Combustion Noise Reduction with High Thermal Efficiency by the Control of Multiple Fuel Injections in Premixed Diesel Engines

Premixed diesel combustion is effective for high thermal efficiency and reductions of NOx and PM emissions, but a reduction of combustion noise is necessary for medium-high load engine operation. The control of the fuel injection has become more accurate because of the technical progress of the common rail fuel injection system, and the target heat release shape, calculated by computation, can be achieved by control of EGR, boosting, fuel injection timing, and injection quantity of multiple fuel injections. In this paper, the reduction of premixed diesel combustion noise maintaining high thermal efficiency has been investigated by the control of injection timings and heating values of multiple fuel injections. There are two aspects of the combustion noise reduction by multiple fuel injections. One is the reduction of the maximum rate of pressure rise in each combustion cycle, and the other is noise reduction effects by the noise cancelling spike (NCS) combustion. The research was conducted with both engine simulations and experiments. In combustion noise simulations, the heat release history of multiple injections was approximated by Wiebe functions and the simulated combustion noise was calculated from the fitted curve of the heat release and the coherence transfer function. The structural attenuation (SA) of the test engine was calculated from the power spectrum of the FFT analysis of the in-cylinder pressure wave data and the cross power spectrum of the sound pressure of the engine noise by the coherence method, then the combustion noise (CNL) can be calculated from the structural attenuation and cylinder pressure level (CPL) in the simulation, as shown in equation 4 . The simulation results were confirmed by the engine tests. First, the combustion noise reduction by two stage fuel injection was investigated. The maximum rate of pressure rise changes depending on the combustion occurring separately in the compression and expansion strokes. One heat release was set at TDC and the second before or after the TDC. In the late two stage combustion as shown in Figure 12 (b) , the combustion noise reduction was most effectively achieved when the heating value of Q 2nd is higher than that of Q 1st , however in the early two stage combustion in Figure 12 (a) , the Q 1st heat release occurs during the compression stroke and the combustion noise reduction by the early two stage NCS combustion is more effective than the combustion noise reduction by the late two stage NCS combustion. Three stage combustion simulations were also investigated at 0.6MPa IMEP and 2000 rpm. The optimum heat release shape for low combustion noise and high indicated thermal efficiency was calculated and the role of each part of the heat release in the three stage combustion is discussed. The simulation predicted 87.1 dBA of combustion noise and 50.3 % of indicated thermal efficiency. Finally, the effects of multiple fuel injections on the degree of constant volume and combustion noise are analyzed and discussed.Cross Reference: