Gm Global Technolgoy Operations, Inc.

Don Randolph Sutherland

Tang-Wei Kuo

Yong Han Lee

Barry L Brown

Raghunath P Khetan

A method for extending the low-load operation of a homogeneous charge compression ignition engine includes employing a valve actuation device creating a negative valve overlap, thereby trapping and recompressing combusted gases within a combustion chamber, the device effecting increasingly longer negative valve overlap as engine load decreases, injecting during the negative valve overlap a fraction of fuel into the recompressed combusted gases, and igniting the fuel with a heat source during the negative valve overlap.

Low-load operation extension of a homogeneous charge compression ignition engine

Compression ignition of a homogeneous air fuel charge in a piston engine is controlled over a substantial range of lean to stoichiometric air fuel ratios by supplying additional heat as required to an open sided hot spot recess in a combustion chamber. A surface electric heater element is controlled in response to sensed engine operating conditions to provide additional heat as required to ignite the charge compressed in the hot spot to initiate combustion that progresses through the open side of the hot spot recess and completes combustion of the cylinder charge in the time interval required for efficient combustion. Matching of the hot spot energy requirements to the cylinder operating conditions of each engine embodiment and the manner of controlling energy transfer must be developed for each engine application to obtain the full benefit of unthrottled combustion of homogenious mixtures over a major portion of an engine operating range.

HCCI engine combustion control apparatus and method

The profile of a tool or other object having a flat reference plane is illuminated by interfering beams of coherent light to generate a striped light pattern which at any point deviates from straight lines as a function of the surface spacing from the reference plane. A camera image of the pattern taken at an angle to the beams is processed by an image analysis program which converts the stripes to lines corresponding to light peaks and valleys of the pattern. Tool wear or object profile is determined from the deviation of lines from straight reference lines. The program includes algorithms for identifying peak and valley line segments, determining the segments which are neighbors of other segments, and connecting lines according to a set of rules and constraints which use the data on neighbor segments and the proximity of segment end points.

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Romeo, MI, United States of America

Don Randolph Sutherland