A parametric study to improve first firing cycle emissions of a gasoline direct injection engine during cold start

A parametric study was carried out for the first firing cycle of a 4-cylinder, 2.0-liter, turbocharged gasoline direct injection (GDI) engine. The primary goal was to see how changes in the fuel injection parameters would affect the GDI engine combustion and emissions for the first four combustion events that constitute the first firing cycle. Experimental studies were carried out with a custom-designed powertrain control system to measure the HC emissions and pressure development for the first firing cycle. The quantitative experimental results were accompanied by simulations of the detailed temporal and spatial fuel concentration profiles using Converge CFD engine simulation software. An alternative calculation method was used to calculate the average combustion equivalence ratio for each of the four cylinders. This method showed that the majority of the cold start HC emissions during the first firing cycle was unburned gasoline and its possible decomposition products, which did not contribute significantly to the combustion and heat release. For the same amount of fuel injected into a cylinder, increased fuel rail pressure resulted in better evaporation and combustion, while slightly increasing the HC emissions during the cold start process. A multiple injection strategy was studied that split the fuel delivery between the intake stroke and the compression stroke with either one or two injections in each of those strokes (two or four injections total). The quadruple injection strategy led to better first cycle combustion, with higher engine IMEP and lower HC emissions. This resulted from a richer fuel mixture in the region near the spark plug due to better fuel evaporation and a better spatial fuel distribution. While increasing fuel rail pressure with either injection strategy failed to significantly lower the HC emissions given the same amount of injected fuel mass, higher rail pressure with the quadruple injection strategy resulted in higher IMEP for the same amount of injected fuel; this may provide the possibility to reduce the total fuel injection mass which may have benefits for both fuel consumption and emissions.