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Cylinder deactivation is a fuel consumption and CO2 reduction technology for internal combustion engines that deactivates cylinders at light to moderate loads, allowing the remaining firing cylinders to operate near optimum efficiency. Dynamic Skip Fire (DSF) uses full-authority cylinder deactivation that allows any cylinder of the engine to be deactivated in sequence. In previous SAE papers, both DSF technology and the synergies between DSF and electrification (eDSF) have been described. Recent engine technology includes deactivation mechanisms that do not effectively incorporate individual cylinder control. Nevertheless, it is still quite possible to improve the efficiency of engines equipped with these ganged-deactivation mechanisms. By grouping all cylinders into a deactivation mode, no air is pumped through the cylinders as it would be during the corresponding conventional operation that deactivates fuel alone.

Dynamic skip fire (DSF) is an advanced cylinder deactivation technology where the decision to fire or skip a singular cylinder of a multi-cylinder engine is made immediately prior to each firing opportunity. A DSF-equipped engine features the ability to selectively deactivate cylinders on a cylinder event-by-event basis in order to match the requested torque demand at optimum fuel efficiency while maintaining acceptable noise, vibration and harshness (NVH). Dynamic Skip Fire (DSF) has already shown significant fuel economy improvements for throttled spark-ignition engines. This paper explores the potential benefits of DSF technology in improving fuel economy while maintaining ultra-low tailpipe emissions for light-duty (LD) Diesel powertrains.

Cylinder deactivation in multicylinder spark-ignition (SI) engines leads to increased fuel efficiency at part load by allowing fired cylinders to operate closer to their peak thermal efficiency compared to all-cylinder operation. Unlike traditional cylinder deactivation strategies that are limited to deactivating only certain cylinders, Dynamic Skip Fire (DSF) is an advanced cylinder deactivation control strategy that makes deactivation decisions for every cylinder on an individual firing opportunity basis to best meet driver torque demand while saving fuel and mitigating noise, vibration, and harshness (NVH). During DSF operation, inducted charge air mass can vary for each firing event due to the firing sequence history. To maximize efficiency, cylinder fueling should be adjusted for each firing event in DSF based on the inducted charge air mass for that event.

Dynamic skip fire (DSF) has shown significant fuel economy improvement potential via reduction of pumping losses that generally affect throttled spark-ignition (SI) engines. In DSF operation, individual cylinders are fired on-demand near peak efficiency to satisfy driver torque demand. For vehicles with a downsized-boosted 4-cylinder engine, DSF can reduce fuel consumption by 8% in the WLTC (Class 3) drive cycle. The relatively low cost of cylinder deactivation hardware further improves the production value of DSF. Lean burn strategies in gasoline engines have also demonstrated significant fuel efficiency gains resulting from reduced pumping losses and improved thermodynamic characteristics, such as higher specific heat ratio and lower heat losses. Fuel-air mixture stratification is generally required to achieve stable combustion at low loads.