Modeling and control of pre-chamber initiated turbulent jet ignition combustion systems

"Turbulent jet ignition (TJI) combustion is a promising concept for achieving high thermal efficiency and low NOx (nitrogen oxides) emissions. A control-oriented TJI combustion model with satisfactory accuracy and low computational effort is usually a necessity for optimizing the TJI combustion system and developing the associated model-based TJI control strategies. A control-oriented TJI combustion model was first developed for a rapid compression machine (RCM) configured for TJI combustion. A one-zone gas exchange model is developed to simulate the gas exchange process in both pre- and main-combustion chambers. The combustion process is modeled by a two-zone combustion model, where the ratio of the burned and unburned gases flowing between the two combustion chambers is variable. To simulate the influence of the turbulent jets to the rate of combustion in the main-combustion chamber, a new parameter-varying Wiebe function is proposed and used for mass fraction burned (MFB) calculation in the main-combustion chamber. The developed model is calibrated using the Least-Squares fitting and optimization procedure. The RCM model was then extended to a TJI engine model. The combustion process is modeled by a similar two-zone combustion model based on the newly proposed parameter-varying Wiebe function. The gas exchange process is simulated by one-zone model considering piston movement and intake and exhaust processes. Since the engine uses liquid fuel, a pre-chamber air-fuel mixing and vaporization model is developed. And correspondingly, the pre-chamber uses a chemical kinetics based model for combustion rate calculation. The model was validated using the experimental data from a single cylinder TJI engine under different operational conditions, and the simulation results show a good agreement with the experimental data. For control design, a nonlinear state-space engine model with cycle-to-cycle dynamics is developed based on the previous crank-angle-resolved (CAR) TJI engine model. The state-space model successfully linked the combustion processes in the two chambers using the parameter-varying Wiebe function. The validated CAR model is used to calibrate and validate the state-space engine model. The simulation results of the two engine models show a good agreement with each other. Thereafter, a linear-quadratic tracking controller is developed for combustion phasing control. Simulation results are presented and a baseline controller has been implemented on the research engine. Combustion phasing control is very important for internal combustion engines to achieve high thermal efficiency with low engine-out emissions. Traditional open-loop map-based control becomes less favorable in terms of calibration effort, robustness to engine aging, and especially control accuracy for TJI engines due to the increased number of control variables over conventional spark-ignition engines. In this research, a model-based feedforward controller is developed for the TJI engine, and a feedback controller is also designed based on the linear quadratic tracking control with output covariance constraint. Since the TJI main-chamber combustion is influenced by the pre-chamber one, the proposed controller optimizes the control variables in both combustion chambers. The proposed feedforward and feedback controllers show significant performance improvement over a group of baseline controllers through a series of dynamometer engine tests."--Pages ii-iii.