Rail Pressure Control Research Articles

Compound control of rail pressure in dual common rail injection system based on a dual regulating valve

To improve the performance of fuel injection in high power diesel engines, high pressure dual common rail system (HPDCRS) is made to match high power diesel engine, proportional-integral-derivative (PID) compound control for rail pressure is proposed based on dual regulating valve: pressure balance valve (PBV) and pressure control valve (PCV), a PID hybrid neural network (PID-HNN) is provided to complete tuning and match of PID coefficient automatically, simulation control modelling of rail pressure is made by MATLAB software, pressure control comparison of dual common rail is made with PID compound control method. The pressure control effects illustrated that PID compound control of dual regulating valves can rapidly trace different target pressure and reduce rails pressure wavelet, and feasibility of compound control is verified in dual common rail pressure.

GPIO-based nonsingular terminal sliding mode control for high-pressure common rail systems

The ideal fuel rail pressure is a significant component to keep the high-pressure common rail (HPCR) system work stably. The influence of time-varying fuel injection disturbance of the HPCR system is neither fully considered nor well dealt with in traditional rail pressure control approaches. To this end, the rail pressure tracking problem of an HPCR system is investigated in this paper using a generalized proportional integral observer (GPIO)-based composite control algorithm. A nonlinear model of the HPCR system is first established based on fluid dynamics and mechanics laws. Then, a GPIO is utilized to observe the time-varying fuel injection disturbance. Based on the design of a nonlinear sliding surface using the disturbance estimation, a GPIO-based nonsingular terminal sliding mode control (NTSMC) method is proposed to achieve a better rail pressure tracking control performance and a stronger robustness. Finally, a group of simulations in the MATLAB/Simulink environment and experiments in a more realistic Advanced Modeling Environment for performing Simulation of engineering systems (AMESim) environment are conducted, the results of which demonstrate the advantage and effectiveness of the proposed method.

Study on observation method of injection pressure curve in high pressure common rail system

The performance of the diesel engine was determined by the injection pressure of the high pressure common rail system. The observation method of the injection pressure curve was of great value in evaluating the operating conditions of the diesel engine. However, the observation method could make it impossible to directly observe the injection pressure data on a high pressure common rail system in operation. In this paper, common rail pressure signals and control pulse widths, which were easy to collect, were used as the basis for proposing a GRU (Gated Recurrent Unit) based model for the observation of injection pressure curves of high pressure common rail system in order to solve the above problem. The accuracy and precision of the model was verified by the experiments and compared with commonly used simulation models. From the results, it was concluded that the overall accuracy of the injection pressure curve observation was similar to that of the simulation model, but the accuracy was higher around the peak of the injection pressure, as well as the equipment requirement was low and the calculation speed was fast. The mean EMD of the curvilinear observation model of injection pressure of high pressure common rail system is similar to that of the 1D simulation model, with 37.88 and 33.62 respectively. The overall difference in injection pressure between the two models is similar with 53.62 and 54.23 MPa respectively. On the same computing platform, the average computation time of the test set containing five states is 0.0113 s, and the simulation time of each running state is 12951.6 s using AMESim software.

Injection control strategy of diesel engine based on speed segment PID and operating parameter adaptation

Aiming at the problems of low precision, poor anti-interference and poor follow-up in the control parameters for the diesel engine fuel injection system, this paper studies the control method of the high-pressure common rail electronic control fuel injection system of the diesel engine, constructs the high-pressure common rail fuel injection control system based on the ECU, and establishes the speed segment PID control model of fuel injection quantity, common rail pressure, fuel injection timing and fuel injection rate by using MATLAB/Simulink. The fuel injection quantity and timing are simulated. In order to realize all-round and flexible control of the diesel engine under different working conditions, and to achieve the desired optimal performance in all aspects, the optimization control method of the injection law for the diesel engine is studied. The diesel engine fuel injection control strategy based on speed segment PID and operating parameter adaptation is proposed to realize precise control of the common rail pressure, injection quantity, injection timing and injection rate under different working conditions. The simulation calculation and bench test show that the maximum fluctuation of rail pressure at idle speed is only 5 MPa, and the time to reach stability is only 1.25 s, which greatly improves the control accuracy, anti-interference and follow-up ability of the injection parameters.

Establishment of a Real-Time Simulation of a Marine High-Pressure Common Rail System

In this paper, the high-pressure common rail system of the marine diesel engine is taken as case study to establish a real-time simulation model of the high-pressure common rail system that can be used as the controlled object of the control system. On the premise of ensuring accuracy, the real-time simulation should also respond quickly to instructions issued by the control system. The development of the real-time simulation is based on the modular modeling method, and the high-pressure common rail system is divided into submodels, including the high-pressure oil pump, common rail tube, injector, and mass conversion. The submodels are built using the “surrogate model” method, which is mainly composed of MAP data and empirical formulas. The data used to establish the real-time simulation are not only from the empirical research into the high-pressure common rail system, but also from simulations of the high-pressure common rail system undertaken in AEMSim. The data obtained from this real-time simulation were compared with the experimental data to verify the model. The error in fuel injection quality is less than 5%, under different pressures and injection durations. In order to carry out dynamic verification, the PID control strategy, the model-based control strategy, and the established real-time simulation are all closed-loop tested. The results show that the developed real-time simulation can simulate the rail pressure wave caused by cyclic injection according to the control signal, and can feedback the control effect of different control strategies. Through verification, it is clear that the real-time simulation of the high-pressure common rail system can depict the rail pressure fluctuation caused by each cycle of fuel injection, while ensuring the accuracy and responsiveness of the simulation, which provides the ideal conditions for the study of a rail pressure control strategy.

Fuel Rail Pressure Control Characteristics of a GDI High-Pressure Fuel Pump Using a Newly Developed Experimental System Controlled with a Microcontroller

An experimental system was developed to evaluate the fuel injection parts of a gasoline direct injection engine. An AC motor and an inverter were used to rotate the camshaft in the engine cylinder head. A single plunger high-pressure fuel pump (HPFP) driven by a square cam at the end of the camshaft was used in the gasoline direct injection engine. The rotation position of the square cam was measured by a rotary encoder. The developed system allows control of the camshaft rotation speed, the HPFP pressure control valve (PCV) opening and closing timing, and the fuel injection duration, which are three important factors affecting the fuel rail pressure (FRP). It is confirmed that the fuel rail pressure can be made to vary wit different combinations of these three factors. By using the experimental system developed in this study, the fuel rail pressure can be effectively controlled in the range of 3 MPa to 20 MPa. The most influential factor for control of the fuel rail pressure was the HPFP PCV opening and closing timings. With the proposed using the experimental system, the rail pressure, fuel rail pressure wave characteristics, and the injector drive characteristics can all be assessed under various fuel injection conditions.

Research on Rail Pressure Control of High-Pressure Common Rail System for Marine Diesel Engine Based on Controlled Object Model

The common rail pressure of a marine diesel engine high-pressure common rail system is typically controlled by a PID (Proportional Integral Differential) algorithm, which has problems with both overshoot and response delay. In this paper, the control method based on controlled object model for rail pressure is studied. The control model for a high-pressure common rail system is established within the controller. Through the developed control model and the current actual rail pressure obtained by real-time acquisition, the control variables issued by the controller to the controlled object are predicted and calculated. The fuel supply required in the whole high-pressure common rail system is calculated in advance, with the fuel supply then taken as the input value for the driving model in order to calculate the PWM control signal required by the high-pressure oil pump. A PWM control signal is used to control the proportional valve opening of the high-pressure oil pump, and then control the fuel pressure in the common rail pipe. In order to verify the correctness and control effects of the rail pressure control strategy based on controlled object model, a real-time simulation of the high-pressure common rail system has been developed by combining calculation equations with a MAP data query, which ensures real-time performance. At the same time, the real-time simulation of the high-pressure common rail system shows that the error between the simulation’s calculation and the actual test data is less than 5%, and thus model accuracy is guaranteed. The control method based on controlled object model is combined with the real-time simulation model for the high-pressure common rail system to verify the control strategy function, and the control effect is then compared with that of the PID control. Comprehensive verification shows that the control strategy based on controlled object model can significantly improve the response delay and overshoot of PID control.

Effects of rail pressure control on fuel consumption, emissions and combustion parameters in a turbocharged diesel engine

The influence of rail pressure control on fuel consumption, emissions and combustion in an automotive downsized turbocharged diesel engine was investigated, considering different operating modes in...

GPIO‐based rail pressure control for diesel high pressure common rail injection system

The rail pressure control in diesel high-pressure common rail (HPCR) system is considered as one of the key issues for precise control of fuel injection. This study investigates the application of generalised proportional integral observer (GPIO)-based control in diesel HPCR system. Firstly, a non-linear mathematical model of HPCR system which uses the metering unit as the actuator is established based on hydromechanics under some proper simplifications. Secondly, a GPIO is developed to estimate the mismatched disturbance caused by the injection process. Then a composite controller combining GPIO and backstepping control method is designed. By introducing the disturbance estimations into the control design process, the disturbance rejection capability of the system is promisingly enhanced. The effectiveness of the proposed control method is validated by the simulation results.

Terminal sliding mode control of rail pressure for gasoline direct injection engines

The desired fuel rail pressure is a crucial factor for guaranteeing the gasoline direct injection (GDI) engine to work stably. In order to solve the rail pressure control problem, the detailed nonlinear model of GDI is derived and reasonable simplification of this model is carried out for the following controller design. Terminal sliding mode control strategy is proposed to design the rail pressure controller with Lyapunov stability. The designed approach with the fast terminal sliding mode surface makes the system have the capacity of global fast convergence and achieves precise tracking control. To demonstrate the validity of the designed control method, simulations are conducted by tracking the different reference rail pressures. Results show that the designed controller tracks the given reference accurately and has strong robustness.

Rail pressure controller design of GDI basing on predictive functional control

Gasoline direct injection (GDI) is a pivotal technique for a highly efficient engine. However, how to maintain a stable rail pressure which offers good fuel economy and low emissions, is still a challengeable work. In this paper, a rail pressure controller is designed basing on predictive functional control (PFC), a model predictive control (MPC) method, to surmount the nonlinearity and discontinuity brought by the common rail pressure system (CRPS). A control-oriented piecewise linear model is presented to simplify the CRPS. The simulation results on a benchmark show that rail pressure tracks the setpoint accurately even with some perturbations. Profiting from the conciseness of PFC algorithm, the controller can compute the online solution in a short time, which makes it possible to realize the strategy on a fast response system.

Introduction to the benchmark challenge on common rail pressure control of gasoline direct injection engines

As one of the most important actuators for gasoline direct injection technology, common rail systems provide the requested rail pressure for fuel injection. Special system characteristics, such as coupled discrete-continuous dynamic in the common rail system, limited measurable states, and time-varying engine operating conditions, impel the combination of advanced methods to obtain the desired injection pressure. Therefore, reducing the pressure fluctuation and satisfying engineering implementation have become noteworthy issues for rail pressure control (RPC) systems. In this study, the benchmark problem and the design specification of RPC proposed by 2018 IFAC E-CoSM Committee are introduced. Moreover, a common rail system model is provided to the challengers, and a traditional PI control is applied to show the problem behaviors. Finally, intermediate results of the challengers are summarized briefly.

Control of the common rail pressure in gasoline engines through an extended state observer based MPC

In this paper, a model predictive control (MPC) solution, assisted by extended state observer (ESO), is proposed for the common rail pressure control in gasoline engines. The rail pressure dynamic, nonlinear with large uncertainty, is modeled as a simple first order system. The discrepancy of the model from the real plant is lumped as “total disturbance”, to be estimated in real-time by ESO and then mitigated in the nonlinear MPC, assuming the total disturbance does not change in the prediction horizon. The nonlinear MPC problem is solved using the Newton/generalized minimum residual (GMRES) algorithm. The proposed ESO-MPC solution, is compared with the conventional proportional-integral-differential (PID) controller, based on the high-fidelity model provided in the benchmark problem in IFAC-E-CoSM. Results show the following benefits from using ESO-MPC relative to PID (benchmark): 1) the disturbance rejection capability to fuel inject pulse step is improved by 12% in terms of recovery time; 2) the transient response of rail pressure is improved by 5% in terms of the integrated absolute tracking error; and 3) the robustness is improved without need for gain scheduling, which is required in PID. Additionally, increasing the bandwidth of ESO allows reducing the complexity of the model implemented in MPC, while maintaining the disturbance rejection performance at the cost of high noise-sensitivity. Therefore, the ESO-MPC combination offers a simpler and more practical solution for common rail pressure control, relative to the standard MPC, which is consistent with the findings in simulation.

Durability Study of a High Pressure Common Rail Fuel Injection System Using Lubricity Additive Dosed Gasoline-Like Fuel - Additional Cycle Runtime and Teardown Analysis

<div class="section abstract"><div class="htmlview paragraph">This study is a continuation of previous work assessing the robustness of a Cummins XPI common rail injection system operating with gasoline-like fuel. All the hardware from the original study was retained except for the high pressure pump head and check valves which were replaced due to cavitation damage. An additional 400 hour NATO cycle was run on the refurbished fuel system to achieve a total exposure time of 800 hours and detect any other significant failure modes. As in the initial investigation, fuel system parameters including pressures, temperatures and flow rates were logged on a test bench to monitor performance over time. Fuel and lubricant samples were taken every 50 hours to assess fuel consistency, metallic wear, and interaction between fuel and oil. High fidelity driving torque and flow measurements were made to compare overall system performance when operating with both diesel and light distillate fuel. Injector rate shapes were measured as a function of time, and high resolution x-ray imaging of the nozzle tips was performed as part of the final teardown analysis. At the end of testing, there was a loss of rail pressure control at low fueling rates due to cavitation of the pump inlet check valve, consistent with prior findings. Excessive fuel-in-oil dilution was not observed under normal operating conditions, and there was no indication of significant fuel contamination by oil as evidenced by elemental analysis. The gasoline-like fuel required higher fuel system driving power and had a lower hydraulic efficiency than diesel due to a combination of higher vapor formation and leakage flow. Injectors exhibited reduced fueling rates after 600 hours of exposure and showed significant signs of cavitation damage within the nozzle tip. However, fuel wetted components in sliding contact did not show extraordinary signs of wear, potentially due to the use of lubricity additive.</div></div>

Rail pressure control strategy based on pumping characteristics for the common rail fuel system

The control of rail pressure is quite important in the common rail fuel system. Generally, the rail pressure control strategy is a combination of feedforward control and proportional–integral–derivative feedback control. A lumped parameter model of the common rail fuel system is built. Theoretically, the three main factors that affect the rail pressure are engine speed, rail pressure, and fuel injection. With these factors as the control parameters, the feedforward control logic is established. Then, with the basic fuel amount as the proportional–integral–derivative control parameter, the feedback control strategy is improved. The feedforward control is used to determine the basic fuel amount; the proportional–integral–derivative feedback control is used to fine-tune the basic fuel amount based on the deviation of target rail pressure and real rail pressure. Compared with only proportional–integral–derivative feedback control, the computation load of feedback control is reduced and the response speed is increased. In addition, experiments based on a common rail fuel system test rig are completed. The results show that the fuel efficiency of common rail fuel pump decreases with pump speed, and rail pressure increases. The steady-state rail pressure fluctuations are effectively reduced and the dynamic control precision of the common rail fuel system increases when the optimized control method is adopted.

Adaptation Strategy for Exhaust Gas Recirculation and Common Rail Pressure to Improve Transient Torque Response in Diesel Engines

Fuel injection limitation algorithms are widely used to reduce particulate matter (PM) emissions under transient states in diesel engines. However, the limited injection quantity leads to a decrease in the engine torque response under transient states. To overcome this issue, this study proposes an adaptation strategy for exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) and common rail pressure combined with a fuel injection limitation algorithm. The proposed control algorithm consists of three parts: fuel injection limitation, EGR adaptation, and rail pressure adaptation. The fuel injection quantity is limited by adjusting the exhaust burned gas rate, which is predicted based on various intake air states like air mass flow and EGR mass flow. The control algorithm for EGR and rail pressure was designed to manipulate the set-points of the EGR and rail pressure when the fuel injection limitation is activated. The EGR controller decreases the EGR gas flow rate to rapidly supply fresh air under transient states. The rail pressure controller increases the rail pressure set-point to generate a well-mixed air-fuel mixture, resulting in an enhancement in engine torque under transient states. The proposed adaptation strategy was validated through engine experiments. These experiments showed that PM emissions were reduced by up to 11.2 %, and the engine torque was enhanced by 5.4 % under transient states compared to the injection limitation strategy without adaptation.

Research on the Diesel Engine with Sliding Mode Variable Structure Theory

This study constructed the nonlinear mathematical model of the diesel engine high-pressure common rail (HPCR) system through two polynomial fitting which was treated as a kind of affine nonlinear system. Based on sliding-mode variable structure control (SMVSC) theory, a sliding-mode controller for affine nonlinear systems was designed for achieving the control of common rail pressure and the diesel engine’s rotational speed. Finally, on the simulation platform of MATLAB, the designed nonlinear HPCR system was simulated. The simulation results demonstrated that sliding-mode variable structure control algorithm shows favourable control performances which are overcoming the shortcomings of traditional PID control in overshoot, parameter adjustment, system precision, adjustment time and ascending time.

Investigation on the Nonlinear Control System of High-Pressure Common Rail (HPCR) System in a Diesel Engine

This study first constructed the nonlinear mathematical model of the high-pressure common rail (HPCR) system in the diesel engine. Then, the nonlinear state transformation was performed using the flow’s calculation and the standard state space equation was acquired. Based on sliding-mode variable structure control (SMVSC) theory, a sliding-mode controller for nonlinear systems was designed for achieving the control of common rail pressure and the diesel engine’s rotational speed. Finally, on the simulation platform of MATLAB, the designed nonlinear HPCR system was simulated. The simulation results demonstrate that sliding-mode variable structure control algorithm shows favorable control performances and overcome the shortcomings of traditional PID control in overshoot, parameter adjustment, system precision, adjustment time and ascending time.

Study on Variable Parameter Linear Active Disturbance Rejection Control for GDI Engine Common Rail Pressure

Gasoline Direct Injection(GDI) engines with Common Rail system can strongly improve the performance of engine. In order to achieve the advantages promised by this technology, the rail pressure must satisfy the pressure requirement. In this work a method of Linear Active Disturbance Rejection Controller(LADRC) based on the rail pressure characteristics of the common rail system is proposed. To simplify the parameter tuning process, the Genetic Algorithm was used to optimize the controller. Focus on further improve the controller performance, the method of Variable Parameter LADRC(VPLADRC) is presented in this paper. In order to verify the effect of the controller, a simulation has been done based on the ideal model of common rail system. The simulation results confirm the effectiveness of VPLADRC. This method can satisfy the rail pressure control requirement. Compared with PID control, this method can further reduce the steady-state error and has greater optimization potential.

Instantaneous torque, energy saving and flow rate ripple analysis of a common rail pump equipped with different delivery-pressure control systems

A mechanical model of a high-pressure pump of a common rail fuel injection system is presented and validated by comparison with experimental instantaneous pump shaft torque and pump piston lift data. The instantaneous torque has been measured with a high-performance torque meter installed on a hydraulic rig for testing pieces of injection apparatus. In the model, the mechanics of the piston plunger and the forces exchanged between pistons and cam are simulated, and friction losses between mobile parts are taken into account. The numerical tool is used to investigate the dynamical performance of the high-pressure pump and to analyse the impact of the rail pressure control strategy on instantaneous torque, energy saving and flow rate ripple. The rail pressure control strategy, based on the application of a fuel metering valve at the pump inlet, gives rise to an improved hydraulic efficiency of the injection system at part loads and to a moderate rate of pressure increase in the pumping chamber at part loads. However, the rail pressure control strategy based on the installation of a pressure control valve at one rail extremity leads to a reduction in the pump flow rate ripple and to a diminution in the fatigue stress. Furthermore, cavitation problems can occur during intake and early compression phases of the pump cycle when the fuel metering unit is working.