E85 Optimized Engine through Boosting, Spray-Optimized DIG, VCR and Variable Valvetrain
The use of biofuels for internal combustion engines has several well published advantages. The biofuels, made from biological sources such as corn or sugar cane, are renewable resources that reduce the dependence on fossil fuels. Fuels from agricultural sources can therefore reduce a countries energy dependency on other nations. Biofuels also have been shown to reduce CO2 emissions into the atmosphere compared to traditional fossil based fuels. Because of these benefits several countries have set targets for the use of biofuels, especially ethanol, in their transportation fuels. Small percentages of ethanol are common place in gasoline but are typically limited to 5 to 8% by volume. Greater benefits are possible from higher concentrations and some countries such as the US and Sweden have encouraged the production of vehicles capable of operating on E85 (85% denatured ethanol and 15% gasoline). E85 capable vehicles are normally equipped to run the higher levels of ethanol by employing modified fuel delivery systems that can withstand the highly corrosive nature of the alcohol. These vehicles are not however equipped to take full advantage of ethanol's properties during the combustion process. Ethanol has a much higher blend research octane number than gasoline. This allows the use of higher engine compression ratios and spark advance which result in more efficient engine operation. Ethanol's latent heat of vaporization is also much higher that gasoline. This higher heat of vaporization cools the engine intake charge which also allows the engine compression ratio to be increased even further. An engine that is optimized for operation on high concentrations of ethanol therefore will have compression ratios that are too high to avoid spark knock (pre-ignition) if run on gasoline or a gasoline/ethanol blend that has a low percentage alcohol. An engine was developed during this project to leverage the improved evaporative cooling and high octane of E85 to improve fuel economy and offset E85's lower energy content. A 2.0 L production Direct Injection gasoline, (DIg) engine employing Dual Independent Cam Phasing, (DICP) and turbo charging was used as the base engine. Modified pistons were used to increase the geometric compression ratio from 9.2:1 to 11.85:1 by modifying the pistons and adding advanced valvetrain to proved control of displacement and effective compression ratio through valve timing control. The advanced valvetrain utilized Delphi's two step valvetrain hardware and intake cam phaser with increased phasing authority of 80 crank angle degrees. Using this hardware the engine was capable of operating knock free on all fuels tested from E0-E85 by controlling effective compression ratio using a Late Intake Valve Closing, (LIVC) strategy. The LIVC strategy results in changes in the trapped displacement such that knock limited torque for gasoline is significantly lower than E85. The use of spark retard to control knock enables higher peak torque for knock limited fuels, however a loss in efficiency results. For gasoline and E10 fuels, full effective displacement could not be reached before spark retard produced a net loss in torque. The use of an Early Intake Valve Closing, (EIVC) strategy resulted in an improvement of engine efficiency at low to mid loads for all fuels tested from E0- E85. Further the use of valve deactivation, to a single intake valve, improved combustion stability and enabled throttle-less operation down to less than 2 bar BMEP. Slight throttling to trap internal residual provided additional reductions in fuel consumption. To fully leverage the benefits of E85, or ethanol blends above E10, would require a vehicle level approach that would take advantage of the improved low end torque that is possible with E85. Operating the engine at reduced speeds and using advanced transmissions (6 speeds or higher) would provide a responsive efficient driving experience to the customer. The vehicle shift and torque converter lockup points for high ethanol blends could take advantage of the significant efficiency advantage of down-speeding and operating at higher loads to deliver the required power.