ANALYSIS OF HCCI COMBUSTION CHARACTERISTICS BASED ON EXPERIMENTATION AND SIMULATIONS-INFLUENCE OF FUEL OCTANE NUMBER AND INTERNAL EGR ON COMBUSTION

Homogenous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) combustion systems can be broadly divided for the process applied to 4-stroke and 2-stroke engines. The former process is often referred to as simply HCCI combustion and the latter process as Active Thermo-Atmosphere Combustion (ATAC). The region of stable engine operation tends to differ greatly between the two processes. In this study, it was shown that the HCCI combustion process of a 4-stroke engine, characterized by the occurrence of autoignition under a high compression ratio, a lean mixture and wide open throttle operation, could be simulated by operating a 2-stroke engine at a higher compression ratio. On that basis, a comparison was made of the combustion characteristics of high-compression-ratio HCCI combustion and ATAC, characterized as autoignited combustion in the presence of a large quantity of residual gas at a low compression ratio and part throttle. The results showed that one major difference between these two combustion processes was their different degrees of susceptibility to the occurrence of cool flame reactions. Compared with high-compression-ratio HCCI combustion, the ignition timing of ATAC tended not to change in relation to different fuel octane numbers. Furthermore, when internal EGR was applied to high-compression-ratio HCCI combustion, it resulted in combustion characteristics resembling ATAC. Specifically, as the internal EGR rate was increased, the ignition timing showed less change in relation to changes in the octane number and the region of stable engine operation also approached that of ATAC.