Determination of a high pressure exhaust spring in a cylinder of an internal combustion engine
AssigneeTula Technology, Inc.
InventorsMatthew A. Younkins, John W. Parsels, Joel D. Van Ess, Siamak Hashemi
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A variety of methods and arrangements for determining whether a high pressure exhaust spring is present in a cylinder of an internal combustion engine are described. For spark ignition engines, the electrical properties of the spark plug spark gap may be used to determine whether a high pressure exhaust spring is present.
Claims19
A method of determining whether a high pressure exhaust spring is present in a cylinder of a spark ignition, internal combustion engine having a reciprocating piston, the method comprising:
- measuring at least one electrical property of a spark gap in a cylinder;
- and
- based on the electrical property measurement, determining whether a high pressure exhaust spring is present in the cylinder.
A control system for an internal combustion engine operating in a skip fire manner, each cylinder having at least one intake valve and at least one exhaust valve, the control system comprising:
- an electrical circuit arranged to generate a test spark across a spark gap in a cylinder;
- and
- a cylinder control module that is arranged to measure at least one electrical property of the spark gap to determine whether there is a high pressure exhaust spring in the cylinder.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.