Denso Corporation

Nippondenso Co., Ltd.

Nippon Soken, Inc.

Makoto Miwa

Keiji Wakahara

Yoshinori Maegawa

Naoki Yoshiume

Syujiro Morinaga

Shigenori Isomura

Kazuji Minagawa

Yoshihiro Majima

Kiyotoshi Oi

Junya Morikawa

Yukihiro Yamashita

Daiji Isobe

Masao Yonekawa

Toshihiko Muramatsu

Takeshi Matsuda

Takeshi Fujimoto

Masatoshi Basaki

Takahiko Kato

Masahiro Shigenaga

Kimitaka Saitoh

Kiyohiko Watanabe

Yasuo Mukai

Masaaki Nakayama

Hisayo Dohta

Shigeru Takeuchi

Akira Ando

Hiroyuki Inuzuka

Teruo Nishio

Kazuji Managawa

In a reforming driving mode, while the EGR valve is opened to recirculate a part of exhaust gas into the intake pipe, a reforming-fuel injector injects a reforming-fuel into an exhaust gas flowing through an EGR pipe. The injected reforming-fuel is vaporized and flows into the fuel-reforming catalyst. The fuel-reforming catalyst reforms the fuel in the exhaust gas into the fuel having high combustibility. In the reforming driving mode, the computer determines whether an air-fuel ratio within the normal range. Based on this result, the computer determines whether the reforming-fuel injector has a malfunction. When the reforming-fuel injector has a malfunction, a fail-safe processing is conducted to prohibit the reforming-fuel injector from injecting the reforming-fuel.

Diagnostic apparatus for fuel-property reforming system

When a driving region of an engine is in a specified self-ignited combustion region, a valve timing is controlled in such a manner as to establish a negative valve overlap period in which an exhaust valve and an intake valve are closed. During the negative valve overlap period, a direct injection is performed to reform a fuel. After the direct injection, a port injection is performed to control an output. Thereby, a self-ignited combustion control is performed. During the self-ignited combustion control, a fuel reform degree of the fuel injected by the direct fuel injection is detected, and a self-ignited combustion condition in a present combustion cycle is estimated based on the fuel reform degree detected in the present combustion cycle. A fuel injection quantity of the intake port fuel injection is corrected according to the estimated self-ignited combustion condition in order to stabilize the self-ignited combustion condition.

Controller for internal combustion engine

An ON-ignition signal is outputted from an ignition control portion in a period from a posterior time point of the power stroke to an valve opening timing of an exhaust valve so that a capacitor is charged. Then, when it is determined that the maximum value of an ion-output value detected during a negative valve overlap period becomes greater than or equal to a threshold, it is determined that the applied voltage between an center electrode and a ground electrode of a spark plug is dropped. The ON-ignition signal is outputted again to charge the capacitor before the intake valve is opened.

A leak check system executes a leak check processing. In the leak check processing, the system closes a canister valve and a purge valve to close the fuel vapor purge system. Then, the system detects and monitors a pressure in the fuel vapor purge system. During the leak check processing, the system detects a rapid change of the pressure that is caused by a deformation of a wall of a fuel tank. The system cancels or suspends the processing to avoid erroneous detection of the leak. If the leak check is canceled, the system opens the canister valve to open the fuel vapor purge system.

Leak check for fuel vapor purge system

A fuel vapor control system has a controller that carries out a leak check processing after the engine is stopped. The controller includes a device that intermittently activates the controller itself or a part of the controller to sample an internal pressure of the fuel vapor passage. Then, after a predetermined time, the controller determines that whether the sampled values of the internal pressure indicate a leak or not by evaluating the sampled values. According to the arrangement, since at least a part of the controller is activated intermittently, the consumption of electricity can be reduced. The fuel vapor control system has a canister valve and a purge valve made of normally close type valves in order to reduce the consumption of electricity after the engine is stopped.

Fuel vapor control system with leak check

A control unit uses upper and lower limit guard values to limit a power generation quantity of a power generator and thereby to maintain the current combustion mode during power generation of the power generator. The control unit computes a remaining electric charge of a battery. When the remaining electric charge drops to a predetermined value or below, the control unit cancels a combustion mode maintaining operation, which maintains the current combustion mode, is cancelled, so that priority is given to the power generation of the power generator to recover the remaining electric charge of the battery. Also, when an electric power consumption in a vehicle is equal to or greater than a predetermined value, the combustion mode maintaining operation is cancelled, and the power generation quantity of the power generator is controlled in a manner that does not cause overdischarge of the battery.

Power generation control system and method

A generator control device controls a generator that is driven by an engine to charge a battery and supply electric power to electric loads. In the generator control device the following steps are carried out: calculating a required electric power; calculating a difference rate that is a difference in an amount of a hazardous gas component of engine exhaust gas between a first case in which the generator generates the required electric power and a second case in which the generator does not generate an electric power divided by the electric power and controlling the generator to generate the required electric power if the difference is equal to or smaller than a first reference value.

Vehicle generator control device

In a fuel vapor handling system of this invention, an ECU performs a leak check to check a leak of fuel vapor in a fuel vapor passage when the engine is at a stop. The ECU functions to detect the quantity of fuel during the engine stop. The ECU detects the quantity of fuel at the time of engine starting. Furthermore, the ECU compares the quantity of fuel measured at the time of engine starting with the quantity of fuel measured at the preceding engine stop, to thereby determine whether a filler cap was opened during the engine stop. When the filler cap was opened during the engine stop, a result of the leak check will be cancelled. When the filler cap was not opened, the result of the leak check will be determined.

Fuel vapor handling system

A fuel-vapor-processing system for an engine has a canister for accumulating fuel evaporation gas. The system has a leak-check apparatus for checking a leak on passages. The leak-check apparatus includes a leak-check means for carrying out leak-check processing when the engine if in a stopped state. The leak-check means operates only if a predetermined condition is satisfied. It is thus possible to reduce the number of times the leak-check processing is carried out and, hence, possible to reduce power consumption. For example, only if a relatively small leak is detected when the engine is in a running state, the leak-check processing is carried out in a stopped state to verify existence of such a leak. In the leak-check processing, the temperature of fuel, detected by a sensor or an estimated value, may be taken into consideration.

Leak-check apparatus of fuel-vapor-processing system, fuel-temperature estimation apparatus and fuel-temperature-sensor diagnosis apparatus

A residual fuel quantity measuring device for automobiles has a fuel flow rate sensor provided in a filler neck of a fuel tank for measuring the flow rate of liquid fuel supplied to a fuel tank. A computer computes the quantity of liquid fuel remaining in the fuel tank from a previously stored residual quantity of liquid fuel, the measured fuel flow rate, the injection rate of fuel from fuel injection valves, and the purge quantity of fuel evaporated in the fuel tank. A fuel meter visually displays the thus computed residual quantity of liquid fuel in the fuel tank.

Apparatus and method for measuring fuel flow rate and residual fuel quantity and for controlling evaporated fuel

To perform leak diagnosis, when it is determined (during engine idling) that leakage exists in the purge system air is reintroduced into a purge system. Then, determination of leakage existence is stopped. Accordingly, erroneous diagnosis caused by opening the filler cap during engine idling is prevented, and reliability of leakage diagnosis is improved.

More reliable leakage diagnosis for evaporated gas purge system

A leakage diagnosing apparatus for an evaporated gas purge system, which executes purge system leakage diagnosis based on a detected pressure change amount and an introduced pressure which is introduced into a part of the purge system including at least a fuel tank and a canister. The detected pressure change amount is obtained by detecting pressure in the part of the purge system after such part of the purge system is hermetically sealed. Accordingly, the reliability of the leakage diagnosis is improved because an erroneous diagnosis caused by the introduced pressure is prevented. The detected pressure change amount may be compensated based on the introduced pressure into the sealed gas purge system. Accordingly, an erroneous leakage determination is prevented, and the reliability of leakage determination is improved.

Leakage diagnosing device for fuel evaporated gas purge system

When a diagnosis execution condition is established, a canister closure valve is closed, thereafter, a purge control valve is opened, a purge control valve is closed in a state where negative pressure is introduced into an evaporated gas system to thereby maintain the evaporated gas system in a hermetically-sealed state and the hermetically-sealed state is continued until abnormality diagnosis is finished. Time period for maintaining the evaporated gas system in the hermetically-sealed state is divided into three time periods of a pressure change determining time period at a first time, an awaiting time period and a pressure change determining time period at a second time. After determining a pressure change amount DPT1 of the evaporated gas system in the pressure change determining time period at the first time, the evaporated gas system is successively maintained in the hermetically-sealed state, after the predetermined awaiting time period has elapsed, the pressure change determination at the second time is carried out by which a pressure change amount DPT2 of the evaporated gas system is determined. Further, presence or absence of leakage of the evaporated gas system is diagnosed by comparing the pressure change amount DPT1 at the first time with the pressure change amount DPT2 at the second time.

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Kariya, Japan

Makoto Miwa