Abstract
Internal combustion engine is the main source of environmental pollutants and therefore better technology is required to reduce harmful elements from the exhaust gases all over the world. Especially, harmful elements from the exhaust gases are caused by incomplete combustion of mixture inside the engine cylinder and this abnormal combustion like misfire or partial burning is the direct cause of the air pollution and engine performance degradation. the object of this research is to detect abnormal combustion like misfire and to keep the engine performance in the optimal operating state. Development of a new system therefore could be applied to a real car. To realize this, the spark-plug in a conventional ignition system is used as a misfire detection sensor and breakdown voltage is analyzed. In this research, bias voltage(about 3kV) was applied to the electrodes of spark-plug and breakdown voltage signal is obtained. This breakdown voltage signal is analyzed and found that a combustion phenomena in engine cylinder has close relationship with harmonic coefficient K which was introduced in this research. Newly developed combustion diagnostic method( breakdown voltage signal analysis) from this research can be used for the combustion diagnostic and combustion control system in an real car.
