Nowdays in the field of internal combustion engines research there is an important interest on a new combustion process that promise great advances in the reduction of fuel consumption and exhaust emissions.
This paper describes the successful application of The Temperature Controlled Autoignition Combustion on a small (50 cm3) two-stroke engine tested under laboratory conditions. The engine is a commercial model, used to power scooters, chainsaws and lawn mowers. The paper also details the experimental setup, the particular problems associated to the small size of the engine, the operational conditions and the engine modifications required to make possible a stable and uniform Temperature Controlled Autoignition Combustion at light loads. Also the characteristics of new data acquisition software specially designed and tailored for this study are described.
One of he weak points of this kind of engines is the strong irregularity from cycle to cycle that appears when operated at partial loads, which produce high unburned hydrocarbons emissions and a considerably increase in fuel consumption. As the experiment confirms, the Temperature Controlled Autoignition Combustion greatly improves this instability problem. Statistic study is presented to support this.
As a result of the great number of test at different conditions the authors were able to determine the ranges of relevant parameters (air/fuel ratio, exhaust temperature, chamber wall temperature, etc.) in which it is feasible to run the engine under Temperature Controlled Autoignition Combustion .
The results and curves obtained experimentally shows an important reduction in fuel consumption and exhaust emission of unburned hydrocarbons
Finally, a discussion of the results is presented.