Survey of greener ignition and combustion systems for internal combustion engines

Abstract

The spark and compression ignition principles of, petrol and diesel internal combustion engines (ICEs) have, not advanced for a century. These do not lead to complete, combustion and hence result in high exhaust emission and, low energy efficiency. This paper presents a comprehensive survey on the attempts and developments of greener ignition, and combustion systems for ICEs and points out that, homogeneous charge microwave ignition (HCMI) holds the, key to a perfect solution. Increasing the ignition volume has, become a trend in research for high-performance, lean-burn and low-emission petrol engines. It started with increasing, ignition points by adopting multi-point spark and lasers., The ignition volume is future increased by high energy and, long endurance ignition as method of zone-based ignition., Production of transient plasma in ignition stage is the key point because combustion performance and flame front, speed is related to volume of transient plasma. But the, volume of ignition is still limited for high ignition energy, requirement. The volume-based ignition methods, like, HCMI, with bigger ignition volume which leads to better, efficiency and low emission are assessed and compared., Many tests on physical engines have proved that HCMI, offers significant performance, but the problem lies in a, production-oriented design. Virtual prototyping through, Computer-Automated Design would help in this regard and, could lead to novel processes for Industry 4.0.