Compressed natural gas direct injection (spark plug fuel injector)

289

13
X

Compressed natural gas direct

injection (spark plug fuel injector)
Taib Iskandar Mohamad

Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (National University Malaysia)

Malaysia
1. Introduction
The increasing concerns over energy security and the emission of pollutant gases have
triggered greater efforts towards developing alternatives to conventional fuels for road
vehicles. In the presence of these concerns, automotive engine technology is challenged by
the increasing divergence between higher power output, better fuel economy and lower
pollutant emission requirements (Stan, 2002).
Several alternatives to gasoline and diesel fuels have been studied on current internal
combustion (IC) engines. These include natural gas (NG), which is predominantly methane,
liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), hydrogen, as well as ethanol and methanol. They are used
either as supplement or replacement to gasoline in spark ignition (SI) engines. For
compression ignition (CI) engines, dual fuel operation with diesel fuel providing pilot
ignition source has been successful for heavy-duty applications. CI engines have also
benefited from the use of various alternative fuels of vegetable origins as diesel replacement.
LPG is a promising alternative fuel mainly due to its relatively high energy density, high
octane rating and low pollutant emissions. It can be stored as liquid at moderate pressure,
which gives it major advantage over most other alternative fuels. Methanol on the other
hand has a very high octane rating but low heating value and stoichiometric air fuel ratio
(AFR). Thus it leads to higher volumetric fuel consumption when compared to gasoline.
Hydrogen fuel for electrically driven fuel cell cars, seen as the future replacement to IC
engine technology, is undergoing relatively slower research and development and is
expected to be in large scale production at some distance of time. IC engines is therefore will
remain the key power source in the 21st century until fuel cell vehicles become widespread
(Morita, 2003)
Natural gas use has various advantages over conventional fuels mainly due to its potential
for higher thermal efficiency (due to higher octane value that allows the use of higher
compression ratios), and lower CO2 emission (due to lower carbon-to-hydrogen ratio) (Shiga
et. al. 2002). From the supply point of view, natural gas has the advantage of energy
diversification and the total reserves have been estimated in the same order as petroleum
but with only 60% of its production rate (Vuorenkoski, 2004).
According to the statistics by the International Association for Natural Gas Vehicles
(IANGV, 2009), there are approximately 11.2 million NGVs in operation worldwide with

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long establishment record in Europe, North America and South America. Pakistan,
Argentina, Iran and Brazil record the highest numbers of NGV with 2.4, 1.8, 1.7 and 1.6
million respectively. The numbers are increasing with mounting interest from other
countries like India (725,000 NGV) and Malaysia (42,617 NGV). Most NGV are fuel
converted and dual fuel types.
Natural gas is often stored compressed at ambient temperature as compressed natural gas
(CNG) in these vehicles but it requires more storage space. NG can also be stored
cryogenically at ambient pressure as liquefied natural gas (LNG) in heavy-duty vehicles. For
the same energy content, the emission from NG combustion have significantly less harmful
combustion products such as CO2 and NOx than gasoline and diesel engines (Bradley, 1996).
NGV can be categorized into three types, (1) fuel converted, (2) dual fuel operation and (3)
dedicatedly developed engine. Most NGV are of type (1) and (2) while type (3) available
mainly for heavy duty vehicles. It is well known that when a port injection gasoline engine
is converted to NG, with the fuel injected in the intake manifold, power is reduced and
upper speed is limited. These are due to reduction of volumetric efficiency and the relatively
lower turbulent flame speed of NG-air combustion (Ishii, 1994). The problems can be
mitigated by direct injection which increases volumetric efficiency and improves mixing as a
result of turbulence induced by high pressure injection. However, to achieve direct fuel
injection, a complicated and costly engine modification is required. The cylinder head needs
to be redesigned or retrofitted to accommodate the direct fuel injector.

2. Direct injection concepts

Two main characteristics of direct injection are internal mixture formation and closed valve
injection. Mixture formation is vital in direct injection because the available time for air-fuel
mixing is relatively short compared to indirect port injection or carburetion.
2.1 Internal mixture formations in direct injection spark ignition engines
In spark ignition engines, air and fuel mixing takes place in the cylinder but a premixing
process occurs to a certain degrees depending on type of fuel delivery. In a carburetor
system, fuel vaporizes and mixes in the air stream prior to entering the combustion
chamber. In a port injection system, fuel is injected and the velocity of fuel jet determines
atomization and evaporation of fuel in air. In the direct injection method, fuel is directly
injected into the combustion chamber as intake valve closes. The turbulence induced by the
gas jet and the jet penetration determine the degree of mixing. In general, the mixing process
in the direct injection method is restricted to a much shorter time. Furthermore, unlike the
carburetion and port injection where mixing starts before air and fuel enter the combustion
chamber, the mixing in direct injection mode can only happen in confined cylinder
geometry.
The concepts of homogenous and stratified mixture formation are very important when
discussing the direct injection in spark ignition engines because they form the basis of a
better control of fuel mixture than the one experienced with port fuel injection. In addition,
charge stratification can increase thermal efficiency and have the potential of reducing
pollutant emissions. However, with direct injection operation, the degree of mixing and
mixture uniformity is vital for reliable combustion. A combination of direct injection, high
squish, high swirl and optimized piston crown shape can produced fast mixing and a high

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degree of mixture uniformity, thus turbulent intensity, molecular diffusion and chemical
kinetics, which are the main contributors to the establishment and propagation of a
turbulent flame (Risi, 1997). Mixture formation in direct injection engines can be classified
into homogeneous and stratified charge based on the injection strategies. The concepts of
these mixture formations are determined by the engine operation and fuel economy
requirements.
2.1.1 Early injection, homogeneous-charge operation
The homogeneous mixture operating mode in the direct injection engine is designed to meet
the requirement of medium-to-high engine loads. Depending on the overall air-fuel ratio,
the mixture can be homogeneous-stoichiometric or homogeneous lean. Early injection
makes it possible to achieve a volumetric efficiency that is higher than port fuel injection,
and slightly increased compression ratio operation which contributes to better fuel
economy. It also benefits from better emission during cold start and transient operation
(Zhao, 1999 & 2002).
2.1.2 Late injection, stratified-charge operation
This operation is mainly to achieve lean burn and unthrottled operations by injecting fuel
late during compression stroke. Fuel stratification is achieved by injection strategy such that
the air-fuel ratio around the spark gaps yield stable ignition and flame propagation, whereas
areas farther from the point of ignition is leaner or devoid of fuel. The advantage of charge
stratification includes significant reduction in pumping work associated with throttling,
reduced heat loss, reduced chemical dissociation from lower cycle temperatures and
increases specific heat ratio for the cycle, which provide incremental gains in thermal
efficiency (Zhao, 2002).
2.2 Potential for direct fuel injection in spark ignition engine
Direct injection in spark ignition engines could achieve a number of desirable effects. When
direct injection method is applied to gaseous fuel, more achievement in terms of specific
power output can be realized due to significant improvement in volumetric efficiency. The
advantages of direct injection methods can be summarized as follows (Stan, 2002)
2.2.1 Increased thermal efficiency and lower specific fuel consumption
At part load, avoiding fresh charge throttling results in charge stratification and burned gas
in distinct zones. This ideal structure consists of stoichiometric mixture cloud with spark
contact, enveloped by fresh air and burned gas that form a barrier against chemical reactions
near chamber wall thus avoiding intense heat transfer to the wall during combustion.
Thermal efficiency is bettered by increasing compression ratio, as well as turbo charging and
supercharging. Knock can be avoided in such cases by different effects: mixture formation
just before or during ignition; mixture concentration in central zone of combustion chamber;
out of crevice; of mixture cooling by fuel vaporization during injection.

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2.2.2 Higher torque due to increase in absolute heating value of mixture

This is achieved by higher scavenging intensity. The more fresh air is captured, the more
fuel can be injected. One the other hand, more captured air generally leads to greater
scavenging losses. However, fresh air losses without fuel inclusion have no disadvantages in
terms of pollutant emissions, leading to only a slight disturbance of thermal efficiency. Such
enforced cylinder filling with air forms the basis for efficient downsizing, which involves
supercharging of turbo-charging, inter-cooling, and also adapted valve control.
2.2.3 Decreased pollutant emission
Pollutant emission reduction is achieved mainly by the lean burn strategy, which is usually
coupled with unthrottled operation. The lean mixture formation however needs a careful
calibration of injection timing with respect to ignition timing, as well as proper shape of fuel
spray and injection duration.
2.2.4 Improved acceleration behavior
Intensive scavenging and unthrottled operation results in a high charge of fresh air at every
load. Thus, inertial effects of the air flow during acceleration can be partially avoided. On
the other hand, the possible real-time adaptation of the fuel injection rate to the air flow
behavior allows an adaptable correlation of mixture formation and combustion. Such
dynamic response on torque demand is well known from advanced car diesel engines with
direct injection. The success of a direct injection method depends mainly on the effectiveness
of mixture formation and control. This is achieved with precise fuel injection strategies,
appropriate cylinder geometry with flow guide and advanced engine management system.
A simple technique to improve engine performance when converting port injection gasoline
engines to NG operation using direct fuel injection can be realized using spark plug fuel
injector (SPFI). The next section will explore briefly on the development of SPFI and its
design specifications.

3. Spark Plug Fuel Injector (SPFI)

The SPFI is a device developed in order to convert any port injection engine to direct
injection gaseous fuels (natural gas, hydrogen etc). Normally, converting to direct injection
requires modifications to or replacement of the cylinder head to accommodate extra holes
for fuel injectors and possibly modifying the piston crowns which incur a high cost. With
SPFI, this cost can be reduced because no modification on the original engine structure and
spark plug placement are required. It is a technically easier and cheaper conversion system
by only replacing the existing spark plug with SPFI. As a result, users will not only benefit
from an alternative low cost conversion, but also can enhance the engine performance
compared to currently available conversion kits with port fuel injection. In addition, SPFI
also can be utilized for dual-fuel systems in the internal combustion (IC) engines such as
gasoline-CNG, gasoline-hydrogen and CNG-hydrogen. Fig. 1 shows the Spark Plug Fuel
Injector (SPFI) and associated components. The technical drawings and connection to a
direct gasoline injector (DGI) encapsulated in a bracket are shown in Fig. 2. Fig. 3 shows the
DGI with the bracketing components. The SPFI consists of a spark plug with a 1 mm by 2
mm square cross-section fuel path cut out along the periphery of its threaded section and a

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steel tube soldered to the end of the cut section. A DGI is connected to it using a specially
developed bracket to the end of the fuel path. The distance from the DGI injection nozzle to
the SPFI nozzle is 11 cm. The DGI injector is connected to a 230 bar methane bottle through a
pressure regulator where methane pressure is reduced to the desired pressure. A specially
developed injection control was used to regulate fuel injection by referencing crank angle
signals from a camshaft encoder. The length of injection pulse determines fuel mass
delivered, therefore air/fuel ratio to the cylinder. The most immediate effect of installation
of SPFI on the Ricardo E6 engine is the reduction of motorized engine cylinder peak
pressure due to decrease in compression ratio (Mohamad, 2006).

Fig. 1. Spark plug fuel

injector

Fig. 2. (Left) Technical drawing of SPFI (units in mm) and

(Right) SPFI connected to injector housing

Fig. 3. DGI injector and enclosure component (left), DGI injector in the enclosure (center)
and SPFI mounted on an engine (left)
3.1 Injection process
Among the initial SPFI development works is the study on injection process (Mohamad, 2010).
It is important to understand the effects of the SPFI fuel path on the injection process which
will significantly affect the air-fuel mixing in the combustion chamber. Fig. 4 shows the
experimental setup of the injection measurement. The experimental setup can be categorised
into four groups; (1.) a laser-optical lens system, (2.) an imaging system, (3.) a fuel supply

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system and, (4) a fuel chamber equipped with windows in which the fuel substitute is injected
(termed the bomb). The fuel injection driver circuit was synchronized with the camera and
laser systems. A MOSFET transistor, acting as a gate/bridge between a power supply unit and
the SPFI, is excited by the output of a pulse generator which functioned as the main driver to
the experiment. At the same time, the pulse generator output was connected to another
pulse/delay generator where its signal was sent to the laser source. The laser source
simultaneously sent a signal to the camera so that the laser pulse was synchronised with the
opening of the shutter. An oscilloscope was connected to both pulse/delay generator to
measure the delay between initiation of fuel injection and image capture. For every 0.5-1.0 ms
interval (delay with respect to injection signal), 20 images were captured, therefore the
sequence of jet development images was independent of the laser frequency.
The plume of fuel emerging from the injector nozzle was imaged. The plume was
illuminated with a 100 mm high, 0.5mm thick light sheet from a XeCl excimer laser (308nm)
with 100-200mJ/pulse and was imaged with a camera with image intensifier and lens. Laser
Induced Fluorescence (LIF) images were taken of fluorescence emitted by the acetone mixed
with nitrogen. The LIF is emitted by both droplets and vapour and the signal is proportional
to the local mass concentration. Images were taken at several different times after the start of
the injector current pulse. At each time, 20 images were taken from successive cycles. The
camera settings were f/8, intensifier gate 200ns, intensifier gain x60, camera gain x95. The
images were corrected for background intensity and light sheet intensity.

Fig. 4. Schematic of the PLIF imaging of SPFI injection

The nitrogen acetone doping mechanism (Drechsel bottle) is shown in Fig. 5. The nitrogen is
bubbled through the acetone and trapped in the upper part of the threshold bottle. The
trapped gas increases its pressure and as it reaches the desired injection pressures, the
supply valve is closed. An outlet gas pipe is attached to the bottle, positioned above the
surface of acetone, thus only acetone-saturated gas is delivered to the SPFI. The amount of
seeded acetone is determined based on the saturated vapor pressure of acetone at the room
conditions which equals the partial pressure of acetone in the seeded gas. Acetone
concentration was kept constant by adjusting the injection frequency to give sufficient time
for building up acetone concentration for the next injection. The supply gas and bomb were
maintained at room temperature using a water bath. The evaporative cooling in the acetone
bottle was kept to a minimum during all pulse durations. The pressure gauge on the gas
pipe near SPFI was used to determine the injection pressures.

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The experiments were carried out by referencing the motorised cylinder pressure of a single
cylinder Ricardo E6 engine (Mohamad 2006). Fig. 6 shows the non-firing cylinder pressure
during the compression stroke and the injection timings for stoichiometric air-fuel ratio
operations. For 80 bar injection pressure, the optimal injection time is at 215o BTDC of
compression stroke (Mohamad 2006). For 50 bar and 60 bar injections, the optimal injections
were at 170o BTDC. Fuel injection durations were 6 ms, 10 ms and 12 ms for 80 bar, 60 bar
and 50 bar injection pressures respectively in order to supply a stoichiometric quantity of
fuel. At 1100 rpm, these injections cover 40oCA, 66oCA and 79oCA respectively, as shown in
Fig. 6. Taking into account the fuel delivery delay due to the lengthy fuel path in the SPFI, it
was decided to perform injections at three bomb pressures: 1 bar, 3 bar and 10 bar. The 1
and 3 bar pressure represent the range of actual injection cylinder pressure, while the 10 bar
pressure was chosen to investigate the effect of gas jet if injection is delayed at later stage of
compression stroke.

Fig. 5. Nitrogen acetone doping mechanisms (Drechsel bottle) for SPFI spray imaging
16

Cylinderpressure,bar

14
Ignition

12
10
8

tinj 80bar t 60bar

inj

SOI50&60bar

tinj 50bar

IVO

2
0
120

140

160

180

BDC

200

220

240

260

280

300

320

340

360

TDC

380

Crankangle

Fig. 6. Cylinder pressure of motorized Ricardo E6 engine (r = 10.5, N = 1100 rpm), starts of
injections and injection timings (tinj) derived from engine experiments

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3.1
1.1 Image calibra
ation
It is
i important to qu
uantify the injectiion penetration an
nd the width of tthe gas plume fro
om the
im
mages. The bomb viewing window
w allows 110 mm
m circular diametter visual access to the
injeection gas flow. Calibration
C
of gass jet dimensions was
w achieved by imaging a known
n scale
objject attached to th
he fuel injection veertical plane as sh
hown in Fig. 7. Fig
g. 8 shows a calib
bration
im
mage captured by the
t CCD camera and
a compared witth a PLIF image w
with no gas injectio
on. The
briight spots at the to
op of the PLIF imaage are due to stro
ong elastic scatterin
ng of the laser ligh
ht from
thee injector and hold
der breaking throu
ugh the PLIF filteer. The speckled p
pattern in the bulk
k of the
im
mage is due to therm
mal and cosmic raay noise in the inteensifier and CCD. High intensifier voltage
v
and
d low level of sig
gnal leads to low signal-to-noise ra
atio. Much effort w
was applied to av
voiding
thiis background no
oise and improvem
ments were made. In addition, th
he design of the doping
d
sysstem was limited by
b a need to operaate it at high pressures and limited ssupply of acetone.

Fig
g. 7. Calibration of
o fuel
injection measurem
ment

Fig. 8. Calibration im
mage (left) and PL
LIF image with no
o gas
injecction (right)

3.1
1.2 Injection ima
ages
Im
mages of gas jets from
f
SPFI nozzlee were obtained successfully with
h the PLIF metho
od. The
im
mages shown in Fig
g. 10 are the conseecutive images of gas jet at various injection pressurees. The
briight white areas peenetrating from th
he top of each ima
age indicates the in
njected gas presencce. The
inttensities of brigh
htness can be useed to describe qualitatively
q
the g
gas concentration
n. It is
im
mportant to note th
hat because the aceetone-doped nitrog
gen remains staticc in the injection fu
uel line
du
ue to the slow ratee of injection in thiis experiment (on
nce in every 1 seco
ond), it was possib
ble that
som
me of the acetonee settled or condensed to the pipe walls, thus reducing the concentraation of
do
oping. Neverthelesss, the jets are cleaarly seen in the Fiig.s. The shape off the gas jets are in
n good
agrreement with the vortex ball modell (Turner 1962; Boy
yan and Furuyam
ma 1998). Fig. 9 sho
ows the
vortex ball model which is a theorretical model tha
at assumes the g
gas transient jet can
c
be
chaaracterized as a sp
pherical vortex inteeracting with a steeady-state jet.

Fig
g. 9. The vortex ball model (Turnerr 1962; Boyan and
d Furuyama 19988)

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The injection durations for 50, 60 and 80 bar fuel pressures on the Ricardo E6 engine were 12
ms, 10 ms and 6 ms respectively. These values correspond to the stoichiometric fraction of
methane for the engine tests. A fully developed gas jet refers to the gas plume with longest jet
tip penetration before detachment from the SPFI nozzle. In general, it can be seen that the fully
developed gas jets from the SPFI injection were relatively narrow, with about 23o cone angle
and 25 mm of maximum width in a fully developed gas jet. The cone angle is specified by
measuring the angle generated by a triangle connecting the center of SPFI nozzle and the
widest horizontal span of the gas jet as shown in Fig. 10. The jet tip penetration length and jet
width were defined based on the lowest acetone concentration detectable. Fig. 11 shows the
visual definition of the tip penetration length and jet width. The penetration length of the fully
developed gas jet is between 90 and 100 mm at 8 to 14 milliseconds after the starts of injections.
The results show that at all injection pressures, the first appearance of gas jet can be seen at
2.5 ms after SOI which coincides with the first interval of imaging. However the images at
this interval were not shown in Fig. 9. It is believed that if the interval is decreased, the first
appearance of gas jet can be well defined with respect to different injection pressures. The
fully developed jets appear at different times. Higher injection pressure results in faster
development of a fully-developed jet which is defined by the furthest distance of jet tip
penetration while the plumes were still attached to the injection nozzle. In addition,
increasing injection pressure reduces the effective fuel delivery time which is measured
from the SOI signal to the time of gas plume detachment from the injection nozzle. Bomb
pressure affects the magnitude of tip penetration and effective fuel delivery time. Increasing
bomb pressure leads to shorter jet penetration and slower effective delivery time.
The penetrations of gas jet based on the PLIF imaging experiments are shown in Fig. 12. Fig.
13 shows the effect of injection and bomb pressure on tip penetration. Jet penetration is
proportional to square root of injection time, except in the early phase. As the bomb
pressure increases, jet penetration reduces. However, for the same bomb pressure, the
variation in penetration lengths with changing fuel pressure is relatively small due to SPFI
injection nozzle exit flow were at sonic conditions for all injection pressures. Therefore gas
velocity remains constant except when flow temperature increases. However, the mass flow
rate at the sonic conditions not only depends on flow temperature but also depends on the
density of the injected gas which is proportional to supply pressure. Therefore mass flow
rate determines the length of injection duration and in certain degree affected the length of
jet penetration. The penetration lengths are highest at 80 bar and lowest at 60 bar injection.
The jet from 60 bar injection is slightly wider but shorter than the one from 50 bar injection.
Measurement of jet tip penetration was performed from 15 images of each injection condition.
Error analysis was done with respect to the measured data. The average error was 0.30mm
and the highest error was found to be at 0.48mm or 3.9% of the measured data. These errors
were sourced from a number of factors. Variation of acetone temperature affects the
concentration of acetone in the compressed nitrogen. Assuming laser power and camera
sensitivity remain constant, the variation of acetone concentration means variation in location
of threshold of fluorescent signal. Visual error while measuring the jet parameters from the
images was another source. However, the error was proven to be relatively low.

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Pinj

50 bar

60 bar

80 bar

Time
after
SOI
(ms)
4.0

6.0

8.0

10.0

12.0

14.0

Fig. 10. Consecutive images of various injection pressures at 1 bar bomb pressures. Fully
developed gas plume are indicated by the green square backgrounds

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Jet tip penetration

SPFI nozzle

Jet
width

Fig. 11. Fully developed gas jet from SPFI at 60 bar injection and 3 bar bomb pressure

100

100

90

90

Tippenetration,xt [mm]

Tippenetration,xt [mm]

Based on the investigation, SPFI design yields sufficient jet penetration length especially
during the later part of compression stroke. However, the width of the jet and the direction
of injection away from the point of ignition could be detrimental to the engine performance.
SPFI utilizes a fuel injector which is optimised for direct injection and stratified charge
operations. However, the optimization of nozzle design and orientation to give best effect
on stratified charge direct injection has not been taken advantage of of the SPFI system yet.
As a result, the effective fuel injection behaviour is determined mainly by the injection
nozzle as well as the fuel path. This work has given a qualitative understanding of the
injection and mixing behaviour which is useful for design optimization process of SPFI.

80
70
60
50
40
30

50barinj/1barbomb

20

60barinj/1barbomb

10

80barinj/1barbomb

10

12

14

70
60
50
40
30

80barinj/1barbomb

20

80barinj/3barbomb

10

80barinj/10barbomb

0
0

80

16

TimeafterSOI[ms]

Fig. 12. Effects of injection pressure on the

SPFI jet tip penetration

10

12

14

16

TimeafterSOI[ms]

Fig. 13. Effect of bomb pressure on the SPFI

jet tip penetration

3.2 Experimental investigation

The SPFI methane direct injection system was designed and tested on a Ricardo E6 engine
with gasoline head. The engine is connected and mounted on a common test bed with a
direct current electric dynamometer, which functions as motor or brake. Lubricant
circulation is driven by an electric motor and water coolant is circulated by separately

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driven centrifugal pump. The engine has one intake and one exhaust poppet-type valves.
The specifications of the engine are given in Table 1.
Fig. 14 shows the cross sectional area of the engine and the SPFI attachment to the engine.
The combustion chamber is disk-shaped with flat cylinder head and flat piston crown. Two
14-mm spark plug holes penetrate from the sides at 60o from vertical axis and pointing to
the central axis of the cylinder. The intake manifold arrangement creates both tumble and
swirl motion of different degrees. Fig. 15 shows the experimental set up on the Ricardo E6
engine. A shaft encoder was mounted on the camshaft, giving one TTL signal per camshaft
rotation which, corresponds to one signal for every two crankshaft rotations. The signal is
set as an input to a pulse generator which output signal at changeable pulse length and
delay is generated. This secondary signal which determines injector pulse length is then sent
to a mosfet that functions as a gate for the high power signal from power supply unit (12 V,
5A) to the GDI injector. Ignition timing varying from 0 to 60o crank angle BTDC can be set
using a magnetic strip mechanism attached to the crankshaft and connected to the ignition
coil. Engine speed is controlled from the main unit of the electric dynamometer. Crank
position is determined from the photodiode signals flashing through 180-rectangular-slotted
disk mounted to the crankshaft. The Spark Plug Fuel Injector was mounted through one of
the spark plug holes as shown in Fig. 14. Cylinder pressures were measured with an uncooled type Kistler model 6121 A1 pressure sensor attached to the cylinder head through the
other spark plug hole. Pressure signal is amplified through a piezoelectric amplifier. The
crank angle and TDC were encoded using the photodiode and slotted disk system. Both
crank angle and pressure signals were sent to a data acquisition system at 12000 samples per
second rate. The schematic of the experimental control and instrumentation is shown in Fig
4. Methane is supplied from a 230 bar container and a pressure regulator is adjusted to
achieved the desired injection pressures. Injection timings were varied to investigate the
effects on engine performance. Air/fuel ratio was set to be stoichiometric and ignition
timings were set at minimum advance for best torque (MBT). Methane was used as natural
gas substitute due to close proximity of properties of these two gases. Methane was injected
at 60 bars and 80 bars at various crank angles during the intake or compression stroke at
1100 rpm and mixture lambda value of 1.0. The injection timing are referred to degree crank
angle after intake TDC, describe as ATDC in Fig. 16.
Bore (mm)

76.2

Stroke (mm)

111.125

Displacement volume (liter)

0.507

Compression ratio

10.5 : 1

Intake valve open

8o BTDC

Intake valve close

33o ABDC

Exhaust valve open

42o BBDC

Exhaust valve close

8o ATDC

Cooling method

Water cooling

Valve clearance (intake/exhaust)

0.15 mm / 0.20 mm

Table 1. Specification of Ricardo E6 engine with SPFI system

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Fig. 14. Cross-sectional view of the combustion chamber (left) and SPFI on the engine
cylinder (right).

Fig. 15. Experimental set up on a Ricardo E6 engine and an electric dynamometer,

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16

Nonfiredcylinder
pressure
160ATDCinj

Cylinderpressure,bar

14
12

170ATDCinj

10

180ATDCinj
190ATDCinj

IVC

200ATDCinj

6
4
2
0
0

60

120

180

240

Fig. 16. Injection timings and durations

300

360

420

480

540

600

660

720

Crankangle

3.2.1 Engine performance

The outcomes of experimental investigation are shown in Fig. 17 through Fig. 20. In Fig. 17
and Fig. 18, indicated power and indicated mean effective pressure are plotted against
injection timings at 1100 rpm engine speed. The graphs show variation in performance at
different start of injection timings. When SOI is earlier than 180oBTDC, both power and MEP
are the lowest. The best performance was achieved at SOI of 190oBTDC.
8
7

IMEP[bar]

Indicatedpower[kW]

3.5

2.5
2

6
5
4
3
2

1.5
150

160

170

180

190

200

210

220

150

160

Startofinjection,[oCAATDC]

85
84
83
82
81
80
79
78
77
76
75

150

160

170 180 190 200

Startofinjection,oCAATDC

210

220

Fig. 19. Volumetric efficiency at various

injection timings

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210

220

Fig. 18. Indicated Mean Effective Pressure at

various injection timings
Fuelconversionefficiency[%]

Volumetricefficiency[%]

Fig. 17. Indicated power at various injection

timings

170 180 190 200

Startofinjection,oCAATDC

26
24
22
20
18
16
14

150

160

170 180 190 200 210

Startofinjection,[oCAATDC]

220

Fig. 20. Fuel conversion efficiency at various

injection timings

Compressed natural gas direct injection (spark plug fuel injector)

303

Fig. 19 shows the volumetric efficiencies are in the excess of 80%, which is significantly high
compared to port injection operations. This proved that direct fuel injection using SPFI
increases engine ability to inhale more air and as a result, increases the heating value of
cylinder charge per engine cycle. Again, the highest volumetric efficiency was achieved at
190oBTDC SOI timing. In terms of fuel conversion efficiency, as shown in Fig. 20, the same
pattern as in power and MEP results is shown with the most efficient outcome was achieved
at 190oBTDC. SPFI direct injection operation is very sensitive towards injection timing and
for any particular engine speed, a proper calibration of SOI timing must be done to get the
optimal performance. Ths results are consistent with the findings by Huang et al. (2003) and
Zeng et al. (2006).
Table 2 list the comparison of engine performance for the same engine running with
different fuel delivery techniques when fuelled with natural gas. In terms of performance
(MEP), port injection shows highest results but SPFI betters in terms of volumetric
efficiency. Gas mixer (carburetor) operation yielded lowest output in most sectors. The
reason for lower performance was due to the fact that SPFI direct injection is not operating
at its best engine parameter which should include higher compression ratio and a flowguided piston crown cavity. Also the air-fuel mixing in the SPFI direct injection operation is
subjected to spatial and durational limitation.

Operation
MEP, bar
v , %
f, indicated, %
SFC, g/kWh

Gas mixer
(Simms, 1994)
5.52b
82.5
21.3
340b

Port injection

SPFI Direct
Injection

6.63i

6.20i

72.35
26.94
267.28i

83.43
21.84
329.67i

Table 2. Engine performance of natural gas operations (subscript i and b are indicated and
brake data respectively)
3.2.2 Combustion characteristics
Combustion characteristics in terms of cylinder pressure profile, pressure-volume relations
and burning rate were studied. Results, as shown in Fig. 21 through Fig. 23 show the
comparison between port injection and SPFI direct injection. In Fig. 21, the pressures versus
cylinder volume were plotted. The performance of engine is measured by the area enclosed
by the curves, the SPDI operation results in higher peak pressure but smaller area enclosed
depicting inferior performance. The importance of peak pressure is most in its location with
respect to top dead center (TDC). In Fig. 22, it shows that SPFI operation yields earlier and
higher peak pressure as compared to port injection. However, as the combustion proceeds
30oCA ATDC (i.e. 390o ATDC), the cylinder pressure falls below the one of port injection
which actually results in slightly lower performance. This was believed due to the weakness
in air0-fuel mixing.
The major advantage of SPFI direct injection operation is its burning rate characteristics as
shown in Fig. 23. Combustion duration in SPFI direct injection operation is shorter than the
one of port injection. However, combustion in SPFI direct injection is slower at the earlier

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part due to higher charge density but faster at the later part of combustion and subsequently
resulted in faster burning rate. Based on the analysis by varying other operational
parameters, a number of findings were obtained. Combustion durations were shortened by
advancing spark ignition. In addition, by spark advancing, the ratio of the first half to the
second half combustion duration is increased resulted in a less uniform burning rate.
Combustion durations were not changed with different injection pressures but ignition
delay was affected by this variation. However, there is no direct correlation between
injection pressure and ignition delay which is most probably due to the effect of charge flow
difference. Changing mixture stoichiometry affects the magnitude of ignition delay.
Combustion duration, on the other hand increases with leaner mixture. Different load
conditions have significant effect on combustion process, Lower loads tend to increase
combustion duration but shorten ignition delay.
50
OVPI
SPFI DI (60bar injection)
SPFI DI (80bar injection)

1100 RPM, Lambda 1.0, MBT

45

Cylinder pressure, bar

40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
0

0.0001

0.0002

0.0003

0.0004
3

Cylinder volume, m

0.0005

0.0006

Fig. 21. PV diagrams of open valve port injection (OVPI) and SPFI DI
50
45

Cylinderpressure,bar

SPFI Direct injection

TDC

40

Port injection

35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
180

210

240

270

300

330

360

390

Crankangle

420

450

480

510

540

Fig. 22. Cylinder pressure of natural gas port injection and SPFI direct injection

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305

Massburntfraction,xb

0.9

TDC

0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5

SPFI Direct injection

0.4

Port injection

0.3
0.2
0.1
0
330

335

340

345

350

355

360

365

370

375

380

385

390

Crankangle

Fig. 23. Normalized mass burnt fraction of natural gas port injection and SPFI direct
injection

4. Conclusion
Compressed natural gas direct injection can offer many advantages over port fuel injection
but to achieve it requires costly and technically difficult modification to engine structure
especially due to the need for extra hole for fuel injector. SPFI offer a simple solution for
this. Investigations on injection process and experimental engine performance were carried
out on a single cylinder engine. The most immediate effect of installation of SPFI on the
Ricardo E6 engine is the reduction of motorized engine cylinder peak pressure due to
decrease in compression ratio. Engine experiments were carried out to measure the
indicated performance of SPFI direct injection. The engine was run at 1100 rpm and various
other operating parameters were varied. The results were compared to the ones from
optimally calibrated port injection. At the specified speed, results show that SPFI direct
injection performance is slightly lower than those of port injection even though volumetric
efficiency is significantly increased. This was mainly because of spatial and temporal
limitations in direct injection operation which lead to weak air-fuel mixing as a result of the
absence of mixing enhancing geometry within the disk-shaped cylinder. Furthermore,
because natural gas is injected away from spark plug electrode, at the time of ignition, the
stoichiometry of cylinder charge at the vicinity of spark plug and other areas may not be at
optimal conditions. Combustion of methane direct injection has been shown to be faster
than of port injection. However, the initial part of combustion is relatively slower in direct
injection. This implies the presence of charge stratification. The combustion behavior and
indicated performance show that combustion of SPFI direct injection is easily controlled and
in good agreement with the data from available literature. Images from PLIF flow
visualization from SPFI injection nozzle show narrow gas jets with 9o cone angle and a
depth of penetration of 90-100 mm. SPFI methane direct injection is practical, viable and
easy way for natural gas conversion but further improvement on its design is required
particularly to improve fuel spray to achieve better air-fuel mixing.

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Natural Gas

5. References
Boyan, X. & Furuyama, M. (1998). Jet Characteristics of CNG Injector with MPI system. JSAE
Review, Vol. 19, 229-234.
Bradley, D.; Gaskell, P.H. & Gu, X.J. (1996). Burning Velocities, Markstein Lengths, and
Flame Quenching for Spherical Methane-Air Flames: A Computational Study.
Combustion and Flame, Vol. 104, 176-198.
Huang, Z.; Shiga, S.; Ueda, T.; Nakamura, H.; Ishima, T.; Obokata, T.; Tsue, M. & Kono, M.
(2003). Combustion Characteristics of Natural-gas Direct-injection Combustion
under Various Fuel Injection timings. Proceeding Institute of Mechanical Engineers
(Part D): Journal of Automobile Engineering, Vol. 21, 393 401.
Mohamad, T I; Harrison, M.; Jermy, M. & How, H.G. (2010). The Structure of High Pressure
Gas Jet from Spark Plug Fuel Injector for Direct Fuel Injection in Spark Ignition
Engine. Journal of Visualization , Vol. 13, No. 2, 121-131.
Mohamad, T.I.; Harrison, M.; Jermy, M.; Theodoridis, E. & Dolinar, A. (2005). Preliminary
Investigation of the Combustion and Performance of Methane Direct Injection in a
Single-Cylinder Engine Using Spark Plug Fuel Injector (SPFI) for Low Cost
Conversion, in the Proceedings of the ATCi 2005, Conference on Automotive Technology,
Dec 6-8, Putrajaya, Malaysia.
Morita, K. (2003). Automotive power source in 21st century. JSAE Review, Vol. 24, 3-7.
Risi, A.D.; Gajdeczko, B.F. & Bracco, F.V. (1997). A study of H2, CH4, C2H6 mixing and
combustion in a Direct-injection Stratified-Charge engine. SAE Paper 971710.
Stan, C. (2002). Direct Injection Systems: The Next Decade in Engine Technology, SAE
International, Warrendale, PA.
Vourenkoski, A.K. (2004). Development of a Liquid-phase LPG MPI Conversion System, PhD
Thesis, Cranfield University, Cranfield.
Zeng, K.; Huang, Z.; Liu, B.; Liu, L.; Jiang, D.; Ren, Y. & Wang, J. (2006). Combustion
Characteristics of a Direct Injection Natural Gas Engine under various Fuel
Injection Timings. Applied Thermal Engineering, Vol. 26, 806-813.
Zhao, F. et al. (1999). Automotive spark-ignited direct injection gasoline engines. Progress in
Energy and Combustion Science, Vol. 25, 437-562.
Zhao, F.; Harrington, D.L. & Lai, M.C. (2002). Automotive Gasoline Direct-Injection Engines,
SAE International, Warrendale, PA.

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Natural Gas

Edited by Primo Potonik

ISBN 978-953-307-112-1
Hard cover, 606 pages
Publisher Sciyo

Published online 18, August, 2010

Published in print edition August, 2010

The contributions in this book present an overview of cutting edge research on natural gas which is a vital
component of world's supply of energy. Natural gas is a combustible mixture of hydrocarbon gases, primarily
methane but also heavier gaseous hydrocarbons such as ethane, propane and butane. Unlike other fossil
fuels, natural gas is clean burning and emits lower levels of potentially harmful by-products into the air.
Therefore, it is considered as one of the cleanest, safest, and most useful of all energy sources applied in
variety of residential, commercial and industrial fields. The book is organized in 25 chapters that cover various
aspects of natural gas research: technology, applications, forecasting, numerical simulations, transport and
risk assessment.

How to reference

In order to correctly reference this scholarly work, feel free to copy and paste the following:
Taib Iskandar Mohamad (2010). Compressed Natural Gas Direct Injection (Spark Plug Fuel Injector), Natural
Gas, Primo Potonik (Ed.), ISBN: 978-953-307-112-1, InTech, Available from:
http://www.intechopen.com/books/natural-gas/compressed-natural-gas-direct-injection-spark-plug-fuelinjector-

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