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Injection diagnosis through common-rail pressure measurement

Article  in  Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers Part D Journal of Automobile Engineering · April 2006
DOI: 10.1243/09544070JAUTO34

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Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical
Engineers, Part D: Journal of Automobile
Engineering
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Injection diagnosis through common-rail pressure measurement


F Payri, J M Luján, C Guardiola and G Rizzoni
Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part D: Journal of Automobile Engineering 2006 220: 347
DOI: 10.1243/09544070JAUTO34

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347

Injection diagnosis through common-rail pressure


measurement
F Payri1, J M Luján1, C Guardiola*1, and G Rizzoni2
1CMT – Motores Térmicos, Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, Valencia, Spain
2Ohio State University, Ohio, USA

The manuscript was received on 31 January 2005 and was accepted after revision for publication on 28 October 2005.

DOI: 10.1243/09544070JAUTO34

Abstract: Modern diesel common-rail injection systems supply fuel from a high-pressure
vessel. The injection event causes an instantaneous drop in the rail pressure, as the stored
mass is diminished. Pressure variations are also affected by the dynamics of the high-pressure
pump that supplies fuel to the rail to compensate for the emptying process due to the injection.
This paper proposes the possibility of diagnosing the injection process from measurement of
the rail pressure. Different data treatment techniques are explored and evaluated in this paper
to propose an effective method for the diagnosis of common-rail injection systems.

Keywords: diesel engines, common rail, failure detection, injection failure, misfire

1 INTRODUCTION ignition (HCCI) engines need a perfectly controlled


mixture formation during the compression stroke.
Modern diesel engines have significantly improved With a common-rail system, this goal may be
their performance by means of electronic injection. achieved by performing several injections of small
Today, common-rail systems are well positioned quantities of fuel.
both in the light- and heavy-duty vehicle markets. With such stringent requirements, minor errors in
Commercial common-rail engines have injectors hole diameter, unavoidable owing to manufacturing
with hole diameters varying from 140 to 200 mm and variation and to the accumulation of deposits [9],
injection pressures up to 140 MPa [1, 2]. Common result in decreased engine performance and increased
rail systems have shown a clear tendency towards emissions. Another important factor is the dynamic
increasing injection pressure and decreasing hole response of the needle lift mechanism [10, 11]. In
diameters (which for investigation purposes can be extreme cases, an excessive delay in the opening of
as small as 40 mm [3]). the injector can cause the injection not to take place.
Common-rail systems allow the usage of very This problem is especially important for injections
flexible injection laws. To reduce combustion noise, of short duration, such as the post-injection, the
it is normal in automotive engines to use a pilot pilot-injection and small injections used to enhance
injection, which consists of injecting a very small fuel mixture formation and promote quasi-homogeneous
quantity 10–30° before the main injection [4, 5]. charge conditions.
Also, post-injections may be used to reduce smoke Two conclusions can be drawn from these
emissions [6]. Further, it is also possible to split the introductory remarks.
injection into several smaller ones, resulting in 1. The number of injections in the new generation of
improved efficiency and reduced pollutant formation diesel engines is quickly increasing. Moreover, as
[7, 8]. Finally, new homogeneous charge compression the number of injections increases, the injections
become smaller, since the total mass of injected
* Corresponding author: CMT – Motores Térmicos, Universidad fuel must be maintained.
Politécnica de Valencia, PO Box 22012 E-46071, Valencia, Spain. 2. Both performance and emissions can be seriously
email: carguaga@mot.upv.es affected by small faults in the injection system.

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348 F Payri, J M Luján, C Guardiola, and G Rizzoni

Since the injection system is critical for emission are controlled by a PC connected to the ECU via a
control, it is necessary to develop algorithms that suitable communication link (ETK port). The rail
check, detect, and correct, if possible, the effects of pressure could be independently controlled. In
its malfunction [12, 13]. The objective of the present addition to the production pressure sensor used by
work is to develop a method for injection diagnosis the ECU for control purposes, the common rail was
in common-rail diesel engines. also instrumented with a research pressure sensor
During the last two decades, several authors have (Kistler 4067A2000 sensor with a 4618A amplifier).
developed algorithms for misfire detection, usually by Injection current and fuel mass flow were also
means of instantaneous crankshaft rotational speed measured for the purpose of locating the injections.
measurement [14–19]; the present work is focused Data were acquired by means of a Yokogawa
on detecting the fault (‘a misfire is happening’) and acquisition system sampling at 100 kHz. A diagram
its possible cause (‘is the injection process correct?’). of the installation is shown in Fig. 1.
For that, the instantaneous measurement of the rail
pressure will be used to reveal whether the injection 2.2 Engine test bench
has taken place.
To emulate real operating conditions, a four-cylinder
As the rail is a high-pressure vessel that supplies
common-rail passenger car engine was used. The
fuel to the injectors, each time an injector opens, the
engine was installed in a dynamic test cell with
rail pressure experiences an instantaneous drop.
an electric dynamometer, as shown in Fig. 2. The
Also, the dynamics of the high-pressure pump that
ECU controlled the injection pressure and the start
supplies fuel to the rail to compensate for the
of injection. Also, the existence and characteristics
emptying process due to the injection will affect
of the pilot injection were determined by the ECU.
the instantaneous rail pressure [20]. A method for
Changes in the engine operating point, defined
isolating the variations due to the injections from
by the engine speed and the accelerator pedal
those due to the fuel supply from the pump is pre-
position, result in the ECU automatically calculating
sented in this paper. The ability to discriminate
and applying new injection settings. To simulate
between different injections in the same cylinder is
injection failures, one of the injectors was completely
also studied. Further, it is shown that it is possible
disconnected in one of the tests.
to diagnose the injection quality on the basis of
measurement of the common-rail instantaneous
pressure obtained with a production pressure sensor.
Finally, the method is shown to be useful even with
small injections (such as pilot injections).

2 EXPERIMENTAL SET-UP

Two different installations were used. The first is a


common-rail test bench where the injection system
can be tested separately from the engine. After this
initial characterization, a direct injection diesel
passenger car engine with a commercial common-
rail system is used. In this section, both installations
are described.

2.1 Common-rail test bench


A Bosch CP1 common rail is used for the first experi-
ment. The high-pressure pump is driven by a speed-
controlled electric motor. The motor shaft powers
a replica of the engine flywheel which is used to
provide the crankshaft position signal to the fuel
injection system electronic control unit (ECU). A
single injector is driven by the ECU. The number
of injections and their duration and starting point Fig. 1 Common-rail test bench

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Injection diagnosis through common-rail pressure measurement 349

and computation are well understood [21]. However,


joint time–frequency analysis techniques are com-
putationally expensive and consequently it is not easy
to apply these methods directly in online diagnosis
algorithms. In the present work, they are only used
in order to reveal interesting features of the measured
signals and to show the most relevant harmonics.
A second approach uses the discrete Fourier
transform (DFT) to analyse the experimental data.
The DFT allows discrimination of the signal contents
at different frequencies. As reciprocating combustion
engines behave periodically with respect to crank-
shaft angular position, this tool may be well suited
to the problem.
The result of the analysis conducted using the
DFT was finally used to design ideal filters. The ideal
filter is a zero-phase filter resulting from the selection
of some terms of the DFT transformation and the
Fig. 2 Engine test bench application of the inverse discrete Fourier transform
(IDFT). This type of filtering can only be used offline,
as an entire segment of the signal is required for
The common-rail system was a Bosch CP2, and calculating the DFT, thus resulting in an algorithm
the pressure was measured with the production that is not causal [22]; however, the quality of the
sensor used for the rail pressure control (Bosch RDS). smoothing obtained from such filtering amply com-
Its gain was 35.7 mV/MPa. This sensor was preferred pensates for this inconvenience. Furthermore, offline
to a research-grade pressure sensor since in this way calculation must be understood here in the sense
the diagnosis technique is tested for production con- that the result is calculated after each engine cycle.
ditions, proving that no more expensive sensor is This delay does not affect online use for failure
needed. An oscilloscope was used to measure the diagnosis, providing that the diagnostic decision can
sensor voltage. An angular reference was obtained by be delayed until the end of the cycle. Thus, this
recording the injection current of cylinder 1. Engine method does not allow corrective intervention to be
speed, rail mean pressure, and fuel mass flow were applied during a given cycle. It is, however, question-
also measured for each test. The sampling frequency able whether such intervention would be safe and
was 50 kHz. desirable – the one-cycle delay penalty is clearly not
a serious shortcoming of this approach.

3 SIGNAL ANALYSIS AND PROCESSING

Signal processing is a major focus of the present 4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION


work. The rail pressure signal contains both low- and
high-frequency information. Low-frequency signal
4.1 Common-rail test bench
components are related to the filling and emptying
of the rail. Higher-frequency information is related The first experiments were performed on the
to the injection events. Different data treatment common-rail test bench presented in section 2.1. A
techniques are explored and evaluated in this paper summary of the experiments is presented in Table 1.
to propose an effective method for the diagnosis of The main objective of these tests was to determine
injection systems. whether the rail pressure variations due to the fuel
For the first approach, a time–frequency study is injection(s) were measurable. A first experiment was
used by means of the spectrogram. The spectrogram conducted using the Kistler research-grade pressure
is based on the short-time Fourier transform (STFT) sensor to obtain distortion-free measurements; the
and is capable of showing local details that may sampling frequency was selected to be 100 kHz to
not be evident when analysed only in the time or avoid aliasing effects due to the rail natural frequency,
frequency domain. The spectrogram has been widely expected to be in the range of 2250 Hz for longi-
used for non-stationary analysis, and its interpretation tudinal propagation waves (see below). Figure 3(a)

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350 F Payri, J M Luján, C Guardiola, and G Rizzoni

Table 1 Operating conditions for the tests performed in the common-rail test bench (BTDC – before
top dead centre)
Rail pressure Pilot i. timing Main i. timing Pilot i. duration Main i. duration Engine speed
#test [MPa] [° BTDC] [° BTDC] [ms] [ms] [rpm]

1 80 – 0 – 1000 2000
2 80 15 0 250 1000 2000

Further, the rail natural frequency can be isolated.


For a rail with characteristic length l and with speed
of sound a, the natural frequency of the rail and
its harmonics are expected to be located at the
frequencies

a
f (k)=k
r 2l

Given the physical length of the rail (0.3 m), and


estimating the speed of sound in the rail (approxi-
mately 1300 m/s for the working pressure [23]), the
first harmonic can be located at approximately
2250 Hz. The result agrees with the experimental
data, as can be seen in Fig. 4.
Since the injection frequency and the high-pressure
pump rotational speed depend on the engine speed,
the location of the peaks in the spectrum associated
with these phenomena will also be dependent on the
engine speed. If the data acquisition is performed
Fig. 3 Time evolution of the rail pressure for the in the crankshaft angle domain, the peaks will be
common-rail test bench tests: (a) without pilot located at fixed positions (orders). On the other hand,
injection; (b) with pilot injection. Injections
have been marked with arrows
the peaks of the rail natural frequencies are related
to the speed of sound and are further pressure and
temperature dependent, since the sound speed
varies slightly with these factors. No interference
shows the results of this first experiment. The high-
between these signal components is expected, given
pressure pump effect on the rail, which appears as a
that the locations of the low-frequency engine speed
wave at 3 times the cycle frequency, can be clearly
dependent peaks and the high-frequency pressure
seen. After the injection pulse, the rail pressure
dependent peaks are sufficiently distant.
experiences a significant drop. This pressure drop
The spectrum of the pressure signal does not
could be a useful diagnostic feature of the injection
clearly reveal local injection events. Thus, time–
process. Absence of such a drop when the ECU has
frequency analysis was performed by means of
commanded an injection signal would be a clear
spectrograms. This analysis will help develop criteria
indication of a malfunction.
for the isolation of the rail pressure drop due to local
Figure 4(a) depicts the spectrum of the pressure
injection events. Figure 5(a) shows the spectrogram
signal. Since injection is performed in only one of
of this first experiment. In this figure it is easy to
the injectors, the spectral peaks associated with the
distinguish when the injection has occurred, as
injection are located at the frequencies
the spectrogram reveals an excitation in a wide
f (k)=k f , k=1, 2, … frequency band from low frequencies up to 2 kHz.
i 0
This excitation is shown as a narrow black region
where f is the engine cycle frequency. The harmonics
0 in the level plot, indicating significant increase in
due to the dynamics of the high-pressure pump are
energy contents in all the affected frequencies.
located at the frequencies
A crucial question remains to be clarified: although
f (k)=3k f , k=1, 2, … the previous results have shown that the isolation of
p 0

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Injection diagnosis through common-rail pressure measurement 351

Fig. 4 Spectra of the rail pressure for the common-rail test bench tests: (a) without pilot injec-
tion; (b) with pilot injection

a single injection is possible, it is not clear that such engine cycle. This situation is rather different from
an strategy can deal with two injections performed real operating conditions, where injections are per-
in a short time period. Problems in the detection formed in all the cylinders (note that the different
are expected, especially when the effect of the injections will be done at different rail pressures,
first injection is small compared with that of the as the number of cylinders and the pump strokes
second. This is the case for a pilot injection just a per cycle are primes between them). Thus, as the
few degrees before the main injection. To study emptying and filling process is a main factor in rail
this phenomenon, a second experiment with two pressure evolution, it is not possible to study the
injections was performed. problem without performing the injection in all of the
Figures 3(b) and 4(b) show the time evolution and cylinders. The next section is devoted to analysing
the spectrum of the pressure signal respectively. In data obtained under realistic operating conditions.
the case of the time domain plot [Fig. 3(b)], a smaller
drop is observed before the pressure drop due to the
4.2 Engine test bench
main injection. The spectral plot of Fig. 4(b) does not
show any appreciable difference between the single Several experiments were run on the engine test bed,
and pilot–main injection cases. Figure 5(b) shows the varying the rail pressure, the engine speed, and the
spectrogram of the signal. In this case, the area with duration of the main injection and pilot injection. A
high-frequency contents is divided into two different condition with no pilot injection was also measured.
parts: a thin black line caused by the pilot injection Finally, to study the effects of a failure in one
and a wider one related to the main injection. Based injector, the engine was run with one of the injectors
on this last figure, it can be observed that, even when disconnected. A summary of the experiments is
the detection of the injection process seems to be presented in Table 2. To illustrate the results, only
possible, discrimination between several injections tests 3, 13, and 15 will be described; these correspond
will not be easily achievable if these injections are to experimental points with pilot injection, with a
very near one another. disconnected injector, and fault free but without pilot
In the tests performed on the common-rail test injection respectively (from here on these cases
bench, only one injector is working. Thus, the will be referred to as a, b, and c). All rail pressure
injection caused a significant drop in the rail pressure measurements were carried out with the production
which is compensated for during the rest of the Bosch sensor.

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352 F Payri, J M Luján, C Guardiola, and G Rizzoni

sensor compared with the research sensor. Figure 6


also depicts the results of the application of a low-
pass ideal filter (cutting frequencies above 500 Hz).
In this figure the injection events have been marked
and a pressure drop associated with each injection
is easily distinguished. Additionally, it can be inferred
that the pressure drop is somewhat proportional to
the mass of fuel injected, since the pressure drop is
considerably smaller in the case of the pilot injection.
In Fig. 7 the DFT of the signal is shown. Easily
distinguishable peaks are associated with the injection
events (4 f ) and the rail natural frequency, f . The
0 r
peaks related to the pumping process (3 f ) are
0
masked by the injection-related events, and the only
distinguishable harmonic is the one that is common
to the pumping and the injection process (12 f ).
0
High-frequency noise appears in the 10–20 kHz
band; these peaks could be related to the sensor
characteristics or transverse natural frequencies of
the rail.
The spectrogram (Fig. 8) clearly shows the injection
events in the fault-free tests (cases a and c). As in the
previous section, the injection causes a significant
variation in the signal contents in a wide low-
frequency band. It should be noted that the rail
natural pressure is also excited, causing an increase
in the contents in the f and 2 f region. In the case
r r
of the faulty injector (case b), the discrimination of
Fig. 5 Spectrogram of the rail pressure for the the pilot injections corresponding to the cylinders
common-rail test bench tests: (a) without pilot preceding and following the faulty one (in the firing
injection; (b) with pilot injection
order) is not so clear; this effect will be analysed in
the section devoted to STFT analysis.
In Fig. 6 the time evolution of the signal is It should be evident at this point that the rail
represented for each one of the selected tests. In this pressure is visibly modified by the injection event.
case, the noise is much more evident owing to the For the moment, only subjective criteria based on
reduced accuracy and resolution of the production the spectrogram observation have been considered.

Table 2 Operating conditions for the tests performed on the engine test bench
Rail pressure Pilot i. timing Main i. timing Pilot i. duration Main i. duration Engine speed
#test [MPa] [° BTDC] [° BTDC] [ms] [ms] [rpm]

1 30 32.67 −2.3 365 625 1286


2 30 30 −4.99 365 625 1286
3 40 39.4 0.25 360 760 1286
4 44 42.20 1.9 340 870 1286
5 49 43.2 2.85 310 940 1286
6 46.5 32.9 −3 250 550 1750
7 50 42.5 −0.02 265 700 1750
8 64 39.8 1.6 265 860 1750
9 50 36 0.9 225 450 2500
10 60 37 −1.24 205 490 2500
11 67 38.67 −1.33 209 560 2500
12 83 43.9 1.75 200 690 2500
13(*) 41.5 36.5 −0.9 300 620 1286
14 62 44.3 4.5 168 465 3500
15 102 – 7.2 – 588 3500

*One of the injectors was disconnected in order to simulate a severe injection fault.

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Injection diagnosis through common-rail pressure measurement 353

Fig. 7 Spectra of the pressure for the engine test bench


tests: (a) pilot and main injection (test 3);
(b) pilot and main injection with a faulty cylin-
der (test 13); (c) main injection only (test 15)

The objective is now to design an algorithm for the


isolation of the injection events from the rail pressure
measurement. Such an algorithm could be integrated
with the OBD logic for the injection system diagnosis.
Furthermore, if the failure is due to an extremely
short duration of the injection current that does not
effectively open the injector nozzle, then a corrective
action could be taken, progressively increasing the
injection time until a proper injection takes place. In
this last case, the integration of the algorithm in the
control system may improve engine performance.

5 DETECTION ALGORITHM

Different approaches to the design of the detection


algorithm will now be presented. The objective of the
present work is not to present a definitive algorithm
for fuel injection diagnosis, but to provide a pre-
liminary study for further work. It may be that none
of the basic algorithms proposed fits the design
requirements (in terms of robustness, detection
rate, and overdetection rate); in this case it may be
Fig. 6 Time evolution of the pressure for the engine
test bench tests: (a) pilot and main injection
possible to use the integration of different criteria [24].
(test 3); (b) pilot and main injection with a faulty
cylinder (test 13); (c) main injection only (test 5.1 DFT analysis
15). The original signal is represented above,
and the filtered signal below. Injections have The analysis of the signal spectrum reveals problems
been marked with arrows and faulty injections relating to the periodicity of the signal. When there
with crosses is a lack of injection in one of the cylinders, the DFT

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354 F Payri, J M Luján, C Guardiola, and G Rizzoni

between cases a and b. However, this may not be a


proper tool to determine the number of injections
per cylinder or if a pilot injection has failed: the
spectrum of case c does not differ qualitatively from
that of case a.
Although the methods proposed in the next
sections show better performance in locating
individual injections, the high accuracy and robust-
ness of this method for detecting the total lack of
injection in one cylinder should be borne in mind.
In addition, if the DFT calculation is applied to a
single frequency, the method is more amenable to
online implementation.

5.2 STFT analysis


As shown earlier in this paper, local injection events
are distinctly revealed by the spectrogram. The
time representation of the spectrogram for a given
frequency (which corresponds to a specified harmonic
of the short-time Fourier transform with the window
moving with time) could be used for diagnosis of the
injection. Also, in this case the computation could
be reasonably fast, since there is no need to calculate
the whole spectrogram but just the STFT component
at the selected frequency (or frequency range).
The specific frequency must be selected in such a
way that the content of the signal at that frequency
is significant only when an injection is taking place.
It is also important that the selected frequency makes
it possible to distinguish several injections performed
by the same injector within a short time. Figure 9
shows an example of the method, where the STFT
content of the signal at 683 Hz is shown. The figure
illustrates that the method works properly except in
the case of pilot injections near the faulty cylinder
(grey arrows in case b). This result is attributed to
the change in rail pressure caused by the total lack
of one injection, as can be observed in Fig. 6(b); the
emptying and filling process masks the effects of
Fig. 8 Spectrogram of the pressure for the engine test minor (pilot) injections. In case b, the pressure drop
bench tests: (a) pilot and main injection (test 3); caused by the second and third pilot injections
(b) pilot and main injection with a faulty cylin- (numbered in the firing order) is slower and smaller,
der (test 13); (c) main injection only (test 15)
thus hindering STFT-based detection. This effect was
also present in the spectrogram of Fig. 8(b).

can easily reveal it, as a peak appears in the cycle


5.3 Ideal filtering and further differentiation of
frequency. However, isolation of local events is poor
the signal
owing to the nature of the DFT algorithm.
Returning to Fig. 7 and analysing the low-frequency Finally, a low-pass ideal filter was performed using the
band, it can be seen that the total lack of injection DFT. The filtered signal was differentiated in a second
in one of the cylinders can be determined from the step and its sign was changed (thus marking drops
comparison of the peak at the firing frequency (4 f ) in the rail pressure as a positive peak in the resulting
0

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Injection diagnosis through common-rail pressure measurement 355

Fig. 9 STFT analysis of the pressure for the engine test


bench tests: (a) pilot and main injection (test 3); Fig. 10 Ideal filtering and further derivation of the
(b) pilot and main injection with a faulty cylin- pressure for the engine test bench tests:
der (test 13); (c) main injection only (test 15) (a) pilot and main injection (test 3); (b) pilot
and main injection with a faulty cylinder
(test 13); (c) main injection only (test 15)
signal). Finally, the proposed diagnosis algorithm
opens a time window each time an injection is per-
formed and checks if a threshold is reached in the
filtered and differentiated signal. The time window 6 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
should consider the needle opening delay, which
could exceed a few hundreds of microseconds A diagnosis principle for the injection process in
depending on the injector model and the operating common-rail diesel engines, based on the analysis of
conditions. slight variations in the rail pressure signal, has been
A convenient selection of the low-pass filter limits proposed in this paper.
and threshold permits the detection of the different From measurement of the instantaneous variation
injections. Figure 10 depicts a case in which the cut- in the common-rail pressure it is possible to detect
off frequency was 450 Hz for cases a and b and when an injection has taken place. The effect of the
500 Hz for case c. It can be seen that it is possible injections overlaps that of the pumping process.
properly to detect the pilot injection. In the same However, with proper signal processing, it is possible
way the lack of injection in one of the injectors is to discriminate between effects due to the injection
easily detected. It remains to be determined where and to pump pressure fluctuations.
the optimum threshold is, and whether it is constant It is possible also to discriminate between different
for different engine operating conditions. Note that, injections in the same cylinder even when they are
for the case of the main injections, this method has separated only by a few crankshaft degrees. This point
a lower signal-to-noise ratio than the STFT-based could be crucial for advanced injection techniques
method; however, the detection of the pilot injection (pilot injection, post-injection, HCCI engines, split
is improved in comparison with the previous method. injections, etc.).

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356 F Payri, J M Luján, C Guardiola, and G Rizzoni

There is a relationship between the pressure drop 5 Zhang, L. A study of pilot injection in a DI diesel
in the rail and the quantity of fuel injected. Although engine. SAE paper 1999-01-3493, 1999.
this topic has not been studied specifically, it does 6 Benajes, J., Molina, S., and Garcı́a, J. M. Influence
of pre- and post-injection on the performance and
not seem impossible to design fuel mass flowrate pollutant emissions in a HD Diesel engine. SAE
observers from the rail pressure variation. However, paper 2001-01-0526, 2001.
it must be noted that the injector is fitted with a 7 Glenn, R. and Foster, D. E. The effect of split
return line to the low-pressure system; thus, the rail injection on soot and NOx production in an engine-
pressure drop will be affected by the returned fuel fed combustion chamber. SAE paper 932655, 1993.
quantity too, and consequently a correction should 8 Beatrice, C., Belardini, P., Bertoli, C., Lisbona, M. G.,
and Rossi Sebastiano, G. M. Diesel combustion
be used. This issue should also be considered in the
control in common rail engines by new injection
diagnostic process, as minor defects in the injected strategies. Int. J. Engine Res., 2002, 3(1).
fuel quantity can be hidden by the returned fuel 9 Schmidt, M., Kimmich, F., Straky, H., and
quantity effect on the rail pressure. Isermann, R. Combustion supervision by evaluating
The joint use of ideal (non-causal) filtering and the crankshaft speed and acceleration. SAE paper
differentiation of the rail pressure signal seems to be 2000-01-0558. 2000.
the best method for the detection of the injection 10 Ganser, M. A. Common rail injectors for 2000 bar
and beyond. SAE paper 2000-01-0706, 2000.
events from the rail pressure measurement. Further
11 Han, J. S., Wang, T. C., Xie, X. B., Harrington, D. L.,
work must be done to optimize the band-pass Pinson, J., and Miles, P. Dynamics of multiple-
filter and to select the threshold. Also, the extreme injection fuel sprays in a small-bore HSDI Diesel
cases must be explored (least separation between engine. SAE paper 2000-01-1256, 2000.
detectable injections, smallest fuel quantity detect- 12 Directive 98/69/EC of the European Parliament
able, etc.). The STFT method seems most robust for and of the Council of 13 October 1998 relating to
the detection of the main injection. DFT is effective measures to be taken against air pollution by
emissions from motor vehicles and amending
in detecting total lack of injection in one cylinder.
Council Directive 70/220/EEC. L 350/1 Official
The fusion of multiple criteria could be studied for Journal of the European Communities, 1998.
improving overall detection efficiency. 13 System requirements for 2004 and subsequent
model-year passenger cars, light-duty trucks, and
medium-duty vehicles and engines (OBD II), Title
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 13, California Code Regulations, Section 1968.2,
Malfunction and Diagnostic, 2003.
14 Freestone, J. W. and Jenkins, E. G. The diagnosis
This work was partially funded by a PPI-00-02-
of cylinder power faults in a diesel engine by fly-
1808 UPV grant. The authors are grateful for the wheel speed measurement. Proc. IMechE, Part D:
collaboration of the CMT-Motores Térmicos staff, J. Automobile Engineering, 1986, 200(D1), 37–43.
with special thanks to Antonio Peris for carrying out 15 Williams, J. An overview of misfiring cylinder engine
the experimental measurements and to Enrique diagnostic techniques based on crankshaft angular
Moreno for his work on analysing the data. velocity measurements. SAE paper 960039, 1996.
16 Kim, Y. W., Rizzoni, G., Wang, Y. Y., and Samimy, B.
Analysis and processing of shaft angular velocity
signals in rotating machinery for diagnostic appli-
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