Analysis of mixture formation process in a two-stroke boosted uniflow scavenged direct injection gasoline engine

Abstract

The two-stroke engine has the great potential for aggressive engine downsizing and downspeeding because of its double firing frequency. For a given torque, it is characterized with a lower mean effective pressure and lower peak in-cylinder pressure than a four-stroke counterpart. In order to explore the potential of two-stroke cycle while avoiding the drawbacks of conventional ported two-stroke engines, a novel two-stroke boosted uniflow scavenged direct injection gasoline engine was proposed and designed. In order to achieve the stable lean-burn combustion in the boosted uniflow scavenged direct injection gasoline engine, the mixture preparation, especially the fuel stratification around the spark plug, should be accurately controlled. As the angled intake scavenge ports produce strong swirl flow motion and complex transfer between the swirl and tumble flows in the two-stroke boosted uniflow scavenged direct injection gasoline engine, the interaction between the in-cylinder flow motions and the direct injection and its impact on the charge preparation in the boosted uniflow scavenged direct injection gasoline engine are investigated in this study by three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics simulations. Both the single injection and split injections are applied and their impact on the mixture formation process is investigated. The start of injection timing and split injection ratio are adjusted accordingly to optimize the charge preparation for each injection strategy. The results show that the strong interaction between the fuel injection and in-cylinder flow motions dominates the mixture preparation in the boosted uniflow scavenged direct injection gasoline engine. Compared to the single injection, the split injection shows less impact on the large-scale flow motions. Good fuel stratification around the spark plug was obtained by the late start of injection timings at 300 °CA/320 °CA with an equal amount in each injection. However, when a higher tumble flow motion is produced by the eight scavenge ports’ design, a better fuel charge stratification can be achieved with the later single injection at start of injection of 320 °CA.