Direct Injection Compressed Natural Gas Combustion and Visualisation

This paper details the development of a compressed natural gas (CNG) engine with ultra lean burn low emissions potential. Hydrogen assisted jet ignition (HAJI) is used to achieve reliable combustion and low NOx emissions, whilst direct injection is used to improve thermal efficiency and decrease hydrocarbon (HC) emissions. It is found that port inducted propane, port inducted CNG and directly injected CNG all produce negligible levels of CO and NOx when operating at air/fuel ratios higher than λ = 1.8. Furthermore, direct injection of CNG produced approximately 100 ppm C6 less HC emissions than port induction of CNG, and port induction of CNG decreased the HC emissions by around a factor of a third to a half in comparison with port induction of propane.