Investigation of a Spark-Assisted Diesel Engine 830588

A single-cylinder, open-chamber direct-injection (OCDI) diesel engine was converted to low compression ratio, spark-assisted operation. A modular construction cylinder head was built for the test work. The research work indicated that on a typical OCDI diesel engine, several spark plug locations are possible to produce successful ignition of a wide range of fuels. Performance tests were run with different compression and swirl ratio combinations. The best combination was found to be 12.2 compression ratio and 10 swirl ratio. The spark-assisted engine (CR 16:1) was performance tested with methanol and DF-2 plus 20% methanol emulsified fuel. The spark was always required with methanol, however, with emulsified fuel spark was desirable for starting and warming up periods.

The investigation suggested the feasibility of economically developing multi-fuel spark-assisted diesel engines.