EP1573191A1

EP1573191A1 - Direct-injection spark-ignition internal combustion engine

Info

Publication number: EP1573191A1
Application number: EP03779929A
Authority: EP
Inventors: Benedikt Ganz; Jean-François GAUDRY; Hans Hartmann; Rolf Klenk; Andreas Mlejnek; Klaus Rössler; Helmut Scheffel; Dirk Strubel; Matthias Zahn
Original assignee: DaimlerChrysler AG
Current assignee: Daimler AG
Priority date: 2002-12-20
Filing date: 2003-11-14
Publication date: 2005-09-14
Also published as: JP4280928B2; JP2006510843A; DE10261185A1; WO2004059153A1; US20050252483A1; US7143738B2

Abstract

The invention relates to a direct-injection spark-ignition internal combustion engine comprising one injector (8) per cylinder (2) for injecting fuel into a combustion chamber (4). The injector (8) has an injection nozzle (11) comprising several injection orifices (12) that are distributed around its periphery, the fuel jets (13) of said orifices forming a conical cloud of fuel (14) during an injection operation when mixed with combustion air that is supplied separately. To improve the geometry of the combustion chamber, a plunger basin (6), which enlarges the combustion chamber (4) and lies opposite the injection nozzle (11), can be provided in the plunger head (5) of the plunger (3). In order to counteract a wetting of the plunger by the fuel, in particular for a late fuel injection in a stratified charge mode, the invention is equipped with a plunger basin (6), which is radially enlarged by several radial cavities (16) that are hollowed out of the plunger head (5) and that receive injected fuel.

Description

Direct injection Otto engine

The invention relates to a direct-injection gasoline engine with an injector per cylinder for fuel injection into a combustion chamber of the type specified in the preamble of claim 1 and a method for operating such an internal combustion engine with the features of claim 10.

In the case of direct-injection internal combustion engines, the fuel / air mixture to be burned for driving the piston is formed in the combustion chamber of each cylinder from fuel injected directly into the combustion chamber with combustion air supplied separately through inlet channels. In spark-ignited Otto internal combustion engines, the fuel / air mixture is to be ignited by the ignition spark of a spark plug protruding into the combustion chamber and therefore an ignitable mixture is to be provided on the electrodes of the spark plug. In stratified charge operation, a layered mixture cloud with an ignitable fuel concentration can be formed by late fuel injection during the working cycle of the respective cylinder, with an overall lean mixture in the entire combustion chamber volume. Operation with a stratified mixture leads to a reduction in fuel consumption and pollutant emissions from the internal combustion engine. In order to ensure the ignitability of the mixture in the area of the spark plug, particularly in stratified charge mode, the fuel is usually injected into the combustion chamber in a cone jet, a cone-shaped fuel cloud with the combustion air is formed. In a so-called jet-guided combustion process, the mixture formation strongly depends on the ignitable quality of the mixture of the fuel cloud in the area of the spark plug. In order to ensure stable mixture formation and ignition of the mixture in a jet-guided combustion process by means of a well-configured, conical fuel cloud, so-called multi-hole injectors are known, the injection nozzle of which is provided with a plurality of injection holes distributed over its circumference.

DE 198 04 463 A1 discloses such a multi-hole injector, in which at least one row of injection holes distributed over the circumference of the injection nozzle is provided, in order to implement a jet-guided combustion process by forming the mixture cloud by targeted injection of fuel via the injection holes.

The geometric shape of the combustion chamber is influenced by a recessed piston recess in the piston crown of the piston. The piston bowl is located approximately opposite the injection nozzle and represents the remaining volume of the combustion chamber in which the injected fuel is located in the area of the top dead center of the piston movement. DE 199 22 964 AI discloses a geometric design of the piston bowl to improve the mixture formation with conically injected fuel. The geometric shape of the combustion chamber plays a key role in the quality of the mixture formation, particularly in the case of self-igniting diesel engines. The known combustion chamber design has a so-called omega piston bowl, in which the fuel is directed into the outer peripheral areas of the circular piston bowl by a central elevation at the bottom of the piston bowl, in order to contribute to the formation of the fuel / air mixture there.

In direct-injection spark-ignition engines with spark ignition, the use of multi-hole injectors in the internal mixture formation causes the fuel to be released as late as possible during the grain compression stroke of the piston is injected in order to achieve the greatest possible degree of stratification of the mixture cloud. In the operation of such internal combustion engines, it is repeatedly found that the pollutant emission is undesirably high and that the piston surface also tends to coke. Such phenomena are based on a wetting of the piston surface with the injected fuel, which cannot be avoided despite the high internal pressure of the cylinder at the time of injection due to the small distance between the injector and the piston crown.

The present invention is based on the object of designing the internal combustion engine in such a way that fuel wetting of the piston during the injection is excluded even during operation with late fuel injection.

This object is achieved with the features of claim 1. In addition, a method for operating such a gasoline engine with the features of claim 10 is proposed.

According to the invention, the piston bowl is expanded with a plurality of radial cavities hollowed out in the piston crown in the radial direction of the piston. The radial cavities are distributed over the circumference of the piston recess in such a way that a cavity for receiving the respective fuel jet of this injection hole is assigned to each injection hole of the injector. In the case of fuel injection, the individual jets of the injected fuel, which also emanate from the injector with radial components within the cone jet, are received in the radial cavities and are kept away from the surface of the piston crown. The inventive design of the piston bowl with additional radial cavities precludes wetting of the piston surface with fuel and thus reduces the pollutant emission of the internal combustion engine. The hollow of the piston crown with radial cavities for receiving the fuel jets of the multi-hole injector allows a free design of the fuel injection in the jet-guided mixture formation process and also allow larger opening angles of the cone jet. If necessary, the fuel can be injected at an opening angle of approximately 130 ° of the cone formed from the fuel jets of all injection holes of the multi-hole injector. The opening cone is preferably 75 ° to 85 °.

The expansion of the piston bowl with radial cavities and the resulting exclusion of any wetting of the piston surface with fuel enables very late injection times during the compression cycle. According to the invention, the stratified fuel metering forms a stratified mixture with locally different fuel concentrations (stratified charge operation) at least in lower load areas of the internal combustion engine, with fuel metering being provided at a later point in time than approximately 50 ° crank angle before top dead center during the compression stroke. The fuel / air mixture is advantageously ignited at the latest 10 ° crank angle after the end of the fuel injection of the multi-hole injector. The radial cavities absorb the respective fuel jet from the individual injection holes of the injector and extend the distance of the piston bowl from the respective injection hole and therefore allow fuel injection at a high pressure of more than 80 bar. The fuel is preferably injected at more than 160 bar.

A radial cavity is advantageously provided per injection hole of the injector, into which the fuel jet of the respective injection hole is directed and the injected fuel is mixed with the combustion air. In a preferred embodiment of the invention, the radial cavities are distributed in a rotationally symmetrical manner on the circumference of the piston recess. A piston with a piston recess designed in this way can interact with multi-hole injectors of different number of holes, which are evenly distributed around the circumference of the multi-hole nozzle and is an integral multiple of the number of rotationally symmetrical radial cavities. In a preferred embodiment, the number of injection holes on the circumference of the injection nozzle is coordinated with the number of radial cavities for expanding the piston recess, a radial cavity being assigned to each injection hole. In this case, an angle of rotation-oriented installation position of the injector can also be provided, for example with a locally different fuel concentration in the cone jacket of the cone jet for the purpose of enriching the fuel in the area of the spark plug, wherein a design of the radial cavities taking into account the angle of rotation orientation of the injector is possible ,

In a preferred embodiment, the piston trough with the radial cavities in the piston is bulged radially beyond an edge of the piston trough lying at the level of the piston crown, as a result of which the radial cavities partially extend below the overlap of the piston crown in the manner of a cavern. The piston bowl is advantageously formed with a central elevation from its base, which can be conical in order to actively support the mixture formation in the radial cavities. The radial cavities diametrically opposite one another at the edge of the piston recess have an approximately omega-shaped cross section.

An embodiment of the invention is explained below with reference to the drawing.

Show:

1 shows a longitudinal section of a cylinder of an Otto engine,

2 is a sectional view of an injection nozzle, Fig. 3 is a plan view of a piston crown with a piston bowl formed thereon.

The internal combustion engine 1 shown in section in FIG. 1 comprises a plurality of cylinders 2, in which a reciprocating piston 3 is arranged to move longitudinally in a manner known per se and delimits a combustion chamber 4 with its piston crown 5. The cylinder 2 is closed by a cylinder head 9, in which an injector 8 for the direct injection of fuel into the combustion chamber 4 is accommodated. In the cylinder head 9, at least one inlet valve is also provided, through which fresh gas is led into the combustion chamber 4 when the charge is changed to form an ignitable fuel / air mixture with the fuel injected from the injector 8. The fuel / air mixture is ignited by a spark plug 10. The injector 8 is arranged in the central position of the combustion chamber 4 on a cylinder axis 7 of the cylinder 2 and, with its injection nozzle protruding into the combustion chamber 4, conically injects the fuel into the combustion chamber. A cone-shaped mixture cloud 14 is formed with the combustion air, the electrodes of the spark plug 10 being located in the jacket region of the cone-shaped fuel cloud 14. Stratified charge operation is provided in the lower load ranges of the internal combustion engine, the fuel being injected at a late point in time shortly before the mixture is ignited. There are local differences in the fuel concentration in the combustion chamber, and if the mixture is lean overall, a fuel-rich and ignitable mixture can be provided on the electrodes of the spark plug 10.

To generate the cone jet, the injection nozzle 11 of the injector 8 is equipped with a plurality of injection holes on its circumference, through which individual fuel jets enter the combustion chamber 4 during an injection process. The injection nozzle 11 is preferably designed as a so-called seat hole nozzle, as shown in FIG. 2. The injector 8 has an inwardly opening valve needle 18. The Valve member 18 closes the fuel chamber, which has access to the outside through injection holes 12 on the circumference of nozzle 11. In the fuel chamber 20, fuel is made available for injection under a high pressure of preferably more than 160 bar. When the injector needle 18 is lifted in the direction of the longitudinal axis 7, the injection holes 12, which are uniformly distributed on the circumference of the seat hole nozzle 11, are released. The injection holes 12 are designed as channels in the wall of the injection nozzle 11 such that each fuel jet from an injection hole is emitted at an angle to the longitudinal axis 7. The individual fuel jets form the cladding of a cone jet.

FIG. 2 shows an injector 8, on the injector tip 19 of which a conically tapered injection nozzle 11 is formed, on the circumference of which there are provided evenly distributed injection holes 12. To form the cone jet, at least six injection holes, preferably 10 to 12 injection holes 12, are uniformly distributed on the circumference of the injection nozzle 11. In order to improve the quality of the internal mixture formation by precisely guiding the individual fuel jets, the injection holes can be rounded hydroerosively. The injection holes 12 preferably have a diameter of less than 140 μm. A ratio of the length of the injection holes L to the diameters D of L / D <3 is considered advantageous; the ratio preferably relates to approximately 2. The injector syringe 19 of the injector 8 according to FIG. 2 is preferably designed with ratios D1 / D2 of 0.4 to 0.7 and L1 / L2 = 0.08 to approximately 0.22.

In order to ensure safe ignition and clean combustion in a jet-guided combustion process and in particular in stratified charge operation of the internal combustion engine, the internal mixture formation and fuel distribution can be supported by suitable air movement in the combustion chamber. The intake air can be controlled by swirling about the cylinder axis by appropriate design of the intake ducts 7 or tumble movements in the plane of the injector axis 7 can be controlled.

According to the invention, a piston recess 6 is provided in the piston crown 5 of the piston 3 shown in section in FIG. 1, which is recessed in a central position opposite the injection nozzle 11. In order to counteract wetting of the piston crown 5 with fuel during very late injection in stratified charge operation, when the piston crown is already close to the injector, the piston recess 6 is expanded with radial cavities 16, as shown in FIG. 3. The radial cavities 16 hollowed out in the piston crown 5 are distributed over the circumference of the piston recess 6 such that a cavity 16 for receiving the respective fuel jet 13 is assigned to each injection hole 12 of the injector 8. In the exemplary embodiment of the piston 3 shown in top view in FIG. 3, eight cavities 16 are provided for an injector with eight injection holes, which, according to the uniform arrangement of the injection holes on the circumference of the nozzle, are arranged rotationally symmetrically on the circumference of the piston recess 6. The radial cavities 16 extend in the radial direction up to a common radius 22, the radius R _{κ of which is} approximately 0.6 to 0.9 times, preferably 0.8 times the radius R _{z of} the piston 3 or the cylinder 2. The radial cavities 16 widen the piston recess 6, which extends on the circumference 21, in sections in the area of the fuel jets of the injector, as a result of which a longer distance is available for each fuel jet 13 even when the piston is near the injector and counteracts wetting of the piston surface.

The radial cavities 16 are preferably bulged in the piston 3 such that the piston recess 6 extends radially in the area of the cavities within the piston 3 beyond an edge 17 located at the level of the piston crown 5. The radial cavities for receiving the respective fuel jets lie inside the piston in the manner of a cavern 3 below the piston surface. The piston bowl 6 is advantageously designed with a depth of at least 5 mm and has a central elevation 15, which conically shapes the base of the piston bowl 6 and contributes to guiding the mixture cloud during the mixture formation into the radial cavities 16.

The radial cavities 16 of the piston recess 6 according to the invention on the one hand prevent the wetting of the piston surface with fuel, so that even very late fuel injections in stratified charge operation are possible and the quality of the mixture formation can be increased. In addition, the radial cavities 16 according to the invention contribute in the radial direction to the beam propagation of the injector cone beam to maintain the compression ratio of the respective internal combustion engine, which is required by design. The compression ratio is advantageously between 10 and 13 for naturally aspirated engines and between 8.5 and 11 for supercharged internal combustion engines.

The formation of the piston surface with radial cavities in the piston recess allows a free choice of the opening angle of the cone jet of the injector 8 with regard to the quality of combustion to be achieved. A beam angle between the individual steel axes of the fuel jets measured in the injector axis of 60 ° to 130 ° can be freely selected, an opening angle of the cone beam of 75 ° to 85 ° being seen as advantageous.

The injector can be equipped with heating elements for preheating fuel or also have devices for supplying different types of fuel (bi-fuel valve), for example for supplying volatile starting fuel for the cold start.

To improve the mixture formation with a piston with radial cavities in the piston recess, a ratio of the diam. water of the injection valve for the cylinder bore from 0.3 to 0.38 and a ratio of the diameter of the exhaust valve to the cylinder bore from 0.28 to 0.32 for expedient. The inlet valves and the outlet valves are advantageously in a ratio of 1.02 to 1.1 to one another. With a high injection pressure of advantageously more than 160 bar, an exact and very late fuel metering can take place, since the radial cavities according to the invention prevent wetting of the piston surface even at a high pressure. The diametrically opposed cavities 16 in the piston recess 6 form an omega shape, which contributes to the preparation of the fuel jet injected into the respective radial cavity 6. A ratio of the channel length of the injection holes 12 shown in FIG. 2 to the injection pressure should be less than 0.25 x 10 ^"9 / Pa.

To improve the flammability of the mixture cloud 14 in stratified charge operation, the spark plug is expediently positioned between two fuel jets 13 of the injector. When using a four-valve cylinder head, the spark plug should be between the exhaust valves. The spark plug can be installed with an angle-oriented mass electrode, and several spark plugs and in particular an AC voltage ignition system with variable spark duration can also be used to stabilize the ignition.

The combustion chamber geometry according to the invention with radial cavities for expanding the piston bowl and receiving the individual fuel jets 13 of a multi-hole injector 8 allows a very late fuel injection and rapid ignition of the fuel / air mixture at the latest 10 ° crank angle after the end of the fuel injection without wetting the piston.

Claims

claims

1. Direct-injection gasoline internal combustion engine with an injector (8) per cylinder (2) for fuel injection in a combustion chamber (4), which is delimited by a piston which can be moved longitudinally in the cylinder, the injector (8) having an injection nozzle (11) with several , Injection holes (12) distributed over their circumference, the fuel jets (13) of which form a conical fuel cloud (14) with separately supplied combustion air during an injection process, and wherein in a piston crown (5) of the piston (3) approximately opposite the injection nozzle (11 ) lying there is a piston trough which extends the combustion chamber (4), characterized in that the piston trough (6) is radially expanded with a plurality of radial cavities (16) hollowed out in the piston crown (5) for receiving injected fuel, the radial cavities (16) being over the The circumference of the piston recess (6) is distributed so that each injection hole (12) of the injector (8) has a cavity activity (16) for receiving the respective fuel jet (13).

2. Internal combustion engine according to claim 1, characterized in that the cavities (16) are distributed in a rotationally symmetrical manner on the circumference of the piston recess (6).

3. Internal combustion engine according to one of claims 1 or 2, d a d u r c h g e k e n n z e i c h n e t that the piston bowl (6) in the central position of the piston crown (5) and the injector (8) are arranged on a cylinder axis (7) of the cylinder (2).

4. Internal combustion engine according to one of claims 1 to 3, so that the piston bowl (6) in the piston (3) is hollowed out radially over an edge (17) of the piston bowl (6) lying at the height of the piston crown (5).

5. Internal combustion engine according to one of claims 1 to 4, d a d u r c h g e k e n n z e i c h n e t that the piston bowl (6) is formed in a central elevation (15) from its bottom.

6. Internal combustion engine according to claim 5, d a d u r c h g e k e n n z e i c h n e t that the elevation (15) is conical.

7. Internal combustion engine according to one of claims 1 to 6, that the injector (8) is designed as a seat hole nozzle with an inwardly opening valve member (18).

8. Internal combustion engine according to one of claims 1 to 7, characterized in that the radial cavities (16) of the piston recess (6) lie within a radius with a radius (R _κ ) which is approximately 0.6 to 0.9 times, preferably the 0th , 8 times the radius (R _z ) of the piston (3).

9. Internal combustion engine according to one of claims 1 to 8, characterized in that an opening angle () of a cone formed from the fuel jets (13) of all injection holes (12) 60 ° to 130 °, preferably 75 ° to 85 °.

10. A method of operating an Otto engine according to one of the preceding claims, characterized in that a stratified mixture with locally different fuel concentrations is formed at least in lower load areas of the internal combustion engine (1), the injection of the fuel at a later point in time during the compression stroke of the Cylinder (2) begins about 50 ° CA before top dead center.

11. The method according to claim 10, so that the ignition of the air / fuel mixture takes place at the latest 10 ° KW after the end of the fuel injection.

12. The method according to claim 10 or 11, d a d u r c h g e k e n n z e i c h n e t that the fuel is injected at a pressure of more than 80 bar, preferably less than 160 bar.