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Combustion Characterization in Diesel Engine via 2010-01-0168

Published
Block Vibration Analysis 04/12/2010

Ornella Chiavola and Giancarlo Chiatti

Univ. 'ROMA TRE'

Luigi Arnone and Stefano Manelli

Lombardini S R L

Copyright © 2010 SAE International

ABSTRACT INTRODUCTION
Combustion development analysis in diesel engines continues
This paper presents the results of an experimental analysis on
to be an important feature in engine operation monitoring
a multi-cylinder diesel engine, in which in-cylinder pressure
strategies and in optimization processes devoted to satisfy the
and accelerometer transducers are used with the purpose of
demands of performance increase, emissions and fuel needs
developing and setting up a methodology able to monitor and
reduction, NVH characteristics improvement.
optimize the combustion behavior by means of non-intrusive
measurements.
Such analysis can be performed based on the use of in-
cylinder pressure transducers or on the employment of non-
Previously published results have demonstrated the direct
intrusive transducers. In the last years, research in the area of
relationship existing between in-cylinder pressure and engine
non-intrusive measurements has been performed, based on
block vibration signals, as well as the sensitivity of the engine
the employment of microphone and accelerometer sensors
surface vibration to variation of injection parameters when
able to detect and diagnose the in-cylinder pressure
the accelerometer is placed in sensitive location of the engine
development during the combustion process.
block. Moreover, the accelerometer trace has revealed to be
able to locate in the crank-angle domain important
Microphones are used at a distance from the engine, thus
phenomena characterizing the combustion process (the start
allowing to measure avoiding the need of a high temperature
of pre-mixed combustion, the crank angle value
resisting sensor, but difficulties arise from the contamination
corresponding to the beginning of diffusive combustion and
of the signals by the noise non-pertinent to the engine
to the in-cylinder pressure maximum value).
operation [1, 2].
The objective of the present work is to quantify the strict
Vibration-based techniques for combustion analysis have
relationship between the in-cylinder pressure signal and the
been developed and may be found in literature [3,4,5,6,7,8,9];
accelerometer trace, in order to obtain information
single or multiple piezoelectric accelerometers have been
concerning both the pressure maximum value and the
used with different aims: to analyze in detail the vibration
pressure rise rate from the accelerometer trace.
signal and to relate the different vibration components to the
respective vibration source, to diagnose a malfunctioning
In this paper, the previously developed steps of the research
through the analysis of the accelerometer data and to
program are briefly presented. The processing technique is
reconstruct the in-cylinder pressure curve by means of the
described and representative results are presented and
vibration measurements.
discussed, in which different values of speed and load have
been imposed on the engine.
This work constitutes a step of a comprehensive research
program in which a piezoelectric accelerometer transducer is
used with the objective of sensing and characterizing the
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combustion process of a two-cylinder diesel engine. Table 1. LDW442CRS engine specifications

Preliminary experimental tests have been performed in which
accelerometers have been positioned in multiple placements
and orientations on the engine with the aim of selecting the
optimal location for combustion sensing. Once the optimal
transducer placement has been detected (accelerometer
mounted in vertical orientation, on one stud of the block),
tests have been carried out by imposing on the engine
different settings of the injection parameters: injection
strategy (single or multiple injection), injection timing and
duration have been varied in a wide range of values; the
obtained results have demonstrated that the engine surface
vibration is sensitive to the variation of injection parameters
and that a strict relationship between in-cylinder pressure and
accelerometer signals exists in a fixed frequency band.

A further analysis has been performed aimed at deeper

insight into the connection between in-cylinder development
and block vibration curve. During such analysis, the
accelerometer trace has revealed to be able to locate in the
crank-angle domain important phenomena characterizing the
combustion process (the start of pre-mixed combustion, the
crank angle value corresponding to the beginning of diffusive
combustion and to the in-cylinder pressure maximum value).
In this paper, it is explored the possibility of extracting from
the accelerometer signal information which can be used to
quantify the pressure rise rate and the in-cylinder pressure
maximum value.
A brief description of the experimental apparatus is first
presented. Then, the previously developed steps of the
research program are briefly reported. The processing
technique is described and representative results are
presented and discussed, in which different values of speed
and load have been imposed on the engine.
ENGINE SET UP AND
EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATIONS
Testing has been conducted on a two cylinder water-cooled
Lombardini LDW442CRS diesel engine, equipped with a
common rail injection system, connected to an eddy current
dynamometer. The engine main technical specifications are
shown in Table 1.
The engine position has been measured by an optical encoder.
In-cylinder pressure has been measured by a piezoelectric
transducer Kistler 6056A (whose main technical data are
summarized in table 2). The engine block vibration has been
measured by means of a mono-axial piezoelectric
accelerometer Endevco 7240C (whose main technical data
are summarized in table 3). It has been mounted with
threaded pins, with a vertical orientation on one stud of the
block (figure 1). The vibration signal has been conditioned by
means of a B&K Nexus device (amplifier and low pass filter
at 22.4 kHz).
All these sensors/transducer signals have been simultaneously
acquired by NI boards type 6110 (for analogical signals) and
6533 (for the optical angle encoder signals) by using
LabVIEW 7.1 software. The sampling rate has been varied
according to the engine speed value, in order to guarantee a
fixed angular resolution.
Table 2. Kistler 6056A pressure transducer specifications
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Table 3. Endevco 7240C accelerometer specifications
Figure 1. Accelerometer transducer position
During the experimental tests, the settings of the injection
parameters have been varied: differences in injection strategy
(single or multiple injection), injection timing and duration
have been considered; for each injection parameter setting,
tests have been performed by imposing on the engine
different values of engine speed (1400, 1600, 2600, 3000
rpm) and load (25%, 50%, 75%, 100%) aimed at covering the
complete engine operative field. During each test, data were
collected once the engine was operated under nominally
steady-state conditions.
RESULTS
During the first preliminary step of the research program,
accelerometers have been positioned in multiple placements
and orientations on the engine with the aim of selecting the
optimal location for combustion sensing. As optimal
placement, one stud of the block has been chosen; the
accelerometer signal recorded in such a location is
characterized by high sensitivity to the combustion process
and low sensitivity to the other vibration sources (inlet valve
open/close, exhaust valve open/close, fuel injection, piston
slap). Details of the screening procedure can be found in [10,
11].
It has been shown that the selected location is sensitive to the
combustion processes of both cylinders of the engine [11].
The processes and the corresponding vibration components
are characterized by a 360 cad shift, then no-overlap exists
between them and this allows to isolate in the accelerometer
trace the contribution of each combustion process to the
block vibration signal. The results here presented are related
to one cylinder, although they can be extended to the other
one, too.
Some representative crank angle traces of in-cylinder
pressure and block vibration signals have been selected and
are reported in the first section of this paragraph. All figures
refer to a single injection process (13 mm3/cycle of fuel has
been delivered in full load condition). Figure 2 shows a zoom
related to the combustion process of one cylinder: the data
have been obtained by fixing the engine speed to 1400 rpm,
while the values of 50% and 100% have been imposed as
loads.
Figure 2. 1400 rpm. 100% load: in-cylinder pressure,
accelerometer signals; 50% load: in-cylinder
pressure, accelerometer signals.
In the accelerometer traces, the contribution of the
combustion process is clearly visible. The high pressure rise
rate due to the initial ignition of the air-fuel mixture in the
chamber is directly related to the high amplitude of vibration
signal. The mechanical components of the engine vibration
are less evident than the components due to the combustion
process. The strong correlation between the pressure and the
accelerometer signals is highlighted by the effect of a
variation of the engine load condition: the differences in both
maximum values and crank angle shifts which characterize
the pressure development can also be noted in the
corresponding accelerometer curves.
Figures 3 and 4 illustrate the relationship between the
pressure trace during the combustion process and the block
vibration signal, obtained during tests in which engine speed
values higher than 1400 rpm have been imposed on the
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engine; the same load conditions of 50% and 100% have been To achieve the objective of developing and setting up a
selected. methodology in which a non-intrusive sensor is used to
monitor and optimize the combustion process, it is necessary
to establish a reliable relation between the pressure and the
vibration signals.

It has been demonstrated that such a relationship exists in a

fixed frequency band, as coherence analysis results show.
The coherence function is a normalized measure that has
been computed by means of the ratio between the cross
power spectral density of the in-cylinder pressure Pp,p(f) and
the block vibration signals Pa,a(f) to the product of the power
spectral density of each signal Pp,a(f):

Figure 3. 2600 rpm. 100% load: in-cylinder pressure,

accelerometer signals; 50% load: in-cylinder In the computation, windowed signals have been considered:
pressure, accelerometer signals. Hamming window 1/6 of the engine cycle long has been
used; aimed at attenuating the effect of random noise, the
coherence has been computed by 10 cycles averaging. The
threshold value Ctv = 0.54 in the coherence trend has been
evaluated based on [13]:

(under the hypothesis of independence among the different

signal windows used to evaluate the spectra); where L is the
Hamming window length and a has been fixed to 0.98, in
order to obtain an upper confidence limit CL=(100*a)%,
equal to 98% (such a value guarantees a high statistically
significance estimate).

Values of coherence below such a line can be neglected since

Figure 4. 3000 rpm. 100% load: in-cylinder pressure, they show a lack of linear association between the signals.
accelerometer signals; 50% load: in-cylinder Figures 5,6,7 show the obtained frequency dependent
pressure, accelerometer signals. coherence function, related to 1400, 2600 and 3000 rpm,
respectively (zooms in the range 0-3000 Hz are reported,
since higher frequency values are characterized by lower
It can be observed that, depending on the engine speed/load coherence function values). In each figure, two lines are
condition, the intensity of the maximum value of in-cylinder plotted, corresponding to the condition of 50% and full load.
pressure and its location in the crank angle domain change.
The variations in the accelerometer signals tune with such
changes. More in detail, it can be observed that, depending on
the engine operative point, the contribution of the combustion
phenomenon to the overall vibration signal may become more
evident.

The in-cylinder pressure and accelerometer curves obtained

by imposing on the engine other settings of the injection
parameters have demonstrated to match with such a behavior
[12].
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Figure 5. Coherence function, 1400 rpm: 100%

Figure 7. Coherence function, 3000 rpm: 100%
load, 50% load.
load, 50% load.

From all figures it comes out that the highest values of the
Based on these results, the accelerometer signals have been
coherence function are in the frequency bandwidth 650 Hz
band-pass filtered, and in figures 8,9,10,11, the obtained
and 1 kHz (i.e. almost greater then 0.9), thus indicating the
traces have been superimposed on the corresponding non-
strong relationship between the spectral components of in-
filtered in-cylinder pressure curves.
cylinder pressure and accelerometer signals in that field.
Other values of load have been imposed on the engine; no
substantial modification to the previously defined frequency
band results from the obtained coherence trends.
Furthermore, such a band retains the characteristics to be
fixed regardless of the imposed injection parameters set, as
previously conducted tests have demonstrated [12].

Figure 8. 1400 rpm, 100% load: in-cylinder

pressure, filtered accelerometer signals.

Concerning the 1400 rpm case, regardless of the imposed

Figure 6. Coherence function, 2600 rpm: 100% load value, the band 650-1000 Hz has been used. The
load, 50% load. accelerometer traces related to engine speed values higher
than 1400 rpm have been filtered in a band whose range has
been varied in order to include frequencies in which high
coherence values have been obtained (looking at figures 6
and 7 by taking into account the computed threshold
coherence value of 0.54, it can be observed that values upon
such a line correspond to frequencies higher than 1000 Hz,
i.e. around 1700 Hz).
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Figure 9. 1400 rpm, 50% load: in-cylinder pressure,
filtered accelerometer signals.
Figure 10. 2600 rpm, 100% load: in-cylinder
pressure, filtered accelerometer signals.
In the plots, all data are normalized with maximum values;
circles are used to indicate in the accelerometer trace the
crank angle value corresponding to the maximum peak of the
in-cylinder pressure. It has to be noted that the circle in the
normalized filter trace does not always correspond to the
curve lowest peak, while it always corresponds to the
minimum value that follows the maximum value in the
accelerometer curve.
It has been demonstrated that, if a variation of the injection
strategy (multiple injection) is imposed on the engine, the
accelerometer trace is able to locate in the crank angle
domain the start of the combustion process, characterized by
a sudden rise of the in-cylinder pressure, which is
synchronized with a zero crossing of the accelerometer
filtered curve. Moreover, the vibration trend allows to
identify the crank angle value in which the diffusive
combustion phase prevails on the pre-mixed one, that
corresponds to the end of a negative oscillation of the
vibration curve [12].
The obtained results do not change if a variation of injection
durations and timings are considered, as [12] shows.
Since the main objective of the present work was to quantify
the strict relationship between the in-cylinder pressure signal
and the accelerometer trace, in order not only to obtain
information concerning the temporal localization of the most
important features of the pressure curve, but also to quantify
the pressure maximum value and the pressure rise rate based
only on the accelerometer trace, a further processing of the
signals has been performed.
Figure 11. 3000 rpm, 100% load: in-cylinder
pressure, filtered accelerometer signals.
The maximum value of the pressure pulse and the absolute
value of the minimum in the filtered vibration response
corresponding to the same crank angle value have been
evaluated. Then, the coefficients defined as the ratio between
the pressure peak and filtered vibration minimum values have
been computed for all the different conditions of load and
speed.
The analysis of such coefficients have revealed that it is
possible to define a unique mean coefficient for each engine
speed, which is able to guarantee a value for the pressure
curve maximum based on the corresponding filtered
accelerometer curve within a error margin less than 5%,
regardless of which load condition is imposed on the engine.
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Table 4. 1400 rpm

Figure 12. 14000 rpm, 2600 rpm, 3000 rpm, Table 5. 2600 rpm
interpolation line.

In figure 12, the values of peak pressure versus the absolute

value of the minimum in the filtrated vibration response
corresponding to the different engine speed and load
conditions are shown (for each engine speed value, four
points, related to the loads we have imposed on the engine,
are depicted).

All plotted values are normalized with the maximum values

corresponding to the full load condition for each engine
speed.
Table 6. 3000 rpm
In the figure, the straight line that represents the linear
interpolation among the results is also shown aimed at
highlighting that proportional coefficients have been detected
(whose use allows to obtain the peak pressure value starting
from the minimum in the filtered vibration curve) owing to
the preliminary frequency domain investigation of the signals
that has kept in the accelerometer traces only the components
related to the combustion process.

The values of such coefficients have turned out to be strictly

connected to the engine structure and to the accelerometer
placement (they have been named αi, i=1 for 1400 rpm, i=2
for 2600 rpm, i=3 for 3000 rpm).
Aimed at extracting information concerning the pressure rise
rate from the accelerometer trace, the pressure first and the
The following representative tables are presented; each one is
second derivates have been computed. The angular
related to a different value of the engine speed; the columns
coefficient of the tangent straight line to the flex point of the
report the investigated load values, the computed
pressure curve has been taken as a measure of the maximum
proportionality coefficient (obtained by computing the mean
pressure rise rate. Such a value has been compared to the
among those corresponding to the different load conditions)
angular coefficient of the tangent straight line to the zero
and the errors corresponding to each load value.
crossing point of the filtered accelerometer curve, located just
after the start of the combustion process. The processing has
been performed for different values of engine speed and load,
aimed at covering the engine complete operative field. The
obtained results have demonstrated that a proportional
coefficient exists between the computed maximum value of
the pressure rise rate and the angular coefficient of the
tangent straight line to the zero crossing point of the
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accelerometer curve. Such coefficients, β1, 2, 3 (i=1 for 1400
rpm, i=2 for 2600 rpm, i=3 for 3000 rpm), depend on the
vibration response of the structure and on the vibration
transducer location, as well as on the engine speed. The effect
of load variation on the coefficient induces an error margin of
the maximum pressure rise rate within 5%. Representative
results are reported in the following tables 7,8,9, in which
1400, 2600 and 3000 rpm are considered, respectively.
Table 7. 1400 rpm
Table 8. 2600 rpm
Table 9. 3000 rpm
CONCLUSIONS
This paper presents the results of an experimental analysis in
which the block vibration response has been used with the
aim of extracting useful information to characterize the in-
cylinder pressure curve.
Previously presented results have demonstrated that the
accelerometer trace can be employed to locate in the crank-
angle domain important phenomena characterizing the
combustion process (the start of pre-mixed combustion, the
crank angle value corresponding to the beginning of diffusive
combustion and to the in-cylinder pressure maximum value).
The results presented here highlight that the filtered
accelerometer signal can also be used to quantify the in-
cylinder pressure development by evaluating the pressure
gradient and the peak value. More in detail, the obtained
results have demonstrated that a proportionality exists
between the maximum value of the pressure pulse and the
absolute value of the minimum in the filtered vibration
response corresponding to the same crank angle value, and
that the slope of the acceleration curve at zero crossing is
proportional to the peak pressure rise rate. Coefficients have
been evaluated, whose use allows to guarantee predictions
within an error margin less than 5%, regardless of which
operating condition is imposed on the engine (load, engine
speed).
The next phase of development for this measurement
technique will address the applicability of the technique on
the signals obtained when a wide variation of the injection
parameter settings is imposed on the engine: injection
strategies (single or multiple injection), injection timings and
durations. The final objective is to develop and set up a
reliable innovative methodology that retains great potential in
the field of engine diagnostic and/or optimization procedures
in which only non-intrusive measurements are employed.
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doi:10.4271/2010-01-0168