Engine designers have been investigating the potential of valve actuation mechanisms leading to the development of camless engines for many years [Ref. 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5]. There have been a number of obstacles to the introduction of these mechanisms including power consumption, control of valve seating velocity and integration of the mechanism with the engine structure and systems.
This paper describes the First phase development of Intelligent Valve Actuation (IVA), an innovative, practical, rotary electromagnetic valve actuation system providing the following benefits over existing valve actuation technology:
Each valve can be fully independently controlled
Valves can be latched at a number of lift positions, including fully closed, with zero power consumption
Energy recovery leads the IVA mechanism to have low power consumption
IVA provides low seating velocity ensuring durability and low noise
The initial test work has provided a concept demonstration rig, with simulated in cylinder gas forces, which has demonstrated the capability of IVA to run at an equivalent crankshaft speed of 8000 rev/min. The IVA rig testing results are presented and indicate the potential of the system being developed for single / multi cylinder IC engine application.