Improving the Efficiency of Low Temperature Combustion Engines Using a Chamfered Ring-Land

In the present study a chamfered piston crown design was used in order to reduce unburned hydrocarbon (UHC) emissions from the ring-pack crevice. Compared to the conventional piston design, the chamfered piston showed 17%∼41% reduction in the crevice-borne UHC emissions in homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) combustion. Through parametric sweeps 6 mm was identified to be a suitable chamfer size and the mechanism of the UHC reduction was revealed. Based on the findings in this study, the chamfered piston design was also tested in dual-fuel reactivity controlled compression ignition (RCCI) combustion. In the tested RCCI case using the chamfered piston the UHC and CO emissions were reduced by 79% and 36%, respectively, achieving 99.5% combustion efficiency. This also improved gross indicated thermal efficiency from 51.1% to 51.8% in a 9 bar IMEP RCCI combustion case.