The Effects of Ignition Environment and Discharge Waveform Characteristics on Spark Channel Formation and Relationship between the Discharge Parameters and the EGR Combustion Limit

In order to realize the high compression ratio and high dilution combustion toward improvement in thermal efficiency, the improvement in stability of ignition and initial phase of combustion under the high gas flow field is the major challenge. In terms of the shift on the higher power side of the operating point by downsizing and improvement of real world fuel consumption, the improvement of ignitability is increasingly expected in the wide operating range also including high load and high engine speed region. In this study, the effects of the gas pressure, gas flow velocity near the spark gap at ignition timing, and discharge current characteristics on spark channel formation were analyzed, focusing on restrike event and spark channel stretching in the spark channel formation process. And the relationship between the average discharge current until 1 ms and the EGR combustion limit was considered.