EFFECT OF OVER-EXPANSION CYCLE IN A SPARK-IGNITION ENGINE USING LATE-CLOSING OF INTAKE VALVE AND ITS THERMODYNAMIC CONSIDERATION OF THE MECHANISM

This paper presents further investigation into the effect of over-expansion cycle in a spark-ignition engine. On the basis of the results obtained in previous studies, several combinations of late-closing (LC) of intake valve and expansion ratio were tested using a single-cylinder production engine. A large volume of intake capacity was inserted into the intake manifold to simulate multi-cylinder engines. With the large capacity volume, LC can decrease the pumping loss and then increase the mechanical efficiency. Increasing the expansion ratio from 11 to 23.9 with LC application can produce about 13% improvement of thermal efficiency which was suggested to be caused by the increased cycle efficiency. The decrease of compression ratio from 11 to 5.5 gives little effect on the thermal efficiency if the expansion ratio could be kept constant. Thus, the expansion ratio is revealed to be a determining factor for cycle efficiency, while compression ratio is no more important, which suggests the usefulness of controlling the intake charge with intake valve closure timing. These were successfully explained by simple thermodynamic calculation and thus the mechanism could be verified by the estimation.