Study of the Potential of Intake Air Heating in Automotive DI Diesel Engines

Modern DI Diesel engines are widely used in automotive applications. Improvements in performance and emissions have been produced in the last ten years on these engines, so that they are now very competitive in comparison with petrol engines. However, cold startability is one of the main challenges of Diesel engines, since great differences with petrol engines still can be noticed. Today, in small engines glow plugs are universally used as an aid system for cold start. In large engines, where the cold start is less critical, intake air heating technology is employed. In this paper the application of this technology to small engines is evaluated in terms of its viability for cold starting and HC/CO emissions and combustion noise reduction during the warm-up phase of the engine.