Evolution of Heavy Duty Natural Gas Engines - Stoichiometric, Carbureted and Spark Ignited to Lean Burn, Fuel Injected and Micro-Pilot

Natural gas is a low cost, abundant and clean burning fuel. Current internal combustion engines can be readily adapted to use natural gas fuel either in conjunction with conventional liquid fuels or as dedicated systems. Use of modern electronic controls allows consideration of new engine management strategies that are not practical or even possible with mechanical systems. The preferred approach is pre-mixed lean burn with cylinder-by-cylinder fuel injection and full time control of optimized air/fuel ratio and ignition.