Apparatus and method for injecting a pilot fuel into an internal combustion engine
AssigneeHPDI Technology LP
InventorsSandeep Munshi, Michael C. Wickstone, Jian Huang, Ashish Singh
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An apparatus and method for injection of a pilot fuel into an internal combustion engine includes a variety of steady state, transient and other techniques to reduce an injection quantity of the pilot fuel and/or a carbon content of the pilot fuel.
Claims19
A method of operating a gaseous fuelled direct injection diesel cycle internal combustion engine, comprising
- introducing a quantity of gaseous fuel directly into a combustion chamber-of said engine, wherein said gaseous fuel comprises at least 60% hydrogen by volume at standard temperature and pressure,
- introducing a quantity of pilot fuel directly into said combustion chamber of said engine, such that the quantity of pilot fuel has a pilot energy ratio of less than 1% and greater than 0.26% of a total fuel introduced for at least one engine operating condition;
- and
- igniting said pilot fuel whereby combustion of said pilot fuel triggers the ignition of said gaseous fuel;
- and said engine maintains good ignition stability of the gaseous fuel for the at least one engine operating condition;
- wherein over an entire engine operating map said pilot fuel is on average between 0.26% and 3% of the fuel that is consumed by said engine on an energy basis.
A method for injecting a pilot fuel into a combustion chamber of an internal combustion engine, the internal combustion engine burning the pilot fuel and a main gaseous fuel in the combustion chamber, the internal combustion engine including a fuel injector including a pilot injection valve having a pilot needle and a pilot valve-seat, the fuel injector having a plurality of pilot holes for fluidly communicating the pilot fuel from the pilot injection valve into the combustion chamber, the method comprising:
- introducing a quantity of main gaseous fuel into a combustion chamber of said engine;
- introducing a quantity of pilot fuel, more readily ignitable than the main gaseous fuel, directly into said combustion chamber of said engine;
- igniting said pilot fuel whereby combustion of said pilot fuel triggers the ignition of the main gaseous fuel such that said engine maintains good ignition stability of the main gaseous fuel for at least one engine operating condition;
- wherein the quantity of pilot fuel is less than 1% and greater than 0.26% of a total fuel quantity, the total fuel quantity being a sum of the quantity of pilot fuel and the quantity of main gaseous fuel injected per engine cycle on an energy basis;
- and
- wherein over an entire engine operating map said pilot fuel is on average between 0.26% and 3% of the fuel that is consumed by said engine on an energy basis.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.