Technical Paper
Piston Pre-Heating Using a Pressurized-Heated Oil Buffer: A Practical Method to Reduce ICE Emissions and Fuel Consumption
2023-08-28
2023-24-0123
Engine cold start is characterized by sub-optimal combustion efficiency due to the low temperature of the combustion chamber; this heavily increases engine raw emissions at start. One driving phenomenon is a limited fuel evaporation rate. Consequently, a liquid fuel film remains on the piston top at ignition. Liquid fuel deposited on the piston top is a well-known cause of “pool-fire”, leading to high levels of particle emissions; a problem particularly noticeable with bio-based renewable fuels. Engine piston pre-heating can be deployed to prevent or limit the formation of such fuel film and associated pollutants. In this work a practical technique is proposed to effectively pre-heat the pistons immediately before engine cold start. The device consists of a pressurized-heated oil buffer which pre-heats the pistons via the existing piston cooling nozzles.