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A High-Energy Multispark Capacitor Discharge

Ignition System for a Two-Stroke Direct Injection
Spark Ignition Heavy Fuel Engine
Rui Liu, Minxiang Wei, Cheng Chang, Haocheng Ji, Taixue Bei, and Shanzhen Xu

Abstract— A high-energy multispark ignition system with a and logistical support of troops, the USA and most European
single discharge capacitor was designed and developed. The countries have proposed a spark ignition (SI) heavy fuel engine
ignition system was verified to be capable of releasing high development program for UAV power plants to be fueled with
ignition energy. The cold start and partial-load test at 6 °C
ambient temperature were conducted on a two-stroke spark aviation kerosene, diesel, and biodiesel in the future [3]–[5].
ignition heavy fuel engine with air-assisted direct injection. The This approach is different from the traditional approaches
results showed that compared to the original magnetoignition in an aircraft engine or spark-assisted compression ignition
system, applying the 5-times multispark ignition approach with engine [6], and not only leads to a great challenge regarding
the new ignition system is able to successfully solve the cold the structural design of existing engines, but also adds more
start problem of the heavy fuel engine. Under the partial-
load condition, increasing the number of ignitions enhances requirements to the design and upgrade of the spark ignition
combustion in the cylinder. Four-times ignition is better than system.
2-times ignition with the ignition timing angle between 10° and Generally, gasoline engines have no difficulty achieving a
20°CA BTDC, improving the power output, fuel economy, and successful cold start as they utilize a carburetor, port injection,
HC/CO emissions performance. The effects of multispark ignition and direct injection (DI). The high atomization of DI is more
gradually become small with the ignition timing angle advanced
to 30°CA BTDC. helpful for rapidly starting an engine. Compared to the physic-
ochemical properties of gasoline, heavy fuels show lower
Index Terms— Air-assisted direct injection (AADI), capacitor volatility, higher viscosity, and lower evaporation. It is difficult
discharge ignition (CDI), cold start, heavy fuel, multispark
ignition, two-stroke engine. to start heavy fuels engines equipped with carburetors or port
injection systems without auxiliary preheating or aided igni-
tion, which require additional energy sources [7].
I. I NTRODUCTION Cathcart et al. [8] developed a two-stroke DI spark igni-
tion (DISI) heavy fuel engine equipped with a programmable
U NMANNED aerial vehicle (UAV) power plants, includ-
ing reciprocating or rotary piston engines, gas turbine
engines, and battery-powered motors are currently widely
capacitive ignition system; this approach has overcome the
cold start difficulty. However, detailed reports of improv-
used. The applications and developments of the piston engine ing or solving the cold start problem of the DISI heavy fuel
spread because of its simple structure and cost effective- engine were not present. According to their valuable work,
ness [1], [2]. Most reciprocating piston gasoline engines used the first significant aspect is heavy fuel atomization. The
in the aviation field are usually equipped with magnetocapaci- atomized particle size can be reduced to increase the unit-time
tor discharge ignition (CDI) systems, such as the Rotax engine fuel evaporation mass via high-pressure DI or low-pressure air-
series in Austria and the Hirth engine series in Germany, assisted DI (AADI). The second aspect is the redesign of the
in which the spark plug distributions are all of dual redundant original magnetoignition system, adjusting the ignition timing
design. In recent years, in considerations of the UAV cost and improving the ignition energy to match the fuel DI will
guarantee a stable combustion. The traditional magnetoignition
Manuscript received August 2, 2016; revised January 14, 2017 and system has the shortcomings of a low charging voltage at low
April 23, 2017; accepted May 29, 2017. This work was supported in part speed and short charging time at high speed, which easily
by the Funding of the Jiangsu Innovation Program for Graduate Education
from the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities under cause misfires in the transient condition during a cold start.
Grant KYLX15_0262 and in part by the National Natural Science Foundation Because of its insufficient ignition energy, it is difficult to
of China under Grant 51505171. (Corresponding author: Rui Liu.) ignite the mixture gas of the carburetor or port injection heavy
R. Liu, M. Wei, C. Chang, H. Ji, and T. Bei are with the College of Energy
and Power Engineering, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, fuel engines without adequate preheating [9]–[11]. Moreover,
Nanjing 210016, China (e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]; the cold start problem may still exist in the DISI heavy fuel
[email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]). engine without a suitable match of the fuel injection and spark
S. Xu is with the College of Energy and Power Engineering, Nanjing
University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing 210016, China, and ignition. Therefore, the redesign of the traditional ignition
also with the Huaiyin institute of technology, Huaian 223003, China (e-mail: system of an aviation piston engine is a very important task.
[email protected]). To date, there have been many research reports regarding
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available
online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org. digital direct current (dc) CDI systems with multicapacitor
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TPS.2017.2711266 continuous discharge ignition or multiple spark plugs ignition;
0093-3813 © 2017 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
 This article has been accepted for inclusion in a future issue of this journal. Content is final as presented, with the exception of pagination.

2 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON PLASMA SCIENCE

they all enhanced the ignition energy at a single engine cycle, as

and improved engine performance. According to the increase d 2U c dU c
LC
2
+ RC + U c = 0. (1)
of the number of sparks and spark intervals, the flame kernel dt dt
radius has been increased and the expected lean limits have Equation (1) is a second-order homogeneous differential
been extended. The stability of combustion was considered equation with constant coefficients. Assume that the voltage
to be accomplished by increasing the flame kernel according drop on capacitor C is Uc (t), with the initial conditions
to the high ignition energy supplied in the initial period of current I (0) = 0 and voltage Uc (0) = U0 , to define
and lengthening of the discharge energy period by using the α = R(C/L)1/2 /2. Because the ignition coil windings are
multispark ignition approach [12]. Qiao et al. [13] proposed a certain, the primary winding resistance value R and inductance
multicapacitor ignition system, which was studied to match the value L are determined. Thus, the value of α depends on the
engine performance and to improve engine power, economy, capacitance value C. In fact, the capacitor value for energy
and emissions. Zhang et al. [14] developed a multipulse CDI storage in an actual CDI circuit is very small, with a value of
system to study the effects of multipulse ignition on the homo- approximately 1–2 μF. The primary resistance of the ignition
geneous charge compression ignition combustion process on a coil is generally approximately 0.5 . The primary inductance
gasoline engine; the results indicated that increasing the pulse is approximately 2–5 mH. Therefore, α < 1, that is, the circuit
numbers can shorten the combustion duration and increase operates in the under-damped state. The solution of (1) related
the average indicated pressure. Shao et al. [15] developed a to α is obtained and expressed as follows:
high-energy CDI system implement the multispark ignition  
αt
in an electronic controlled liquefied petroleum gas engine; U c(t) = U0 exp − √
the results indicated that the multispark ignition improved ⎛ ⎛ LC ⎞ ⎛ ⎞⎞
the idle stability and emissions. Gerald [16] designed a set 1 − α2 α 1 − α2
of five-stage capacitor-driven high-energy ignition system to × ⎝cos ⎝ t⎠ + √ sin ⎝ t⎠⎠
LC 1 − α2 LC
improve engine emissions by analyzing the characteristics of
the secondary peak capacitance. Sung et al. [17] designed (2)
⎛ ⎞
a multi-CDI system to compare to the single CDI system.  
U0 C αt 1 − α2 ⎠
Their experimental results showed that the lean burn limit I (t) = − √ exp − √ sin ⎝ t .
was increased by 10% with a 5% increase in dynamic per- 1 − α2 L LC LC
formance, and the cycle variations obtained were significantly (3)
decreased. Tropina et al. [18] designed an ignition system
From (3), it can be derived that enlarging the energy storage
based on nanosecond pulsed discharge. Their experimental
capacitor C will increase the peak discharge current and stored
results showed that the specific fuel consumption and nitrogen
energy; however, it will also delay the arising time of the first
oxide content in the engine exhaust gases are decreased for
peak discharge current and correspondingly increase the time
the ignition system based on the nanosecond pulsed dis-
required to charge the capacitor to the target voltage value.
charge compared with the standard spark ignition system.
Cavina et al. [19] presented a combustion control system
based on the optimal management of multiple spark discharge B. Multispark Discharge Ignition
events to increase the combustion stability, reduce pollutant The spark ignition energy discharged by a single capac-
emissions and fuel consumption, and avoid partial or missing itor in the magneto-CDI or dc–CDI ignition system at a
combustion cycles. Hese et al. [20] described tests with a steady engine speed basically remains unchanged, and the
fast multispark ignition system to improve the inflammation ignition pulse is triggered only once. Thus, the ability of
stability during charge stratification. The advantage of this the single capacitor to promote the mixture combustion is
ignition system was the capability to adjust the number of limited. To further maintain and enhance the combustion in
sparks, duration of single sparks, and intensity of the primary the cylinder after igniting the mixture, it is quite possible
current. to increase the ignition times because of the fast charging
To preliminarily solve the cold start problem of two-stroke and discharging characteristics of the capacitor. Therefore,
DISI diesel-fueled engine combined with CDI principle analy- the continuous triggered ignition can be used to implement
sis, in this paper, a digital dc–CDI system is redesigned based multispark ignition. However, most reported research studies
on the previous research of the low-pressure AADI timing use the method of increasing the number of capacitors to
strategy [21]. The ignition functionality and cold start test were discharge for spark ignition in turns, which increases the size
verified, and the effects of a continuous multispark ignition on of the hardware and occupies more space. For a single energy
the engine performance at low load were further studied. storage capacitor, software programmed or hardware triggered
methods can implement the multispark discharge ignition, that
II. C APACITOR D ISCHARGE AND M ULTISPARK I GNITION is, charging the capacitor instantly after completion of the
previous discharge ignition and then continuing to trigger a
A. Capacitor Discharge Analysis discharge ignition. The multispark discharge ignition timing
The CDI circuit can be considered to be the zero input diagram can be designed according to Fig. 1. The before top
response–resistor–inductance capacitor circuit. According to dead center (BTDC) position at the compression stroke is set
Kirchhoff’s law, the discharge process can be represented as the ignition reference, and the engine electronic control
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LIU et al.: HIGH-ENERGY MULTISPARK CDI SYSTEM 3

TABLE I
M IXED -S IGNAL O SCILLOSCOPE

Fig. 1. Multispark CDI timing diagram.

alternately drive the high-frequency push–pull boosting trans-

former by two transistors of the IRF3205 type. It converts a
battery voltage of 12 V to a high voltage of 330 V. The switch-
ing frequency of the designed boosting transformer is 20 kHz,
which can be adjusted by a sliding resistor and a capacitor.
The transformer secondary output voltage via a full bridge
rectifier is regulated by the Zener diodes and a capacitor.
The ignition triggering circuit is based on the pulse width
modulation driver TL494, reference [22] has given the pin def-
inition of TL494. According to the design requirements, two
Fig. 2. Principle of the multispark dc–CDI. error amplifiers of TL494 are shielded and the noninverting
inputs are grounded with inverting inputs connected to a high
level. The high-level voltage comes from the internal 5-V volt-
age source outputted by pin-14. Pin-6 and pin-5 are separately
connected to resistors and capacitors to generate an oscillation
clock for the driver. The sliding resistance for adjusting
the clock frequency determines the ignition triggering fre-
quency of the driver. Pin-13 is grounded to control pin-9 and
pin-10 to output synchronously. The dead time is controlled
by the input voltage of pin-4, which is adjusted by the sliding
Fig. 3. Block diagram of the multispark dc–CDI module. resistance and controls the duty cycle of the outputted ignition
triggering pulse at pin-9 and pin-10. When pin-3 is active
high, pin-9 and pin-10 are at low level to disable the used
unit (ECU) outputs an ignition pulse signal to control the
ignition Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor (IGBT). On the
trigger times and implement multispark ignition under a single
contrary, the low level of pin-3 will turn ON the ignition
engine cycle.
IGBT, which is connected to the single capacitor. The ignition
III. E XPERIMENTAL S ETUP AND P ROCEDURE pulse signal from ignition controller controls the voltage
at pin-3, which will drive TL494 to turn-ON or turn-OFF
In consideration of the software programming complexity the ignition IGBT in the ignition circuit. Next, the single
and constraint of the peripheral resources in the applied capacitor for energy storage discharges and charges alternately
microcontroller, this paper resulted in the hardware design of to achieve the multispark ignition.
the multispark dc–CDI module. Fig. 2 shows the triggering
principle. With the 60-2 tooth crank position signal used for B. Ignition Module Test and Verification
the engine speed calculation and crankshaft position tracking,
To verify the functionality of the designed multispark capac-
the ECU calculates the ignition timing and ignition pulsewidth
itive discharge ignition system, a test system was built to
according to the current engine working condition. The ECU
check the ignition module and measure the ignition energy.
outputs the ignition pulse signal as an input for the multispark
The system consists of a 12-V battery supply, ignition mod-
ignition module to control the triggering times. Fig. 3 shows
ule, digital oscilloscope, signal generator, ignition energy test
the hardware block diagram of the multispark dc–CDI module.
equipment, and other components. The ignition pulse signal
The following sections will explain the design principle and
from the digital signal generator controls the ignition module
verification test.
to output the ignition triggering signal. The ignition wave-
forms of primary and secondary coil, and ignition energy test
A. Multispark Capacitor Discharge Ignition Module
were monitored through the ignition energy test probes and
A self-oscillation driver, IR2153, is used to implement digital oscilloscope. Tables I–III give the specifications of the
the dc power boost. Both the high and low output channels measurement setups.
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4 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON PLASMA SCIENCE

Fig. 5. Multispark ignition triggering pulse and primary coil voltage. (a)
Waveforms in two cycles. (b) Waveforms in a single cycle.

Fig. 4. Ignition pulse signal, multispark ignition triggering pulse, and

charge–discharge voltage waveform of the capacitor. (a) Ignition pulse and
multispark ignition triggering pulse. (b) Multispark ignition triggering pulse
and charge–discharge voltage waveform of the capacitor in four cycles.
(c) Multispark ignition triggering pulse and charge–discharge voltage wave-
form of the capacitor in a single cycle.
TABLE II
PASSIVE H IGH -V OLTAGE P ROBE

Fig. 6. Secondary coil discharge waveform and multispark ignition energy

integration value. (a) Energy integration at 7-times ignition. (b) Energy
TABLE III
integration at a single ignition.
AC/DC C URRENT P ROBE
is the ignition pulse signal, and channel 2 is the ignition
triggering pulse. As expected, there is a continuous stream
of several ignition triggering pulses at a triggering frequency
of approximately 1 kHz, corresponding to the ignition pulse
signal. Fig. 4(b) and (c) shows the ignition triggering pulse and
charge–discharge voltage waveform of the capacitor. When the
ignition triggering pulse is active, the energy-storage capacitor
discharges rapidly. Conversely, the capacitor will start to
Fig. 4(a) shows the 10 Hz (equal to 600-rpm engine speed) charge as the triggering pulse is turned OFF.
ignition pulse signal from the signal generator and multispark Fig. 5 shows the ignition triggering pulse and the primary
triggering pulse of the ignition module output. Channel 1 coil voltage waveform. The primary coil voltage is consistent
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LIU et al.: HIGH-ENERGY MULTISPARK CDI SYSTEM 5

TABLE IV
M ULTISPARK I GNITION M ODULE S PECIFICATIONS

TABLE V Fig. 7. Test bed of the SI heavy fuel engine with AADI.
E NGINE S PECIFICATIONS
TABLE VII
C OMPARISON OF VARIOUS F UEL P ROPERTIES

TABLE VI
I NSTRUMENTATION M EASUREMENT E RROR

a continuous 7-times discharge ignition. The total discharged

energy observed is approximately 160.9 mJ. Fig. 6(b) gives
the integration result of a single discharge ignition energy of
approximately 21.04 mJ. Because the ignition energy cannot
be completely equal for each single discharge ignition, the total
value of integral energy is not perfectly 7 times of the
single integral value, but basically reaches that level. Table IV
gives the specifications of the designed multispark ignition
module.

C. Test Engine and Procedure

The DISI heavy fuel engine test bed is shown in Fig. 7.
The multispark dc–CDI ignition system was mounted on
with the ignition triggering pulse, and the discharge voltage a spark ignition heavy fuel engine with AADI. Table V
alternates with a peak–peak value of approximately 600 V over gives the engine specifications. The engine was coupled with
a full period. Fig. 6 shows the secondary coil voltage and cur- an eddy current dynamometer (100 kW). An emission ana-
rent. The ignition energy was calculated from the integral value lyzer (NHA401) was used to record the HC, CO, and CO2
of the secondary coil voltage and current to the ignition time emissions. An ECU controller was applied to set the ignition
by using the dual waveforms calculation function integrated parameters. Table VI gives the measurement error of the
in the digital oscilloscope. Fig. 6(a) is the integration result of instrumentations used.
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6 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON PLASMA SCIENCE

Fig. 8. Speed variations during cold start with different CDI ignition system.

Fig. 10. Cylinder pressure and heat release rate with multispark ignition at
the ignition timing angles of (a) 10°CA BTDC, (b) 15°CA BTDC, and (c)
Fig. 9. Effects of multispark ignition on (a) engine power and (b) fuel 20°CA BTDC.
consumption rate.

IV. E XPERIMENTAL R ESULTS AND D ISCUSSIONS 800 rpm. The fuel injection control strategies were identical.
The ignition strategy used at cold start was the following:
A. Cold Start
applying 5-times continuous ignition at the process of motor
To highlight the advantages of the multispark dc–CDI igni- cranking and startup and gradually reducing to 2-times con-
tion system over the traditional magneto-CDI ignition system, tinuous ignition in the warm-up phase if starting the engine
the dc–CDI system was applied on a two-stroke DISI engine successfully. Fig. 8 shows the engine speed variations at cold
to conduct a cold start test. Table VII provides a comparison start with the self-designed multispark dc–CDI system and
of gasoline, kerosene (No.3 rocket propellant, RP-3), and the prototype magneto-CDI system. From the speed variations,
diesel fuel properties. Based on that comparison, diesel fuel shown in Fig. 8, it was difficult to start the engine successfully
is the most difficult to be ignited under the same condition. by using the prototype magneto-CDI system, whereas the
Therefore, diesel fuel was selected for the engine test. The engine starts smoothly to 2000 rpm with the self-designed
engine output shaft was coupled with the dynamometer. The multispark dc–CDI module. Therefore, the multispark
test ambient temperature was 6 °C, and the ambient pressure dc–CDI system effectively improved the cold start perfor-
was 101 kPa. The peak cranking speed of start motor was mance of the DISI heavy fuel engine compared with the
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LIU et al.: HIGH-ENERGY MULTISPARK CDI SYSTEM 7

shows a significant improvement indicating that the small

ignition advance angle retards the overall combustion in
the cylinder; however, 4-times ignition further enhances the
combustion to increase the engine power output compared to
the 2-times ignition. When the ignition timing angle was set
at 30°CA BTDC, the combustion in cylinder was advanced,
and the improving effects of multispark ignition gradually
decreased with a small variation of the power output and
fuel consumption rate. Fig. 10 shows the cylinder pressure
and heat release rate (average value over 100 engine cycles)
with multispark ignition at the ignition timing angles of 10°,
15°, and 20°CA BTDC. The maximum cylinder pressure at
the small ignition angle is clearly improved because of the
increased number of ignition times, which corresponds to
the variations of the engine power output. According to the
results, the late ignition timing delayed the combustion of
fuel–air mixture to the expansion stroke, and the temperature
and pressure in cylinder were relatively smaller to extend
the burn process. Note that the increasing number of ignition
times clearly increased the heat release rate. The combustion
at the 20°CA BTDC became faster compared to that at
10° and 15°CA BTDC.
Fig. 11 shows the variations of CO, HC, and CO2 emissions
with the ignition timing angles and ignition times under
the partial-load condition. At the same ignition timing, after
increasing the multispark ignition number to 4 times, there was
an obvious drop in CO and HC emissions, while the CO2 rose.
The improvement showed that multispark ignition reduced the
incomplete combustion in the cylinder, particularly at the small
ignition timing angle. In addition, the changes of the CO, CO2 ,
and HC emissions with 4-times ignition were more flat than
2-times ignition, which indicated that after 2-times ignition,
the subsequent 2-times ignition further promoted combustion.
Thus, it benefits the reduction of harmful emissions under the
partial-load condition.

V. C ONCLUSION
Based on a two-stroke spark ignition heavy fuel engine with
AADI, this paper presented a proposed method of continuous
Fig. 11. Effect of multispark ignition on engine emissions. (a) HC. (b) CO.
(c) CO2 . multispark discharge ignition with a single capacitor, described
the developed ignition module, and presented a verification
prototype magnetoignition system. of the multispark ignition functionality of the module based
on a measurement of the ignition energy. At the ambient
temperature of 6 °C, the cold start and partial-load tests at
B. Engine Partial-Load Performance and Emissions
3000 rpm were investigated. The conclusions are as follows.
After the smooth cold start described in the previous section, The ignition energy of the designed multispark dc–CDI system
the engine was switched to operate under partial load with can easily reach more than 160 mJ. The 5-times spark ignition
the conditions of a 10% throttle position and 3000 rpm. The strategy during the motor cranking process and startup process
effects of the ignition parameters on the engine power output, starts the engine successfully, thereby solving the cold start
fuel economy, and exhaust emissions were investigated. problem of the heavy fuel engine. Increasing the ignition
Fig. 9 shows the variations of the power output and fuel times at partial load can enhance the combustion in the
consumption rate with different ignition advance angle and cylinder. Four-times ignition effectively improves the engine
ignition times. The ignition interval was 0.6 ms per spark. power output and fuel consumption rate compared to 2-times
Overall, increasing the number of ignition times is con- ignition. As the ignition timing angle is adjusted to 30°CA
ducive to improve the dynamics and fuel economy at partial- BTDC, the improving effect of multispark ignition becomes
load condition. As the ignition timing angle was between flat. Four-times ignition can further reduce HC and CO exhaust
10° and 20°CA BTDC, the power output and fuel economy emissions of the engine compared to 2-times ignition.
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8 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON PLASMA SCIENCE

R EFERENCES Rui Liu was born in Hubei, China. He received

the B.S. and Ph.D. degrees in vehicle engineering
[1] Z. Y. Yin, S. F. Li, and G. Q. Li, “Current state and development of the from the Nanjing University of Aeronautics and
unmanned aerial vehicle power plants,” Aero Engine, vol. 33, no. 1, pp. Astronautics, Nanjing, China, in 2011 and 2017,
10–15, 2007. respectively.
[2] L. Sun, M. Cheng, and H. Jia, “Analysis of a novel magnetic-geared His current research interests include the control
dual-rotor motor with complementary structure,” IEEE Trans. Ind. and numerical simulation of direct injection internal
Electron., vol. 62, no. 11, pp. 6737–6747, Nov. 2015. combustion engines.
[3] Q. Zhang, G. Q. Xu, and F. R. Du, “Aero piston engine capacitor
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Power, vol. 2, pp. 343–349, Jun. 2012.
[4] J. Groenewegen, P. Litke, C. Wilson, S. Sidhu, and J. Hoke, “The per-
formance and emissions effects of utilizing heavy fuels and algae based
biodiesel in a port-fuel-injected small spark ignition internal combustion Minxiang Wei was born in Shandong, China.
engine,” in Proc. 49th AIAA Aerospace Sci. Meeting Including Horizons He received the Ph.D. degree from Xi’an Jiaotong
Aerospace Expo., Jan. 2011, pp. 4–7. University, Xi’an, China.
[5] J. Groenewegen, S. Sidhu, J. Hoke, C. Wilson, P. Litke, “The perfor- He is currently a Professor with the Department of
mance and emissions effects of utilizing heavy fuels and algae based Vehicle Engineering, College of Energy and Power
biodiesel in a port-fuel-injected small spark ignition internal combustion Engineering, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and
engine,” in Proc. 47th AIAA/ASME/SAE/ASEE Joint Propulsion Conf. Astronautics, Nanjing, China. He is involved in the
Exhibit, Jul. 2011, p. 5807. research of automotive safety control technology and
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on spark assisted compression ignition combustion heat release rate,”
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a two-stroke spark ignition diesel-fuelled engine with air-assisted
direct injection,” Appl. Thermal Eng., vol. 108, pp. 414–426, Cheng Chang was born in Henan, China.
Sep. 2016. He received the B.S. degree in vehicle engineering
[8] G. Cathcart, G. Dickson, and S. Ahern, “The application of air-assist from the Nanjing University of Aeronautics and
direct injection for spark-ignited heavy fuel 2-stroke and 4-stroke Astronautics, Nanjing, China, in 2013, where he has
engines,” Soc. Autom. Eng., Warrendale, PA, USA, Tech. Rep. 2005- been pursuing the Ph.D. degree in power machinery
32-0065, 2005. and engineering since 2015.
[9] L. P. Zhang, Z. R. Li, G. S. Wu, and J. G. Li, “Optimizing design of His current research interests include knocking
capacitor discharge electronic ignition system,” Small Internal Combus- combustion of internal combustion engine and the
tion Engine Veh. Tech., vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 39–41, 2008. knocking signal processing.
[10] P. J. Suhy, L. W. Evers, E. J. Morgan, and J. E. Wank, “The feasibility of
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[12] Y. H. Chang and S. B. Han, “Characteristics of flame kernel radius in He received the B.S. degree in vehicle engineering
a spark ignition engine according to the electric spark ignition energy,” from the Nanjing University of Aeronautics and
Int. J. Autom. Technol., vol. 15, no. 5, pp. 715–722, 2014. Astronautics, Nanjing, China, in 2012, where he
[13] A. P. Qiao, F. Gao, and Y. Q. Li, “New superposed energy type ignition has been pursuing the Ph.D. degree in power and
system and its matching performance,” Trans. Chin. Soc. Agricult. mechanical engineering since 2014.
Mach., vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 41–44, 2004. His current research interests include electronic
[14] X. Zhang, Y. Wang, J. T. Shi, H. Xie, and H. Zhao, “Effect of control technology on two-stroke engine.
multi-pulse ignition on spark-assisted homogenous charge compres-
sion ignition combustion,” J. Tianjin Univ., vol. 10, pp. 1146–1150,
Mar. 2007.
[15] Q. J. Shao, W. H. He, Z. X. Wei, and Y. W. Xu, “Study of multi-
time ignition improving ignition reliability of LPG-fueled engine,” Chin.
Internal Combustion Engine Eng., vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 59–62, 2005. Taixue Bei was born in Shandong, China.
[16] J. R. Gerald, “An efficient, power-enhanced ignition system,” IEEE He received the M.S. degree in control theory and
Trans. Plasma Sci., vol. 25, no. 2, pp. 306–310, Apr. 1997. control engineering from Shandong Jianzhu Univer-
[17] B. H. Sung, H. C. Kyu, O. R. Sung, J. L. Sang, and sity, Jinan, China, in 2011, and the Ph.D. degree
T. L. Jong, “Ignitability and combustion characteristics of the in vehicle engineering from the Nanjing University
multi spark capacitor discharge igniter for a lean burn engine,” of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing, China,
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1995. His current research interests include engine sim-
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