Study of the cycle-to-cycle variations of an internal combustion engine fuelled with natural gas/hydrogen blends from the diagnosis of combustion pressure

A methodology is presented for studying the influence of using alternative fuels on the cycle-to-cycle variations of a spark ignition engine which has been fuelled with mixtures of natural gas and hydrogen in different proportions (0–100%). The experimental facility consists of a single-cylindrical spark ignition engine coupled to an asynchronous machine with a constant engine rotation speed of 1500 rpm. A thermodynamic combustion diagnostic model based on genetic algorithms is used to evaluate the combustion chamber pressure data experimentally obtained in the mentioned engine. The model is used to make the pressure diagnosis of series of 830 consecutive engine cycles automatically, with a high grade of objectivity of the combustion analysis, since the relevant adjustment parameters (i.e. pressure offset, effective compression ratio, top dead center angular position, heat transfer coefficients) are calculated by the genetic algorithm. Results indicate that the combustion process is dominated by the turbulence inside the combustion chamber (generated during intake and compression), showing little dependency of combustion variation on the mixture composition. This becomes more evident when relevant combustion variables are plotted versus the Mass Fraction Burned of each mixture. The only exception is the case of 100% hydrogen, due to the inherent higher laminar speed of hydrogen that causes combustion acceleration and thus turbulence generation.