Performance Experiment of Gasoline Engine by Using Oxygen-Enriched Intake Air

Abstract

This paper studies the impact of oxygen (O2) concentration in the intake gas to the power performance, economical performance, and emissions performance of a gasoline engine. It describes an experiment which supplied the single-cylinder gasoline engine with 21%, 23%, 25%, 27% and 29% oxygen-enriched air, and analyzed the performance and characteristics. The experiment's results indicate that, under low oxygen concentration of 23%-25%, carbon monoxide (CO) and hydrocarbon (HC) emissions greatly decrease, but nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions slightly increase. Contrarily, a high oxygen concentration of 25%-29% causes a slight decrease in CO and HC emissions, but greatly increases in NOx emissions. With the incremental oxygen concentration, the peak pressure is increased, the angle of peak pressure is advanced, the power is enhanced at every working condition, and the fuel consumption rate has fallen. Furthermore, when the oxygen concentration is 23%-25%, the rate of change is greater. Therefore, low oxygen concentration has an important role and application potential to improve gasoline engine performance.