Advanced Ignition Systems: Technical Possibilities and Limitations
Advanced Ignition Systems: Technical Possibilities and Limitations
net/publication/298433880
CITATIONS READS
3 1,019
4 authors, including:
Peter Weyand
Delphi Luxembourg
13 PUBLICATIONS 46 CITATIONS
SEE PROFILE
All content following this page was uploaded by Peter Weyand on 16 March 2016.
Abstract: Striving for maximum efficiency gains, the TCI-system did though substantially increase, from
highly diluted gasoline combustion process is a key ~40 mJ ten years ago to about 100 mJ nowadays.
technology to reach 95g/km CO2. Various advanced
ignition systems were developed in the past to deal Many publications of the last years clearly showed
with the challenges with stratified combustion or high that a high power supplied to the spark has a
dilution. On the one hand they must be capable to positive effect on the combustion [3,9]. Especially on
generate a high voltage to breakdown the spark plug stratified combustion the MCI-system shows an
gap in downsized turbo charged engines; on the advantage compared to single shot TCI-systems.
other hand they have to supply a big amount of The MCI-systems presented here are designed for a
energy in a short time during the burn-phase of the short (re-)charge time compared to standard coils.
arc. As a side effect the average power output has
increased.
Due to the proven robustness and cost effectiveness
of traditional ignition systems based on fly-back
A detailed description of the MCI system can be
transformer topology, these systems will stay the
found in [4]. The AC-Ignition system is well
leading technology within the next years. The
described in [2]. The main focus of this paper will be
present paper is giving an overview of the different
the Coupled MultiCharge Ignition System (CMC). It
advanced ignition systems developed at Delphi –
is based on the conventional flyback-converter
namely the MultiCharge (MCI), the Alternating
topology. Functionally, it has strong links to the Dual-
Current (ACI) and the Coupled-MultiCharge (CMC)
Coil-Ignition system (DCI) [3].
Ignition System. The MCI-system is already in mass
production and is capable to provide long effective
All presented systems are based on the standard
spark duration with a quasi-continuous spark only
transformer-based ignition system (TCI). Therefore
interrupted for coil recharge. The ACI-system is
the TCI system will be described first. The MCI-
providing a higher amount of energy to the ignition
system and the CMC share common building blocks
arc and has an uninterrupted but limited burn time.
with the TCI.
The CMC-system is combining the advantages of
both long, uninterrupted spark and high energy
All advanced ignition systems are using a coil-
delivery. The technical limitations and benefits of the
integrated microcontroller-based electronics.
different systems will be shown in this paper.
Software algorithms for different applications and
Keywords: Advanced Ignition Systems, MultiCharge combustion methods can be easily adapted once
Ignition new requirements are rising. The microcontroller is
also handling the internal coil diagnostics, is running
1. Introduction fail safe processes and coil self-protection
algorithms. It is conditioning signals, data and
The last years have seen a continuing downsizing of information according to the required interface
Otto-engines. For the realization of the limiting value standards, and is transmitting coil status data to the
of 95 g CO2/km in 2020 the combustion process is engine control unit that is acting as a master. This
one part that needs to be optimized. Different mechanization is providing a high flexibility to the
combustion strategies are under investigation, e.g. calibration engineer for the development of the
lean burn combustion or high EGR dilution systems. ignition function in an order of magnitude that was
With those, advanced ignition systems are unthinkable up to now.
necessary to ignite the lean or highly diluted mixture.
The MultiCharge-system is already in series In the last chapter a comparison between the
production and could significantly reduce the fuel different ignition systems on a single cylinder engine
consumption together with the used combustion is presented.
process [1].
Page 1/10
2. Transistor Coil Ignition (TCI) RAMP: With a high-signal coming from the ECU the
transistor Q1 will be switched on and the
2.1 Functional Description electromagnetic storage Lp will be charged to a
maximum primary current Ipmax . The stored energy
The TCI system is well known and on the market inside the magnetic circuit can be calculated as:
since many years. Considering that all the other
advanced systems are based on the same principle , (1)
as the TCI, the function of this system will be
described here in a short way.
whereas Ipmax is the maximum primary current at the
end of the RAMP-cycle.
A general electrical schematic of a TCI system is
shown in Figure 1 with the electrical elements:
FIRE: With the low-signal of the ECU, the transistor
Q1 will be switched off and the primary current flow
Rp, representing the primary resistance, including stops immediately. Because of the induction law a
the harness resistance and the copper winding high voltage is induced on the secondary side of the
resistance. transformer. The maximum high voltage Usmax that
can be delivered by the system can be approximated
Lp, representing the primary inductance that is as follows:
coupled by a transformer with the turns ratio ü to
the secondary side. .
√ (2)
Rs, representing the secondary resistance. It is
modelling all resistive losses of the secondary For simplification reasons, the copper and iron
side. losses are not considered. Especially the iron or
eddy current losses can have a high impact on the
Cs, representing the secondary capacitance. It is maximum secondary voltage. The high electrical
modelling the winding capacity of the secondary field between the electrodes of the spark plug is
coil of the transformer and the geometrical ionizing the gas molecules in-between and a
capacitance of the spark plug including its streamer breakdown of the gas is generated. The
connection to the high voltage exit of the coil. required high voltage to initiate this breakdown
.
(3)
Page 2/10
the wear of the electrode surfaces during the break-
down phase the parasitic capacitance should
preferably be small. The breakdown voltage itself is
being influenced by the electrodes geometry and
distance. It furthermore depends on the gas
composition and pressure, following Paschen’s law.
Downsized, highly turbocharged engines can reach
a breakdown voltage of more than 40 kV. Usually,
there is only one breakdown during each ignition
cycle. If the spark is being extinguished after the
initial breakdown and then reignited, more than one
breakdown can be observed. Although these
secondary breakdowns are likely showing a lower
breakdown voltage, they are still contributing to
spark plug wear.
Page 3/10
Pictures after runs in N2 pressure and large distance between the
High Energy Coil
Heavy Material
melting electrodes (worn out plugs)
arc phase glow phase
Preferably constant secondary current at varying
combustion conditions which are defining the
0.4 [µm3/Spark] in N2
4.3 [µm3/Spark] in Air
burn voltage of each ignition event
An adjustable secondary current to adapt to the
Burn Voltage [V]
Page 4/10
current threshold) in order to recharge the primary needs to be adjusted – of course, within its physical
coil again. Spark energy and burn time t Burn implicitly limits.
set by this threshold, depend on the respective
thermodynamic conditions in the combustion For the MCI-system the situation is different - the
chamber. energy needs to be recharged during the short firing
cycle from the 12V vehicle battery. If the harness
resistance is too high the recharge during the MC-
cycle would take too long and would be limiting if not
questioning the performance of the system. Due to
this it is important to minimize the harness resistance
for the MCI-system as well as for other advanced
ignition systems.
Page 5/10
Table 1 : Overview of different MCI-systems, based the two devices M1 and D3 is capable to disconnect
on the same magntic structure. The average power the two transformers from the supply voltage. The
was measured for one MC-periode at a zener load of function of this stage is described later – in standard
1000 V. operation switch M1 is conductive. The system is
closed-loop controlled, using a microcontroller. For
MCI-System Ipmax / A Ubat / V tBurn / tRech Pavg / W
this, the primary and secondary current as well as
the voltage across the diodes is being measured.
MCI-12V,23A 23 12 0.93 50
MCI-12V,45A 45 12 1.53 69
Page 6/10
while the other one is off. The toggling is whereas UMake is the so called make-voltage that is
triggered by the secondary current threshold. induced on the secondary side of a transformer
during a charge cycle. UBurn is the burn-voltage at the
6. At the end of the ignition cycle the secondary spark-plug. The voltages across the diodes are
current is ramped down by the use of the step- continuously monitored by the microcontroller. If they
down-converter to avoid a high secondary are exceeding certain limits a protection algorithm is
current peak, which would have a negative becoming active:
impact on spark plug wear.
1. Either by switching both switches Q1 and Q2 off.
With this algorithm a continuous, uninterrupted Consequently, both transformers are being
secondary current can be supplied to the spark. discharged and the diodes are conducting
current in forward direction.
Page 7/10
to the imbalance of ingoing and outgoing power, the circuit cannot deliver the power necessary to
difference in power is being stored as magnetic maintain the constant high secondary current. After
energy in the transformer. On a time-controlled DCI ~1 ms the algorithm is falling back into the
system, this is pushing the transformer into MultiCharge-Mode. This is necessary to maintain a
saturation and inefficient operating conditions. The relatively high but now interrupted spark current.
st
1 picture of Figure 12 is showing this situation. The
dashed line has been put at the desired maximum 1.
primary current. Above this current value saturation
will occur and the primary current will be increasing
rapidly causing a significant loss on efficiency and
undesirable heat generation in the coil windings.
There are two possibilities to overcome this problem:
Page 8/10
direct impact on the maximum secondary current. It The key data of the different ignition systems is
can be easily calculated using the transformer law, shown in Table 2. For the TCI- and MCI-system a
Ismax = Ipmax / turns_ratio. With this flexibility, the standard production system and for the CMC-system
system can be adapted to different load conditions a prototype system was used. All systems are
and operating points and the spark plug wear can be designed for a battery voltage of 12 V.
limited.
Table 2: Key data of the used ignition systems at
1000V-Zener-load. **Current peaks after initial
charge, resp. after initial breakdown ***Current
peaks in CMC-Mode
Tdwell/ Eout / Ipmax / Ismax / tBurn /
System ms mJ A mA ms
5.2 Results
Page 9/10
benefit and can still reliably ignite where the TCI is [4] P. Weyand, C. Weiten, W. F. Piock, S.
misfiring already. The CMC-system is capable to Schilling: “Adaptive Multi Charge Ignition for
initiate a stable combustion at Lambda-values up to Critical Combustion Conditions”, MTZ 2007
1.7. [5] Küchler, Andreas: Hochspannungstechnik.
VDI, 1996
[6] Rager J.: “Funkenerosion an Zündkerzen-
elektroden”, PhD University Stuttgart, 2006
[7] U. Schaupp, D. Bertsch, H. Winter, R.
Schaub, W. Schmolla: “Thermodynamic
Potential of the Spray-Guided Combustion
System for Gasoline Engines at Mercedes-
Benz”, 16th Aachener Colloquium, 2007
[8] Maly, RudolfR., “Die Zukunft der
Funkenzündung”, MTZ - Motortechnische
Zeitschrift, 59, 1998
[9] Graf J.: “Innovative Zündung”, FVV, Heft 959,
2012
6. Summary
7. References
[1] Schütz, Markus and Doll, Gerhard and Waltner,
Anton and Kemmler, Roland}: Der neue 3,0-l-V6-
DI-Ottomotor mit Bi-Turbo von Mercedes-Benz,
MTZ - Motortechnische Zeitschrift, 74
[2] F. Piock, P. Weyand, V. Heise, E. Wolf: “Ignition
Systems for Spray-Guided Stratified Combustion”,
Detroit, SAE 2010-01-0598
[3] Alger, T., Gingrich, J., Roberts, C., Mangold, B. et
al., "A High-Energy Continuous Discharge Ignition
System for Dilute Engine Applications," SAE
Technical Paper 2013-01-1628
Page 10/10