Dresser-rand

Harry P Wertheimer

According to the present invention, an apparatus and method for controlling injection timing and power balancing in a gaseous fuel engine with an electronic control unit and a shaft encoder is disclosed. The engine includes an engine block having at least one cylinder with an exhaust port and a cylinder head. A fuel injector and a spark plug is seated in the cylinder head and the injector has a valve which separates the fuel in the injector from the cylinder. A piston reciprocates in each cylinder and is attached to a connecting rod. The rod connects each piston to a crankshaft which converts the motion of the piston to rotary motion. The shaft encoder is connected to the crankshaft and monitors the revolutions of the crankshaft. The electronic control unit is coupled to the shaft encoder and to each of the fuel injectors. The method in accordance with the invention includes several steps. First, a working injection time setting the time for each fuel injector to start an injection of fuel into the cylinder is retarded to an initial injection time. Next, the speed of the crankshaft is measured and compared against a first preset limit. The working injection time is advanced at a predetermined rate, if the monitored speed exceeds the first preset limit. When the working injection time is advanced to be equal to or less than a programed function of speed, the working injection time is set to the injection time calculated from the programmed speed function. The method may also involve establishing a working pulse width for each cylinder, measuring an index of the power output in each cylinder, calculating a balancing factor in response to the measured index, and adjusting the working pulse width in response to the balance factor for each cylinder.

Injection timing and power balancing control for gaseous fuel engines

A system for balancing power includes an internal combustion engine with at least two cylinders and a computer with a memory programmed to balance power output between the cylinders. Each of the cylinders has a fuel injector which injects fuel into the cylinder for a set period of time determined by a working pulse width signal received from the computer. The working pulse width signal is adjusted by a working balance factor which ranges from a first specified percentage to one-hundred percent before being transmitted to the fuel injector. The system operates in accordance with a set of instructions stored in the programmed memory which comprise: measuring peak firing pressure in each of the cylinders; generating an average peak firing pressure signal for each of the cylinders from the measurements of the peak firing pressure in each of the cylinders; generating a new balance factor for each of the cylinders in an iterative process from the working balance factors for each of the cylinders, a sensitivity constant, and the average peak firing pressure signal for each of the cylinders until at least one of the new balance factors is within a first preset amount of one hundred percent; and replacing the working balance factor for each of the cylinders with the new balance factor for each of the cylinders. The system and method may further comprise the step of triggering an alarm signal if any of the new balance factors is less than a specified percentage.

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Painted Post, NY, United States of America

Harry P Wertheimer