• Transactions of the Korean Society of Automotive Engineers
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.156-165
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• 2014

This paper is the first investigation on the effect of flow control methods on the part load performance in a spark ignition engine. For comparison of the methods, two control devices, port throttling and masking, were applied to a conventional engine without any design change of the intake port. Steady flow evaluation shows that steady flow rates per unit opening area and swirl ratio are very low compared with the port throttling and saturated from mid-stage valve lift, however, swirl increases slightly as the lift is higher in case of 1/4 masking control. In the part load performance, the effect of simple port throttling on lean misfire limit expansion is limited and insufficient; on the other hand a masking improves the limit considerably without any port modification for increasing swirl. Also the results show that the intake flow control improves the combustion with following two mechanisms: stratification induced by the combination of the flow pattern and the fuel injection timing attribute to ignition ability and the intensified flow ensure fast burn. In addition fuel consumption reduces under the flow controls and the reduction rate is different according to the operation conditions and control methods. At the Stoichiometric and/or low speed and low load the throttling method is more advantageous; however vice versa at lean and high load condition. Finally, the throttling is more efficient for HC reduction than masking, on the other side the NOx emissions increase under the masking and decrease under the port throttling compared with conventional port scheme.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Automotive Engineers
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• v.9 no.5
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• pp.17-22
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• 2001

This paper is the first of companion papers, which investigate port-masking effects on lean misfire limit. Port-masking was applied to commercial SOHC 3-valve and DOHC 4-valve engine by inserting masking plates between manifold and port. To induce various conditions of stratification, six types of masking plates were applied. The masking plates were placed in the upstream of injector to prevent wall wetting and two ports were not separated to permit both fuel and air entering through masked port. The results were compared with those by conventional port throttling. The results show that lean misfire limit mainly depends on masking direction, that is, high lean misfire limit is achieved when the port near the spark plug is masked. The mechanism of stratification by masking is different from axial stratification by port throttling. In this case, the rich mixture entering through masked port plays a very important role in the stratification process.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Automotive Engineers
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.121-130
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• 2014

This paper is the second investigation on the effects of intake flow control methods on the part load performance in a spark ignition engine. In the previous work, two control methods, port throttling and masking, were compared with respect to lean misfire limit, fuel consumption and emissions. In this work, the effects of these two methods on EGR characteristics were studied and simultaneously the differences between EGR and lean combustion as a dilution method were investigated. The results show that EGR limit is expanded up to 23% and 3 ~ 5% improvement in the fuel consumption are achieved around 8 ~ 13% rates by the flow controls comparing with 10% limit and 1.5% reduction around 3% rate of non-control case. The masking method is more effective on the limit expansion than throttling as like as lean misfire limit; however there is no substantial difference in fuel consumptions improvement regardless the control methods except high load condition. Also it is observed that there exist critical EGR rates around which the combustion performance and NOx formation change remarkably and these rates generally coincide with optimum rates for the fuel consumption. In addition, dilution with fresh air is much more advantageous than that of the exhaust gas from the view point of dilution limit and fuel consumption, while utilization of the exhaust gas is more effective on NOx reduction in spite of considerably small dilution compared with the use of fresh air. Finally, the improvement of fuel consumption by massive EGR is highly dependent on the EGR limit at which the engine runs stably, therefore the stratified combustion technique might be a best solution for this purpose.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Automotive Engineers
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.42-49
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• 2011

To expand lean misfire limit and improve combustion stability, the effects of port masking were estimated to secure basic data for applying the mechanism to SI engine instead of asymmetrical port and port throttling devises. For this purpose, various shapes and ratios of masking plates were mounted between port and manifold. The masking effects were evaluated by mixture response test under various load and speed conditions. The results showed that lean misfire limits were expended and fast combustion was observed for all masking shapes and ratios, especially, the effect of diagonal 1/4 masking was remarkable. In conclusion, the port masking method could be easily applied to engine without redesign of port for improving part load performance.

• Advances in aircraft and spacecraft science
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.281-296
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• 2017

The axial-injection end-burning hybrid rocket proposed twenty years ago by the authors recently recaptured the attention of researchers for its virtues such as no ${\zeta}$ (oxidizer to fuel mass ratio) shift during firing and good throttling characteristics. This paper is the first report verifying these virtues using a laboratory scale motor. There are several requirements for realizing this type of hybrid rocket: 1) high fuel filling rate for obtaining an optimal ${\zeta}$; 2) small port intervals for increasing port merging rate; 3) ports arrayed across the entire fuel section. Because these requirements could not be satisfied by common manufacturing methods, no previous researchers have conducted experiments with this kind of hybrid rocket. Recent advances in high accuracy 3D printing now allow for fuel to be produced that meets these three requirements. The fuel grains used in this study were produced by a high precision light polymerized 3D printer. Each grain consisted of an array of 0.3 mm diameter ports for a fuel filling rate of 98% .The authors conducted several firing tests with various oxidizer mass flow rates and chamber pressures, and analysed the results, including ${\zeta}$ history, using a new reconstruction technique. The results show that ${\zeta}$ remains almost constant throughout tests of varying oxidizer mass flow rates, and that regression rate in the axial direction is a nearly linear function of chamber pressure with a pressure exponent of 0.996.