In-cylinder studies of direct injection gasoline in the optical engine

Background
In 2015, Brunel has been successful in getting a large EPSRC equipment grant to set up a centre of excellence in in optical engines and the in-cylinder measurement techniques. As shown by the image below, the new £1.0 Million facility comprises a new single cylinder direct injection gasoline optical engine and a suite of high speed laser measurement equipment. The engine has a full length optical liner of fused silica for direct visualisation of the in-cylinder flow and fuel injection process throughout the intake and compression strokes. Additional optical accesses are provided by an optical piston crown mounted on an elongated titanium piston that will slide up and down the optical liner. The cylinder head is designed to accommodate both the centally mounted and side mounted injectors so that both spray guided and wall guided stratified charge can be obtained.

Unlike the current laser systems for in-cylinder measurements in use at other universities, the new facility at Brunel will feature cycle resolved in-cylinder measurement of flow, fuel injection and mixture formation at speeds up to 10,000fps by means of two separate high speed and high power solid state lasers and high speed image intensified video cameras. Such facility will be unique in UK and will allow both fundamental research and applied development worked to be carried out on the high efficiency, high performance and low emission direct injection gasoline engines for automotive applications.

As a consequence of the new facility, a new PhD project has been set up to perform in-cylinder studies of direct injection gasoline in the optical engine. The project will be jointly supported by the EPSRC DTP and ChangAn UK in Birmingham, whose parent Company, ChanAn Automotive, is the 4th largest automotive manufacturer in China. ChangAn UK are responsible for the development of next generation gasoline direct injection engines for ChangAn Automotive in China. Brunel University London have one of the largest internal combustion engines research centres in Europe. Over the last few years, a number of mutual visits have taken place between ChangAn and Brunel to identify the collaborative research and development activities which are of mutual interest to both parties. Since October 2015, Mr Mohan Peethambaram has started his PhD degree as a part-time student at Brunel. His PhD research works will be focused on the development and application of CFD engine simulation to the GDI engine.

Outline of PhD project
The aim of the PhD project is to study the in-cylinder flow, fuel injection, mixture formation and combustion initiation processes in a direct injection gasoline engine. In particular, the effect of injector design and injection strategy on the mixture formation process will be investigated by means of the advanced laser measurement techniques, including the interactions between flow and sprays, spray and wall interactions, as well as the spray characterisation. The experimental results will be used to validate the CFD calculations and improve the capability of the 3-D CFD engine simulation being used in the development and optimisation of the new direct injection gasoline engines.

Project Management and Finance
The project will be supervised by Prof. Hua Zhao and Dr Lionel Ganippa at Brunel University London and advised by Dr Zhu at ChangAn UK. The PhD project is planned to start in October 2016 and last for 36months.