Not only the Heated injector technology is an important tool to reduce tailpipe emissions of HC and CO gases but it also enables good start and drivability in cold weather for flex fuel vehicles while keeping low system cost.
The effective use of this technology might also enable the use of less expensive emissions after-treatment systems. Although simple in its construction, the efficient control of heated injectors can be very complex. That is why in depth knowledge of its behavior can simplify this task.
The experimental evaluation of heated injector efficiency can be difficult and time consuming. Therefore, a simple thermal model of heated injector is proposed.
The identification of model parameters is achieved with simple experiments. The thermal model can be used to evaluate thermal efficiency using only heater current and voltage measurements under static or dynamic fuel flow conditions.
This device can be used to evaluate different injector designs and also to predict the influence of wiring harness and battery charge conditions on the engine start time.
Different injector heater control strategies can also be assessed in a virtual environment. This model can expedite the development of efficient heated injector technology and its related control systems without resorting to high cost tools or extensive laboratory testing.
This paper will describe the ideas behind this modeling approach and its applications on the tasks mentioned above.