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Estimating internal residual during engine operation is essential to robust control during startup, steady state, and transient operation. Internal residual has a significant effect on combustion flame propagation, combustion stability and emissions. Accurate residual estimate also provides a better foundation for optimizing open loop fuel control during startup, while providing a basis for reducing emissions during closed loop control. In this paper we develop an improved model to estimate residual gas fraction by means of isolation and characterization of the physical processes in the gas exchange. Examining existing residuals model as the base, we address their deficiencies making changes to appropriate terms to the model. Existing models do not work well under wide angle dual independent cam phasing. The improved residual estimation model is not limited by the initial data set used for its calibration and does not need cylinder pressure data.

A numerical analysis was performed to study the variation of the laminar burning speed of gasoline-ethanol blend, pressure, temperature and dilution using the one-dimensional premixed flame code CHEMKIN™. A semi-detailed validated chemical kinetic model (142 species and 672 reactions) for a gasoline surrogate fuel was used. The pure components in the surrogate fuel consist of n-heptane, isooctane and toluene. The ethanol mole fraction was varied from 0 to 85 percent, initial pressure from 4 to 8 bar, initial temperature from 300 to 600K, and the EGR dilution from 0 to 32% to represent the in-cylinder conditions of a spark-ignition engine. The laminar flame speed is found to increase with ethanol concentration and temperature but decrease with pressure and dilution.

One-dimensional single-zone and two-zone analyses have been exercised to calculate the mass fraction burned in an engine operating on ethanol/gasoline-blended fuels using the cylinder pressure and volume data. The analyses include heat transfer and crevice volume effects on the calculated mass fraction burned. A comparison between the two methods is performed starting from the derivation of conservation of energy and the method to solve the mass fraction burned rates through the results including detailed explanation of the observed differences and trends. The apparent heat release method is used as a point of reference in the comparison process. Both models are solved using the LU matrix factorization and first-order Euler integration.