Influence of Exhaust Gas Recirculation on Knock in a Spark Ignition Engine Fueled with Ethanol–Gasoline Blends

Exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) is widely used in spark ignition engines to reduce throttling losses, decrease exhaust gas temperatures, increase efficiency, and suppress knock. However, the effectiveness of EGR as a knock suppressor is dependent on the fuel type and operating condition. In this study, the effectiveness of EGR to suppress knock was tested with E10, E30, E50, E75, and E100 at a moderately boosted condition. It was found that EGR was effective at suppressing knock with E10, but high EGR rates were required to achieve a knock suppression effect with E30 and E50. No knock suppression effect was observed with E75 and E100 across all tested EGR rates. With E30 and E50, EGR that was passed through a three-way catalyst was more effective at suppressing knock at all EGR rates. Chemkin modeling with neat ethanol revealed that nitric oxide enhanced ignition by increasing the hydroxyl radical concentration in the end gas, resulting in earlier auto-ignition. Directly seeding nitric oxide in the intake system with neat ethanol resulted in an increase in knock intensity, which required a knock-limited CA50 retard of 3.5 crank angle degrees with 660 ppm of nitric oxide.