Hitachi America, Ltd., Research and Development Division

Masatoshi Sugiura

George Saikalis

A fuel management system is provided for use with an internal combustion engine which utilizes gaseous fuel as the fuel source. A mass gas flow sensor is fluidly connected between the gaseous fuel source and the engine. A mass air flow meter is similarly provided in series with an air intake for the internal combustion engine and the outputs from both flow meters are provided as input signals to a microprocessor based control circuit. The control circuit calculates the air/fuel ratio of the combustible charge provided to the engine and generates appropriate output signals to a valve arrangement in series between the source of gaseous fuel and the internal combustion engine to vary the air/fuel ratio to obtain a desired engine performance as a function of the engine operating condition. An air/fuel ratio sensor is also in fluid communication with the exhaust gas stream from the engine and provides an output signal representative of the actual air/fuel ratio to the control circuit. The control circuit compares the signal from the air/fuel ratio sensor with the calculated air/fuel ratio from the gas flow sensor such as a mass gas flow sensor, and provides appropriate compensation signals to the valve arrangement to compensate for variances between the calculated and actual air/fuel ratio.

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Novi, MI, United States of America

Masatoshi Sugiura