may not
generator is applicable to both stationary power and offer significant efficiency advantages relative to an
hybrid vehicles. It also allows specific markets to optimized combustion system. In light of these
utilize hydrogen economically and painlessly. factors, the capabilities of IC engines have been
reviewed.
1. Introduction In regards to thermodynamic efficiency, the
Otto cycle theoretically represents the best option for
Two motivators for the use of hydrogen as an energy an IC engine cycle. This is due to the fact that the fuel
carrier today are: energy is converted to heat at constant volume when
1. To provide a transition strategy from the working fluid is at maximum compression. This
hydrocarbon fuels to a carbonless society and combustion condition leads to the highest possible
2. To enable renewable energy sources. The first peak temperatures, and thus the highest possible
motivation requires a little discussion while the thermal efficiencies.
second one is self-evident. The most common and Edson (1964) analytically investigated the
cost effective way to produce hydrogen today is the efficiency potential of the ideal Otto cycle using
reformation of hydrocarbon fuels, specifically natural compression ratios (CR) up to 300:1, where the
gas. Decarbonization of fossil fuels with subsequent effects of chemical dissociation, working fluid
CO2 sequestration to reduce or eliminate our CO2 thermodynamic properties, and chemical species
atmospheric emissions provides a transition strategy concentration were included. He found that even as
to a renewable, sustainable, carbonless society. the compression ratio is increased to 300:1, the
However, this requires hydrogen as an energy carrier. thermal efficiency still increases for all of the fuels
In this paper work is done on the investigated. At this extreme operating for instance,
linear alternator, two-stroke cycle scavenging system, the cycle efficiency for isooctane fuel at
electromagnetic/combustion/dynamic modeling, and stoichiometric ratio is over 80%.Indeed it appears that
fuel research. The. Work on the scavenging system no fundamental limit exists to achieving high
consists of learning to use KIVA-3V, and designing efficiency from an internal combustion engine cycle.
the scavenging experiment. Hydrogen based However, many engineering challenges are involved
renewables, such as biogas and ammonia, are the fuels in approaching ideal Otto cycle performance in real
being researched. systems, especially where high compression ratios are
utilized.
 Caris and Nelson (1959) investigated the use of operating conditions their single cylinder engine
high compression ratios for improving the thermal would run quite well in a premixed mode with no fuel
efficiency of a production V8 spark ignition engine. injection whatsoever. In general, HCCI combustion
They found that operation at compression ratios above has been shown to be faster than spark ignition or
about 17:1 did not continue to improve the thermal compression ignition combustion. And much leaner
efficiency in their configuration. They concluded that operation is possible than in SI engines, while lower
this was due to the problem of non-constant volume NOx emissions result.
combustion, as time is required to propagate the Most of the HCCI studies to date however, have
spark-ignited flame.In addition to the problem of burn concentrated on achieving smooth releases of energy
duration, other barriers exist. These include the under conventional compression condition (CR 9:1).
transfer of heat energy from the combustion gases to Crankshaft driven pistons have been utilized in all of
the cylinder walls, as well as the operating difficulties these previous investigations. Because of these
associated with increased pressure levels for engines operating parameters, successful HCCI operation has
configured to compression ratios above 25:1. Still, required extensive EGR and/or intake air
finite burn duration remains the fundamental preheating.In order to maximize the efficiency
challenge to using high compression ratios. potential of HCCI operation much higher compression
The goal of emissions compliance further restricts ratios must be used, and a very rapid combustion
the design possibilities for an optimized IC engine. event must be achieved. Recent work with higher
For example, in order to eliminate the production of compression ratios (21 :1) has demonstrated the high
nitrogen oxides (NOx), the fuel/air mixture must be efficiency potential of the HCCI process (Christensen
homogeneous and very lean at the time of et al 1998, Christensen et al 1997).
combustion. (It is subsequently possible to use In Figure 1, the amount of work attained from a
oxidation catalyst technologies to sufficiently control modern 4-stroke heavy duty diesel engine is shown at
other regulated emissions such as HC and CO.) a 16.25 : 1 compression ratio. The results show that
Homogeneous operation precludes diesel- type under ideal Otto cycle conditions (constant volume
combustion, and spark-ignition operation on premixed combustion), 56% more work is still available. This
charges tends to limit the operating compression ratio extreme case of non-ideal Otto cycle behavior serves
due to uncontrolled autoignition, or knock. As well, to emphasize how much can be gained by
very lean fuel/air mixtures are difficult or impossible approaching constant volume combustion.
to spark ignite. On the other hand, lean charges have
more favorable specific heat ratios relative to
stoichiometric mixtures, and this leads to improved
cycle thermal efficiencies. Equivalence ratio is no
longer required to be precisely controlled, as is
required in conventional stoichiometric operation
when utilizing tree way catalysts. Equivalence ratio is
defined here as the ratio of the actual fuel/air ratio to
the stoichiometric ratio

2. Combustion Approach
Homogeneous charge compression ignition
combustion could be used to solve the problems of
burn duration and allow ideal Otto cycle operation to
be more closely approached. In this combustion
process a homogeneous charge of fuel and air is
compression heated to the point of autoignition.
Numerous ignition points throughout the mixture can
ensure very rapid combustion .Very low equivalence
ratios (0 0.3) can be used since no flame propagation 3. Engineering Configuration
is required. Further, the useful compression ratio can
be increased as higher temperatures are required to The free piston linear alternator illustrated in
auto ignite weak mixtures.HCCI operation is Figure 2 has been designed in hopes of approaching
unconventional, but is not new. As early as 1957 ideal Otto cycle performance through HCCI
Alperstein et al. (1958) experimented with premixed operation. In this configuration, high compression
charges of hexane and air, and n-heptane and air in a ratios can be used and rapid combustion can be
Diesel engine. They found that under certain achieved.
 transfer and limiting the NOx kinetics). Finally, one
researcher (Braun 1973) reported that the
cylinder/piston/ring wear characteristics are superior
to slider/crank configurations by a factor of 4.The
combination of the HCCI combustion process and the
free piston geometry is expected to result in
significant improvements in the engine’s thermal
efficiency and its exhaust emissions. The following
advantages should be found:
1. For a given maximum piston velocity, the free
piston arrangement is capable of achieving a desired
compression ratio more quickly than a crankshaft
driven piston configuration. This point is illustrated in
Figure 3 where the piston position profiles of both
configurations are plotted. The reduced compression
time should result in higher compression of the
premixed charge before the onset of auto ignition.
The linear generator is designed such that
electricity is generated directly from the piston’s
oscillating motion, as rare earth permanent magnets
fixed to the piston are driven back and forth through
the alternator’s coils. Combustion occurs alternately
at each end of the piston and a modern two-stroke
cycle scavenging process is used. The alternator
component controls the piston’s motion, and thus the
extent of cylinder gas compression, by efficiently
managing the piston’s kinetic energy through each
stroke. Compression of the fuel/air mixture is
achieved inertially and as a result, a mechanically
simple, variable compression ratio design is possible
with sophisticated electronic control.The use of free
pistons in internal combustion engines has been
investigated for quite some time.In the 1950’s, 2. High compression ratio operation is better
experiments were conducted with free piston engines suited to the free piston engine since the piston
in automotive applications. In these early designs, the develops compression inertially, and as such there are
engine was used as a gasifier for a single stage turbine no bearings or kinematic constraints that must survive
(Underwood 1957, Klotsch 1959). More recent high cylinder pressures or the high rates of pressure
developments have integrated hydraulic pumps into increase (shock). The use of low equivalence ratios in
the engine’s design. the HCCI application should further reduce the
Several advantages have been noted for free piston possibility of combustion chamber surface
IC engines. First, the compression ratio of the engine destruction.(Lee and Schaefer 1983, Maly et al 1990).
is variable; this is dependent mainly on the engine’s 3. The free piston design is more capable of
operating conditions (e.g., fuel type, equivalence supporting the low I1VIEP levels inherent in low
ratio, temperature, etc.). As a result, the desired equivalence ratio operation due to the reduction in
compression ratio can be achieved through mechanical friction.
modification of the operating parameters, as opposed Integration of the linear alternator into the free
to changes in the engine’s hardware. piston geometry provides further benefits to the
An additional benefit is that the mechanical generator design. In this arrangement mechanical
friction can be reduced relative to crankshaft driven losses in the system are dramatically reduced since
geometries since there is only one moving engine part there is essentially one moving part, and this allows
and no piston side loads. Also, combustion seems to engine operation at a more or less constant piston
be faster than in conventional slider-crank speed. These points aid in the generator design, and
configurations. Further, the unique piston dynamics further improve the fuel-to- electricity generation
(characteristically non-sinusoidal) seem to improve efficiency of the device. The linear alternator itself is
the engine’s fuel economy and NOx emissions by based on technology developed for brushless DC
limiting the time that the combustion gases spend at motors. This class of motors is characterized by high
top dead center (TDC) (thereby reducing engine heat
efficiency and high power density, typically 96%
efficiency and 1 hp per pound density. Put simply, the
rotary configuration is unrolled until flat, then rolled
back up perpendicular to the first unrolling to arrive at
the linear configuration. Relative to the rotary
geometry the linear device is approximately 30%
heavier due to not all of the coils being driven at the
same time. Efficiency will be comparable.

4. 2-Stroke Cycle
Inherent in the configuration selected is the need to
scavenge the exhaust gases out of the cylinder and
replace them with fresh fuel/air charge while the
piston is down at the bottom of the cylinder. This
requirement is due to the need to have trapped gases
in the cylinder to act as a spring, as well as to provide
the next combustion event. Conventional 2-stroke
cycle engines have developed a reputation for low
fuel efficiency and high hydrocarbon emissions due to Figure 5 shows the free piston generator again. The
short-circuiting of the inlet fuel/air mixture directly to overall length of the generator is 76 centimeters, its
the exhaust port. The typical 2-stroke application specific power is 800 watts per kilogram, and it has a
stresses power density over efficiency and emissions power density of 800 watts per liter. Hydrogen based
— chain saws, weed whackers, marine outboard renewable fuels such as bio-gas (low BTU producer
motors. These devices must operate over a wide speed gas H2-CH4-CO), ammonia (NH3), methanol
and power range. (CH4O), and/or hydrogen (H2) can be used directly.
In this case the requirements are quite different.
The speed of the free piston oscillation is essentially
fixed. Power is varied by modification of the
equivalence ratio, not the quantity of gas delivered.
Power density is not a driving requirement. As a
result, the design of this system can be optimized
within tight constraints utilizing computational fluid
dynamics and experimental gas dynamics techniques

Experimental Results
Figure 4 shows the results of experimental
combustion studies completed with hydrogen. In this
investigation, a single-stroke rapid compression- The alternator consists of moving rare earth
expansion machine has been used to compression permanent magnets and stationary output coils and
ignite hydrogen. Hydrogen is the fastest burning fuel stator laminations. The design is similar to a
out of all the fuels tested. The high rate of combustion conventional rotary brushless DC generator.Figure 6
does approach constant volume combustion. Figure 3 shows the magnetic flux path for the linear alternator.
shows a typical logarithmic P/V diagram for hydrogen It can be seen that the flux through the coils changes
combustion at top dead center at 33:1 compression direction as the permanent magnet assembly moves
ratio. The piston has, for all practical purposes, not down the alternator core. This changing flux induces
moved during the combustion event. In the free piston current in the coils.
configuration high pressure-rise rates can be handled Two parallel paths are being pursued to develop
without difficulty since there are no load bearing the linear alternator. An alternator was built and
linkages, as in crankshaft-driven engines. tested by Sandia . As a design tool, we are utilizing a
Additionally, operation at equivalence ratios less than two dimensional finite element computer code to
0.5 reduces the need to consider piston erosion, or solve Maxwell’s equations of electromagnetism. The
other physical damage (Maly etal. 1990). code, called FLUX2D, is produced by MagSoft
Corporation. Also another alternator designed
considered was from Magnequench. Both alternator
designs are fabricated for the test. The test will
measure both power output and mechanical to
electrical conversion efficiency.

Figure 8 shows a cut away of the Sandia alternator

design. The power output of the linear alternator is 40
kW, and has an efficiency of 96%. The Magnequench
design is very similar; the differences are primarily in
the coil configuration, magnet fabrication and stator
material. The Sandia magnet assembly is fabricated
from 10 degree arc magnet segments, which are
magnetized in a linear direction.The Sandia stator is
an assembly of 1600 laminations punched from
anisotropic oriented grain silicon steel. Each
lamination has a small angle ground so the assembly
stacks into a cylinder. The Magnequench stator
material is pressed iron powder in an adhesive
matrix.The Magnequench coils consist of a single row
winding of flat wire. The Sandia coils contain 78 turns
of square cross section wire. The Magnequench coils
must be connected in moving groups of five as the
magnet assembly moves in the stator. The Sandia
design isolates each coil from the other coils with a
Wheatstone bridge. This has the advantage of not
requiring an active magnet assembly following
switching network.
 temperature conditions immediately prior to
scavenging port opening and replicate piston motion
during one scavenging cycle. By measuring gases in
the cylinder and in the exhaust collector we will be
able to discern trapping efficiency and scavenging
efficiency during realistic operating conditions.
Figures 11 and 12 show the KIVA-3V modeling
results for one particular configuration being
investigated. We are striving to design a loop
scavenged flow system due to the simplicity it
possesses. We are also designing a uniflow system
with an exhaust valve in the cylinder head. This
approach is thought to be a more confident solution
from a fluid mechanics viewpoint.

Some of the components and fabrication tools for

the Sandia linear alternator are shown in Figure 9.

Alternator Modelling

In preparation for designing the generator control

algorithms a comprehensive mathematical model of
the entire physical system is required. One of the
challenging aspects of the system model is the
electromagnetic performance of the linear alternator.
The finite element model (FLUX2D) utilized in the
design process is too cumbersome for use in a real
time system model.

5.Two Stroke-Cycle Scavenging System

Design
Conventional two-stroke cycle engines are
designed to maximize power density at the expense of
efficiency and emissions. They also must operate over
a wide speed and power range.Our design intent is to
maximize efficiency while minimizing emissions at a
narrow power output operating condition. As a result,
the configuration of the scavenging ports and
operating pressures is likely to be unique to this
design.
Our approach is to utilize KIVA-3V to design the
scavenging system and to validate the KIVA3V
predictions at selected conditions. Towards this goal
we have designed an add-on scavenging experiment
for our free piston combustion test facility. Figure 10
shows the scavenging experiment on the upper left
side connected to the existing combustion experiment
on the lower right side. The experiment will
reproduce combustion cylinder pressure and
 Ammonia
The two most challenging aspects of widespread
hydrogen application are the storage of hydrogen for
mobile applications and the distribution infrastructure.
In the United States approximately 1,000,000 farms
have access to anhydrous ammonia. The distribution
infrastructure already exists to deliver approximately
8 billion pounds of anhydrous ammonia to these farms
for direct use as a nitrogen soil supplement. The
farmers are already handling anhydrous ammonia and
could easily use it as a fuel for their farm equipment if
an efficient utilization device was available. In Figure
6.Hydrogen Based Renewable Fuels 14, the combustion of ammonia exhibits ideal Otto
cycle performance in free piston combustion
Biogas experiment, and produces conversion efficiencies
One of the unique characteristics of HCCI combustion comparable to hydrogen (see Figure 15). Ammonia is
with a free piston is the ability to combust extremely ideal hydrogen based renewable fuel to use in our free
lean mixtures. In the field of gasification of biomass piston generator for several reasons as it can also be
the simplest approach is to combust the material in an widely manufactured on commercial bases too.
oxygen-starved environment. The resultant gas is a Ammonia contains no carbon, and can be easily made
mixture of hydrogen, carbon monoxide, carbon from hydrogen or natural gas.
dioxide, methane, and nitrogen. The mixture is too
lean for utilization in spark-ignition engines and
requires a pilot diesel fuel injection when fumigated
into diesel engine.
Figure 13 shows the results of combustion of a
typical low BTU producer gas as would be produced
from a crude gasifier as would be found in a
developing country. The results indicate excellent
performance in the free piston experiment. In fact,
this lean mixture is ideal for achieving the NOx
control our concept is based upon.
 Anhydrous ammonia is stored in the same manner
as propane, as a liquid under approximately 100
pounds per square inch vapor pressure at room
temperature. If released into the atmosphere, 7. References
ammonia’s density is lighter than that of air and thus
dissipates rapidly. In addition, because of its 1. International Journal of Hydrogen
characteristic smell the nose easily detects it in Energy, Volume 31,Issue 10 August
concentrations as low as 5 ppm. Finally, ammonia has
2006.
such a narrow flammability range that it is generally
considered non-flammable when transported. 2. Hydrogen Program Review by Peter Van
Ammonia is comparable to gasoline as a fuel for Balgarian,Sandia National
combustion engines. Three gallons of ammonia is Laboratories,Livermore
equivalent to one gallon of gasoline in energy content. 3. www.wikipedia.org
In other terms, 2.35 pounds of ammonia is equivalent
to one pound of gasoline in energy content. Cost wise
in 1998, bulk ammonia was $1.13 per gallon gasoline
equivalent. In using ammonia as a fuel, ammonia and 8.Conclusion
air would enter the free piston generator through the
intake port. After combustion, any generated NOx More stress should be laid on further
emissions can be readily reduced by reaction with development of making the renewable
ammonia over a zeolite according to one of the
following two reactions:
sources of fuels easily available to the
mankind so that the environment can be
saved from the disastrous effects of
pollution. Also research should be done in
implementing the technology of hybrid
engines so that we can maximize our gains.