Nowadays, the main objectives in the automobile engine field are to reduce fuel consumption and pollutant emissions. HCCI engines can be a good solution to meet pollutant emission requirements and to achieve high combustion efficiency. However, before an HCCI engine is used as a conventional engine, several problems must be overcome, in particular control of the progression of combustion.
Many studies have been conducted into possible control methods. A new strategy consists in using oxidizing chemical species such as ozone to seed the intake of a HCCI engine. As increasingly smaller ozonizers are now being designed, this kind of device could be integrated on a vehicle and on a HCCI engine, in order to control combustion phasing and promote the future use of this engine as a conventional engine.
In the present study, experiments on a HCCI engine fuelled with iso-octane were carried out with ozone seeding in the intake. Results showed that when assisted by the addition of ozone, combustion can be enhanced and moved forward. Consequently, the use of oxidizing chemical species can be a means to control HCCI combustion. Depending on the inlet temperature, the control of combustion phasing may be more or less easy due to sensitivity to the ozone concentration. The present results also show the existence of a cool flame in the case of iso-octane combustion, indicating that ozone seeding can also be used in order to study iso-octane cool flame in a HCCI engine.