Effect of the trapped mass and its composition on the heat transfer in the compression cycle of a reciprocating engine

The use of the polytropic coefficient calculation during the compression process in the thermodynamic cycle of a reciprocating internal combustion engine is an interesting tool to minimize errors in the synchronization of pressure and volume signals, and to determine heat flux transferred to the cylinder walls. The accuracy of this calculation depends on the instantaneous values for pressure, volume, trapped mass and its composition, as well as on their variations. In this work the effect of the errors in blow-by, trapped mass and its composition have been studied in detail, specially the effect of errors in the composition estimation, owing to the use of exhaust gas recirculation in typical diesel engines.