Investigation of the potential of corona ignition to control gasoline homogeneous charge compression ignition combustion

A complex task regarding the control of the homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) combustion process is the control of combustion timing, represented by the crank angle at which 50 per cent of the fuel mass inside the cylinder is burned (MFB50). The most important parameters for transient MFB50 control are the mass of (hot) residual gas inside the cylinder (e.g. retained by internal exhaust gas recirculation), the injection strategy (in the case of direct fuel injection), and the spark timing. In this paper, the potential of a corona ignition system is examined in comparison with a conventional spark ignition system for the HCCI combustion process. For this purpose, thermodynamic investigations have been carried out on a single-cylinder research engine, combined with one-dimensional gas exchange analyses and high-speed visualization of combustion in a transparent engine. It could be demonstrated that both ignition systems are capable of influencing the autoignition process. The corona ignition system, however, allows a much later ignition point for achieving the same MFB50. This is due to the spatial character of the initial ignition area of corona ignition. In addition, the corona ignition system is more robust with respect to a change in the boundary conditions, such as a variation in the residual gas rate or the mixture composition. It is therefore more reliable in initiating autoignition, even in critical operating conditions. Additionally, it was found that the corona ignition system permits the combustion to be influenced by means of a variation in the ignition energy, which appeared to be not the case for the conventional ignition system.