This study aims to develop an exhaust gas temperature increase technique of a lean burn gas engine, to improve the performance of the waste heat recovery devices that potentially can be installed in the future. This paper shows the exhaust gas temperature increase technique using an EGR device.
In our experiments, the lean burn gas engine has the rated power output of 400 kW with spark-ignition and pre-chamber systems. The EGR device was developed and installed to the gas engine. The experimental results showed that the exhaust gas temperature was increased to +30 °C at the EGR rate of 15 % with maintained NOx emission and CA MFB 50% by decreasing the relative air/fuel ratio (Λ) and advancing the ignition timing (θig). In addition, the gross generation efficiency was slightly increased with increasing the EGR rate. This result was explained using three factors; the internal engine efficiency, the combustion efficiency, and the recirculated energy rate.