Hydrogen-Fueled Automotive Engine Experimental Testing to Provide an Initial Design-Data Base

The objective of the project reflected in this summary paper is to document an experimental design data-base on hydrogen-fueled automotive engines. The effort, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, is directed toward possible future designs of airbreathing piston engines using hydrogen. To this end, pertinent performance and emissions (NO_x only) characteristics of 16 engine configurations are presented graphically.

Configurational variations of a 1600 cc automotive test engine included: throttled and unthrottled operation (i.e., quantity and quality power level control); central manifold, port, direct cylinder injection [not included]; single and divided combustion chambers; exhaust gas recirculation (EGR), water induction and air injection; and certain other features.

Comparisons of these hydrogen-engine characteristics with the stock gasoline-fueled reference case are made at the same and other displacements, at a (stock) compression ratio of 9.0 with operation at a fixed 1800 rpm.