Fuel 327 (2022) 125137

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Fuel
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Full Length Article

Effects of direct injection and mixture enleament on the combustion of

hydrous ethanol and an ethanol-gasoline blend in an optical engine
Enrico R. Malheiro de Oliveira *, Caio Henrique Rufino , Pedro Teixeira Lacava
Aeronautics Institute of Technology, 12228-900 São José dos Campos, Brazil

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Ethanol is a renewable fuel and can be used in electric hybrid vehicles concepts, especially for countries capable
Internal combustion engine of producing such fuel in a sustainable way. A strategy to enhance these concepts is the use of lean-burn com­
Lean combustion bustion, which is an effective way to improve the fuel economy from spark-ignition engines, while obtaining low
Combustion analysis
pollutant emissions. However, these improvements are complicated to achieve in a practical way because lean
Central direct injection
combustion has low rates of reaction, extinction, and misfire cycles, leading to cyclical variability for the engine
Flame morphology
operation. The drawback becomes even greater when lean combustion is associated with commercial ethanol
fuels and direct injection. Therefore, the objective of the present work is to provide an experimental analysis of
spray guided direct injection with commercial fuels used in a consolidated market for the use of ethanol such as
the Brazilian one, in particular hydrous ethanol (E95W05) and ethanol-gasoline blends (E27G73). The experi­
ments were conducted in an optically accessible spark-ignition engine and the lean combustion effects on engine
cycle variability, performance, flame morphology, and exhaust emissions were assessed. In general, the results
indicated that combustion instabilities can be correlated from thermodynamic and optical analyses. Flame in­
stabilities for E95W05 were associated with the lower flame propagation speed caused by the temperature
reduction during lean combustion. Additionally, exhaust emissions contained the presence of unburned ethanol
which increased when combustion became leaner. Moreover, the lower flame propagation speed was one of the
factors responsible for reducing engine performance and increasing combustion variability. The results indicated
that vaporization was a relevant phenomenon affecting ethanol combustion in the direct injection mode. The
cooling effect of fuel vaporization presented itself as a powerful means for the reduction of NOx and aldehydes,
even for the lean operation. Higher emissions of CO and THC were also observed for the engine operating with
E95W05 when compared to E27G73. The results of the present work showed that special attention must be paid
to the use of commercial fuel with a high ethanol content in spray-guided direct injection engines, especially
during lean-burn combustion, in order to not compromise the performance nor increase pollutant emissions.

technologies and alternative fuels, which reduce emissions of combus­

1. Introduction
In the last century, internal combustion engines (ICE) powered by
petroleum fuels were the main source of energy for the transportation
industry [1]. The reasons are related to low cost, high performance and
reliability, and easiness to store and to use liquid fuels in vehicles [1,2].
On the other hand, these engines, as they are most commonly used in
automobiles, are one of the main sources of pollution in urban areas.
Nowadays, worldwide emissions standards are becoming stricter with
intense international obligations related to the reduction of pollutant
emissions. In addition, concerns with greenhouse gases, air quality, and
a shortage of fossil fuels have encouraged the development of new
tion engines [3].
Future scenarios focus on generating more sustainable and efficient
functionalities by implementing several operational strategies and new
biofuels [4]. In these circumstances, the powertrain electrification [1],
in which the spark-ignition (SI) is appropriate to hybrid and electric
range concepts, has attracted a significant market share in Europe and
America in the medium term [5]. This trend is reflected in the contin­
uous shift of emphasis in the gasoline-powered vehicle market from
“performance” to “low fuel consumption” and “low CO2 emission” [6].
To reduce pollutant emissions and fuel consumption of road vehicles,
fuel injection technologies in spark-ignition have evolved over time. The
carburetor dominated the market until 1980 when it was gradually

* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: enrico.rmo@gmail.com (E.R. Malheiro de Oliveira), placava@ita.br (P. Teixeira Lacava).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fuel.2022.125137
Received 8 April 2022; Received in revised form 2 June 2022; Accepted 27 June 2022
Available online 9 July 2022
0016-2361/© 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
E.R. Malheiro de Oliveira et al. Fuel 327 (2022) 125137

Nomenclature ITA Aeronautics Institute of Technology, Brazil.

LCPE Laboratory of combustion, propulsion and energy at ITA.
Abbreviations MFB Mass fraction burned.
A/Fst Stoichiometry Air fuel ratio. nIMEP Net indicated mean effective pressure.
AI10 Angle indicate of 10%MFB. NO Nitrogen monoxide.
AI50 Angle indicate of 50%MFB. NO2 Nitrogen dioxide.
BDC Bottom dead center. NOx Nitrogen oxides.
CA1 First point of the curve is linearized for flame propagation OH Hydroxyl functional group.
speed. P_i Minimum pressure in the quoted range of flame
CA2 Last point of the curve is linearized for flame propagation propagation speed
speed. PFI Port fuel injection.
CAD ASOS Crank angle degree after the start of spark. Pmax_cyl In-cylinder pressure peak.
CAD aTDC Crank angle degree after top dead center. PMEP Pumping mean effective pressure.
CAD Crank angle degree. RPM Rotations per minute.
CA Pmax Angle of the in-cylinder pressure peak. SI Spark-ignition.
CCV Cycle-by-cycle variation. ST Spark timing.
CoVIMEP Coefficient of variation of Indicate mean effective pressure. Stroke - CA1 Stroke displacement at CA1.
CO Carbon monoxide. Stroke - CA2 Stroke displacement at CA2.
CO2 Carbon dioxide. SOI Start of injection.
C2H5OH Chemical formula for Ethanol. TDC Top dead center.
C8H18 Iso-octane. THC Total unburned hydrocarbon.
DI Direct injection. Vol% Percentage in volume.
DOI Duration of Injection. WDD Waddel diameter disk.
EPA Environment Protection Agency. WOT Wide open throttle.
EXT Exhaust Valves. Wr Wrinkling.
E27G73 Ethanol-gasoline blends with 27% ethanol and 73% of
gasoline (v/v). Greek letters
E95W05 Hydrous ethanol, mixture with 95% ethanol and 5 % of ΔCA Difference between the last and first point of the curve to
water (v/v). be linearized.
FPS Frames per second. ΔL _exp Total y-axis displacement in expansion (stroke axis).
FWHM Full width at half maximum. ΔL _comp Total y-axis displacement in compression (stroke axis).
GDI Gasoline direct injection. ΔP Variation between maximum and minimum pressure in the
gIMEP Gross indicated mean effective pressure. interval to calculate the flame propagation speed.
HCF Heywood circularity factor. λ Relative air–fuel ratio.
IMEP Indicate mean effective pressure. γ Ratio of specific heat.
INT Intake Valves.

replaced by the “Throttle Body Injection” (TBI) and by the “Port Fuel
Injection” (PFI). The PFI completely cornered the market from 2000
until 2008. From 2008, the gasoline engine technology, which made
inroads into the market, was the “Gasoline Direct Injection” (GDI),
although it had already been on the market for some time [6-8]. This
technology consists of an injector placed directly in the combustion
chamber, which can be mounted in the side or in a central position. The
most important advantage of this configuration is undoubtedly fuel
economy, which is due to two main factors. The first is the possibility of
having a higher compression ratio from the air-cooling effect caused by
liquid fuel vaporization [9], thus increasing engine efficiency [9,10].
The second benefit is the possibility of injecting fuel at the end of the
compression stroke, even moments before ignition, thus directing the
fuel towards the spark plug and facilitating the ignition of air–fuel
mixture.
In 2003, some manufacturers introduced the use of the flex-fuel
engine for the Brazil market, using oxygenated fuels such as E95W05
(95%vol ethanol and 5%vol water) as a way to reduce the use of fossil
fuels and consequently to reduce the dependence on gasoline [11].
Many studies have covered the use of ethanol, as reported by El-Faroug
[12] and Masum [13], which related the improved efficiency and the
reduction in emissions when using ethanol and gasoline mixtures under
various operating conditions and showed that the use of oxygenated
fuels can have a positive effect on certain pollutants emitted [12,13].
When comparing ethanol with gasoline, ethanol has a higher-octane
number, higher latent heat of vaporization and faster laminar flame
speed and this makes ethanol a suitable fuel for use in SI engines [14-
16].
As an SI engine fueled with ethanol is less prone to knock, therefore it
permits the use of a higher volumetric compression ratio. For instance,
Thakur et al [14] observed in their review that ethanol content in lower
proportions in ethanol-gasoline blends showed an enhancement in en­
gine torque and brake power, which is one of the key factors in the
improvement of thermal efficiency. Furthermore, the standard exhaust
emissions compounds (HC, NOx, CO) are generally improved, mini­
mizing carbon monoxide and hydrocarbon emissions [14]. However,
when comparing ethanol-gasoline blends, nitrogen oxides emissions are
strongly influenced by their fuel properties such as lower heating value
(LHV), latent heat of vaporization, oxygen content, laminar flame speed
[13]. Moreover, when operating with hydrous ethanol, the water ab­
sorbs energy and lowers the pressure as the charge is compressed,
thereby reducing the compression stroke work. Water absorbs energy as
it vaporizes reducing the peak temperatures during combustion, and
then decreases NOx emissions by the fuel cooling effect [13,16].
Another aspect to consider is the increase of aldehydes emissions
when ethanol was used. The EPA (Environment Protection Agency) has
classified formaldehyde and acetaldehyde emissions as groups B1 and
B2, which are commonly associated with medium and low human
carcinogenic hazards, respectively [17]. The measurements of those
emissions are important when using an ethanol-based fuel, due to the
lower vapor pressure of ethanol, which contributes to producing these
compounds [18]. Formaldehyde and acetaldehyde levels depend mostly

2
E.R. Malheiro de Oliveira et al.
on the engine load, ethanol content, and oxygen concentration [19].
An effective manner to improve fuel consumption from spark-
ignition engines is the lean-burn strategy, in which the air–fuel
mixture presents an excess of air/deficiency of fuel [20-22]. Lean
operation can provide significant thermal efficiency benefits due to the
high ratio of specific heat (γ) and low heat transfer losses compared to
those from stoichiometric conditions, resulting in lower combustion
temperature and reducing nitric oxide (NOx) emissions [23-25] formed
by the thermal mechanism (or Zeldovich mechanism) [13]. For example,
when using gasoline, the temperature drops significantly to influence
this effect after a relative air–fuel ratio (λ) of 1.1–1.2, which also de­
pends on the injection strategy used [22]. Under lean operating condi­
tions, there is also an excess of oxygen available to oxidize the carbon
monoxide and the unburned hydrocarbon compounds [22]. However,
these improvements obtained from lean combustion are complex to
achieve because of low reaction rates, extinction, instabilities, and
misfire cycles that often occur in ICEs. In addition, lean operation with
ethanol increases the cycle-by-cycle variation (CCV) and hence de­
creases combustion stability [24,26,28,29].
There are several studies regarding the lean burn of ethanol in the
literature, but only a few deal with hydrous ethanol, commonly used in
markets such as Brazil. Da Costa et al [21,28] reports on hydrous ethanol
stratified lean-burn combustion in DI spark-ignition engines, concluding
that better improvements in specific consumption under lean operation
would be achieved with a spray-guided (central injection) type system.
Most of the studies using ethanol are related to the influence due to its
blend with gasoline. Oh et al [23] performed a study to evaluate the
effects of ethanol blending to gasoline spray and reported the combus­
tion characteristics in a spray-guided DI engine under a lean stratified
operation. By comparing the vapor pressures, the authors showed that
ethanol fuel was found to have the potential of generating a more
appropriate spray for combustion due to higher vapor pressure, and HC
emissions increased. NOx emissions decreased with ethanol blending
due to the decreased peak in-cylinder temperature resulting from com­
bustion retarding. Aleiferis et al [29] have produced an extensive
comparative insight paper into the combustion phenomena using stoi­
chiometry and lean-burn air–fuel ratio fueled with gasoline–butanol,
ethanol-gasoline, iso-octane-butanol and iso-octane-ethanol blends in an
optical SI engine, solely for the conditions of λ = 1.0 and λ = 1.2. In their
study, the analysis showed small differences between gasoline and the
blends in general, but showed changes for the pure alcohols with typi­
cally much faster flame progression for ethanol and issues with the
combustion stability of butanol at low engine temperatures. In addition,
it indicated that alcohol blending, particularly with iso-octane, showed
some benefits at lean conditions.
Such new modes of combustion have been commonly analyzed under
a thermodynamic approach, i.e., the engine performance is evaluated
solely by the in-cylinder pressure data, offering an overview of engine
operation without further details on the in-cylinder phenomena. To seek
a deeper understanding of the combustion process in internal combus­
tion engines, the access of the flame is needed. This can be performed via
optical techniques in optically accessible engines. Therefore, several
authors with different objectives and analyses have used optical in­
vestigations to acquire insights and details regarding the combustion
development process using SI engines [5,20,27,29-40]. Direct visuali­
zation is an optical technique, which allows the calculation of parame­
ters related to flame growth when associated with an appropriate image
post-processing procedure [5,40].
The expansion of the usage of renewable fuels in internal combustion
engines requires an extensive knowledge of combustion with the
objective of using new combustion modes. The lean burn operation with
hydrous ethanol and ethanol-gasoline blends is one promising alterna­
tive, which aims at fuel economy and emission mitigation. Its imple­
mentation requires a fundamentally new understanding of the
relationship between combustion and CCV to ensure combustion sta­
bility and, therefore, vehicle drivability.
3
Fuel 327 (2022) 125137
Hence, the objective of the present work is to present an experi­
mental analysis of lean-burn combustion using commercial fuels, in
particular hydrous ethanol (E95W05) and ethanol-gasoline blends
(E27G73). The aim is to observe how the combustion characteristics
influence the fuel performance. In other words, the thermodynamic
performance parameters are consequences of combustion dynamics in­
side the engine. The motivation behind this study of combustion in en­
gines is the fact that the world is moving towards more sustainable
transport, and in this case, biofuels can play an important role in the
transition from current to future technologies. The experiments were
conducted using an optically accessible spark-ignition engine with a
central direct injection (spray guided) setup with the spray directed
towards the intake valves to mitigate the thermal stress in the spark
plug. The results demonstrate the effects of such mode of injection on
engine stability, performance, flame morphology — such as distortion,
normalized flame area evolution, wrinkling, flame position and
displacement — and exhaust emissions.
2. Experimental apparatus and methodologies
The experimental setup consists of the engine test bed, a high-speed
camera, and an exhaust gas analyzer. Their configuration and adopted
methodologies are described in the following items.
2.1. Engine TEST-BED
The experimental apparatus includes an AVL 5406 spark-ignition
engine with optical access, an active AC dynamometer, fuel injection
line, a centrally mounted Bosch-0261 500 103 direct injector, an AVL-
Indicom data acquisition system, and AVL ETU 427 control units
(Fig. 1-a). Further details on the engine specifications are listed below at
Table 1 and optical setup are shown in Martinez et al. [32].
There are two optical accesses, through the quartz liner – lateral view
– or through the piston silica window – bottom view of the cylinder
head. For this study, the arrangement was set up to use the bottom view,
which is presented in Fig. 1. The optical access to the combustion
chamber was obtained by a fused silica window (65 mm-diameter) fixed
on the piston crown and a 45◦ UV-enhanced mirror at the bottom of the
elongated piston. The specific set-up provides 79% coverage of the
cylinder bore and 61% of the entire cross-section.
In-cylinder pressure was acquired with an accuracy of ± 1% by using
an AVL GU22C piezoelectric pressure transducer flush-installed in the
region between the intake and exhaust valves (Fig. 1-b); the crank angle
resolution was 0.1 crank angle degree (CAD). The crank angle reference
was made in relation to the top dead center (TDC) at the end of
compression. Based on this data the rate of heat release (ROHR), angle
indicated of the mass fraction burned (AI %), IMEP etc. were evaluated.
Air dilution was measured with an accuracy of ± 1% by using a
Bosch LSU 4.9 wideband oxygen sensor located in the exhaust port. An
ETAS ES630 module was used to acquire the oxygen sensor signal as it
can correct the air–fuel ratio (λ) values according to the fuel used in the
test.
A high-speed PCO.dimax S1 (CMOS) camera coupled with a Scope
VS4-1845HS double intensifier carried out cycle resolved visualization
of the combustion process. The level of intensification was kept constant
at 70% during the experiments and the acquisition time for both fuels
was fixed at 1 CAD. For all the optical measurements, the synchroni­
zation between the camera and the engine was performed by the crank
angle encoder signal through the unit delay. This setup has its highest
sensitivity at the spectral range between 290 nm and 700 nm, with 50%
of quantum efficiency at 450 nm. For the full chip configuration
(1008x1008 pixels), the maximum camera acquisition is 4467 fps;
however, to improve the frame rate, a configuration of 864x896 pixels
was selected, providing an acquisition of 5400 fps, which results in 1
image / CAD at 900 rpm (1 CAD = 0.185 ms) with a spatial resolution of
96 μm per pixel.
E.R. Malheiro de Oliveira et al. Fuel 327 (2022) 125137

Fig. 1. (a) Experimental arrangement with the camera positioned at the bottom view of the combustion chamber. (Adapted from [33]). (b) Bottom view of the
engine head contrasting the intake and exhaust valves, spark plug, pressure transducer and injector.

use of glass parts. In the preset case, it was around 30 s. Fig. 2 shows
Table 1
examples of CO2 and CO sample profiles. In the beginning, there is just
AVL 5406 research engine specifications.
air suction, and then the concentration of combustion gases increases
Component Value Unit with time; but it is not possible to reach a plateau before the combustion
Total volume 530 cm3 shuts off. The methodology adopted here was the mean value of the last
Engine speed 900 rpm five seconds before the sample curve falls. Indeed, some air dilution still
Piston bore 82 mm
affects the values, so the analysis is much more qualitative than quan­
Stroke 90 mm
Geometric Compression Ratio 9.7:1 –
titative, in spite of the samples being submitted to the same dilution
Number of valves 4 2 int, 2 exh condition.
Connecting rod 144 mm To assure the data reproducibility, the same experiment condition
Intake valve diameter 34 mm was conducted three times, as is shown in Fig. 3. This procedure elim­
Exhaust valve diameter 26 mm
inated random effects that could affect the results. Thus, the result of
Intake Valve Open (IVO) 358 CAD aTDC
Intake Valve Close (IVC) − 156 CAD aTDC each gas concentration was the mean value of three experiments
Exhaust Valve Open (EVO) 120 CAD aTDC performed.
Exhaust Valve Close (EVC) 356 CAD aTDC To compare pollutant emission levels for different combustion sys­
Intake valve lift 10.49 mm
tems, the Environment Protection Agency (EPA) [41] has established
Exhaust valve lift 9.25 mm
some standard conditions. The concentration of gases must be on a dry
basis and corrected for a pattern of oxygen consumption in the relation
2.2. Exhaust GAS MEASUREMENTS to the oxygen presented in pure air (considered here to be 20.9 %). In the
present work, the results are on a dry basis and corrected for 3% of
The emission concentrations from the combustion product species oxygen. Moreover, it was made a power-based normalization of the
(CO, THC, Aldehydes, and NOx) and the unburned ethanol were emissions at specific basis (g/kWh) as an index rather to make clear the
measured in the exhaust gas stream using a Multigas 2030 spectrometer emissions comparison between high and low emissions acquired in ppm.
analyzer (MKS Instruments). A gas probe heater maintains the gas
temperature at 191 ◦ C before the sample enters the gas cell and the 2.3. Experimental procedure
equipment provides automatic temperature and pressure compensation
to ensure accurate analysis. This equipment works based on the Fourier To obtain the same chemical energetic input for both fuels, the
Transform Infrared (FTIR) principle and can acquire multiple gas species duration of injection (DOI) of 3.1 ms for hydrous ethanol (E95W05) and
at same time. The minimum sample time is one second with a sensitivity 2.2 ms for a blend of ethanol-gasoline (E27G73). The key properties of
of parts per billion (ppb) to parts per million (ppm). In the case of the both test fuels are listed in Table 2. Previous in-house experiments
employed spectrometer, the detection limit is 1 ppm for CO and 0.5 ppm presented the appropriate injection timing and duration [42,43]. In
for formaldehyde, NO, NO2, and ethanol; the equipment accuracy is 5% addition, the engine speed was fixed at 900 rpm, fuel injection pressure
for all chemical species. The concentration of THC can be calculated was set to 200 bar for both fuels, start of injection (SOI) at − 290 CAD
from all hydrocarbon molecules detected by the equipment, and NOx, aTDC. Temperatures for the coolant and lubricant operation were
from the sum of the NO and NO2 concentrations. maintained between 330 K and 335 K using a thermal conditioning unit;
One important thing that has profound impact on the analysis of the ambient temperature and pressure inside the engine test-cell were
exhaust gases analysis in optical research engines is the limitation of the around 300 K and 950 mbar.
operation to a few tens of second, due to the safety measure from to the As aforementioned, the injector position is roughly at the center of

4
E.R. Malheiro de Oliveira et al. Fuel 327 (2022) 125137

Fig. 2. Examples of CO2 and CO sample profiles and the methodology for determining of the mean value.

Fig. 3. Example of reproducibility of the measurement of the exhaust gases concentration for CO2 and CO using E27G73 as fuel and air–fuel ratio of 1.4.

In the present case, we had the premise of keeping the chemical

Table 2
energy input (which means the mass of fuel per stroke times its heat
Fuel properties of used commercial fuels.
value) practically constant in any operating condition, regardless of the
Fuel E95W05 E27G73 fuel and the level of air excess. Thus, the lean mixture condition is
Lower Heating Value (LHV) [MJ/kg] 27.49 39.34 reached by adjusting the airflow. This is not the condition of commercial
A/Fst (kgair/kgfuel) [-] 8.44 13.03 engines, but our purpose in this study was to compare flame morphology
Density at 20 ◦ C [kg/m3] 807.6 752.40
under similar conditions, which were chosen to be the constant chemical
Water Content [vol.%] 5.00 0.00
Ethanol Content [vol.%] 95.00 27.00
input and fixed injection parameters (injection pressure and timing),
rather than setting the best engine calibration in terms of performance or
repeating the strategy of commercial engines. By those means, the
the cylinder head (Fig. 1), which is known in the literature as spray- analysis can be focused on the combustion phenomenon itself and its
guided direct injection owing to the spray penetration being influ­ influence on engine performance and emissions.
enced by the movement of air within the combustion chamber. In the This choice was made according to the criteria of seeking stable
present case, the injector has six non-equally spaced nozzles for fuel combustion, as optical engines always operate in transient conditions to
injection, thus the spray is not homogenously distributed throughout the protect the quartz parts, whereas the injection parameters are not ex­
cylinder and it has a specific injection direction. There are two injector- pected to significantly affect spray atomization and spray penetration as
mounting possibilities: with the spray directed towards the spark plug or both fuels present similar viscosity, surface tension, and density.
towards the intake valves, opposite to the spark plug (Fig. 4). The later Therefore, increasing the level of lean combustion by reducing the fuel
was considered to prevent thermal stresses in the spark plug. mass flow would lead to the production of very low temperatures inside
A wide-open throttle (WOT) operation with a variable amount of fuel the cylinder, causing misfire, flame quenching, intense cycle variability,
injection was not possible in the test owing to the increase in combustion and excess unburned fuel, which would make the comparison between
instabilities generated from the transient operation of the optical engine. the experimental conditions very difficult.
Therefore, the amount of fuel injected was kept constant for each fuel, For this reason, combustion phasing had to be adjusted as mixture
and the air–fuel ratio was adjusted by throttle opening.

5
E.R. Malheiro de Oliveira et al. Fuel 327 (2022) 125137

Fig. 4. Central direct injection towards the intake valves.

enleanment leads to lower combustion temperatures, resulting in slower (50–90% MFB), and flame termination (90–100% MFB). The develop­
reactions. Therefore, spark timing (ST) had to be advanced as lambda ment of these stages are influenced by the spark energy and duration,
was increased. The criterion for choosing spark timing was the position spark-plug design and orientation, in-cylinder flow-field, cyclic cylinder
of 50% of mass fraction burned (AI50%) at 21.0 ± 2.0 CAD aTDC; charging, and in-cylinder mixture composition [31,46].
seeking to prevent faster flames concentrating energy release close to the Main thermodynamic parameters as in-cylinder pressure, ROHR,
TDC and slower flames too far ahead in the expansion phase. In general, MFB, net indicated mean effective pressure (nIMEP), gross indicated
this combination provides engine operation close to the maximum brake mean effective pressure (gIMEP), pumping mean effective pressure
torque (MBT). (PMEP) and CoVIMEP were acquired and calculated by AVL-Indicom.
The test conditions for E95W05 and E27G73 are shown in Table 3. In the present work, optical data were recorded in the 25 final cycles
An average of the last 100 cycles was used to evaluate the thermody­ of the sets of 100 cycles to retrieve the most stable combustion condi­
namic data based on the in-cylinder pressure traces. The air–fuel ratio tions to investigate the flame morphology from lean mixtures. The post-
was set from the stoichiometry condition until inflammability limit was processing procedure was developed by the authors with the objective of
acquired, which was defined as the immediate leaner condition with obtaining a detailed analysis from flame morphology [25] using a
CoVIMEP greater than 5%. For E95W05 the limit was λ = 1.5, which was routine script developed in the software Vision of National Instruments
set for E27G73. (Vision Assistant 2011, NI ACADEMIC SITE LICENSE, Austin, Texas,
USA).
2.4. Thermodynamic and optical analysis For the routine script, the first step was to use the images acquired in
an 8-bit depth to be treated to retrieve geometrical flame front param­
Thermodynamic and optical investigations can be combined to eters (Fig. 5-a). After the extraction of the intensity level, a circular mask
analyze the general scope of the combustion process. To quantify the was fixed at the spark plug to cut the light from reflections at the
combustion characteristics in spark-ignition engines, the fuel energy boundaries of the optical access (Fig. 5-b). Afterwards, the procedure
conversion of a combustion cycle can be described by the mass fraction adjusts the contrast and brightness of the images with respect to the
burned (MFB) [9,25,27] and from the rate of heat release (ROHR) maximum intensity value in order to optimize the signal to noise ratio
[36,44]. MFB indicates the combustion development and describes how (Fig. 5-c); basically, for lean-burn conditions. Each air–fuel ratio has
the combustion process consumes fuel depending on the crank position. different levels of intensity, which means there are different values of
This criterion used on combustion in SI engines is divided into four contrast and brightness in each case. The next step is to apply a threshold
stages [9,45]: spark and flame initiation (0–5% MFB), initial flame to obtain binary images with the value 1 (red) associated with a pixel
kernel development (10–50% MFB), turbulent flame propagation that corresponds to the object and 0 (black) for the image background
(Fig. 5-d). In this work, an automatic threshold operation was applied
based on the inter variance method or Otsu’s method [47]. This pro­
Table 3
Experimental conditions for hydrous ethanol (E95W05) and gasoline ethanol cedure for an automatic threshold considerably reduces the processing
blend (E27G73) with fixed operational parameters: w = 900 rpm, pinj = 200 bar, time and produces higher quality results. Finally, the last two steps
SOI = -290 CAD aTDC. configure morphological transformations to fill holes and remove small
objects that are not part of the flame and could mask the evaluation of
Air-Fuel Ratio Throttle ST [CAD AI50 [CAD
(λ) [%] aTDC] aTDC] the morphological parameters (Fig. 5-e and 5-f).
The results from the post processing are used to provide information
E95W05 1.0 5.0 − 5.0 22.94
1.1 6.0 − 7.0 21.58
regarding the combustion behavior and its evolution, such as flame front
1.2 7.0 − 11.0 20.3 Area (A), flame propagation speed (Si), flame perimeter (P), Waddel disk
1.3 9.5 − 15.0 21.68 diameter (WDD), Heywood circularity factor (HCF) and the flame
1.4 18.8 − 19.0 21.92 centroid displacement.
1.5 34.8 25.0 25.96
For each flame image acquired, the number of pixels within the flame
−

area is calculated and converted to a metric unit based on the image

E27G73 1.0 5.5 − 3.0 22.56 resolution (pixel area). Note that the development of the inner surface as
1.1 5.8 − 5.0 20.46
1.2 7.1 − 6.0 20.82
a function of the crank angle is directly related to the flame propagation.
1.3 8.9 − 8.0 20.67 The Waddel Disk Diameter is determined based on the flame area, which
1.4 11.3 − 11.0 20.25 is the diameter of a circular disk containing the same flame area (A) as
1.5 19.6 − 15.0 21.17 the previously recorded binary flame.

6
E.R. Malheiro de Oliveira et al.
Fig. 5. Routine script developed for image processing using Vision from National Instruments.
During engine operation, several factors result in the flame front
displacement: the burning rate (influenced by chemical kinetics and
pressure/temperature condition in the environment), diffusion effects,
turbulence, swirl and tumble movements, homogeneity of the mixture,
heat transfer to the cylinder walls, and expansion of the burned gases
“pushing” the flame. The individual observation of these effects is a
complex task even for optically accessible engines. However, by
expressing all this in a single parameter, the flame propagation speed is
important when you want to compare different combustion situations in
the engine.
The average flame propagation speed (Si) is calculated by differen­
tiating the flame radius; thus, a backward scheme of numerical differ­
entiation was used with WDD during the interval in the intermediate
zone of the normalized area of the flame. The intermediate zone is the
highlighted period in Fig. 6 when there is no interference from the
chamber wall and the ignition moment. Both moments are characterized
by high variability, which may interfere with the correct value. It is
important to note that in our case the flame propagation speed was
calculated only in the optical access region where the growth of the
flame area is linear (Intermediate zone). This indicates that the speed
variation is very small in this range; therefore, the parameters cited in
the previous paragraph have not changed significantly. The piston
displacement is minimal in the interval where the flame propagation
speed is calculated. The flame kernel region was not used in this
methodology because the images from the initial moments of kernel
formation suffer distortions due to the presence of the spark plug, when
the ground electrode covers part of the chemiluminescence region. Thus,
the image processing can account for the area inside the kernel smaller
than the real situation.
The Heywood Circularity Factor (HCF) is one form of quantification
Fig. 6. Normalized flame area’ intermediate zone used to calculate the average
flame propagation speed.
7
Fuel 327 (2022) 125137
of flame front instabilities or irregularities [9]. This shape factor cor­
responds to the ratio between the distorted flame front perimeter (P) and
the circumference perimeter with the same internal flame area. Thus,
HCF = 1.0 refers to a hypothetical perfect circle flame, i.e., HCF in­
creases according to the flame front distortion. Usually, HCF has an
intense correlation with cycle variability. Finally, the in-cylinder charge
motion interferes with the flame propagation and, in addition to the
radial spread, there is a flame movement, herein indicated as the flame
centroid displacement. The analysis is limited until the edge of the frame
reaches the optical limit (Fig. 7-a). Fig. 7-b illustrates an example of the
flame centroid displacement, in which the combustion chamber center is
located tangent to the spark plug.
The local morphology of the flame was analyzed by evaluating the
local curvature of the flame front [38]. This curvature was calculated as
the inverse of the radius of a circle, which is locally fitted inside a region
of the flame edge delimited by a kernel of 5 × 5 pixels. Therefore, there
is a curvature associated to each pixel belonging to the flame edge,
providing a curvature distribution, in which positive curvature indicates
a convex region of the flame, whereas negative curvature indicates a
concave region. A Gaussian distribution is then fitted to this distribution.
For a hypothetical perfectly circular flame, the curvature distribution
has zero skew and the value of the mode, median and mean value is
equivalent to the inverse of the flame radius. For a real flame front, the
distributions have positive or negative skew and the mode is different
from the median [32]. Therefore, the full width at half maximum
(FWHM) of the distribution can be associated with the flame wrinkling,
i.e., the wider the distribution, the more wrinkled the flame.
Arcoumanis and Kamimoto [48] explained that the flame exhibits a
higher degree of wrinkledness for lean-burn operation than that ex­
pected solely due to turbulence [49]. The wrinkling, Wr, can be calcu­
lated with the parameters from the flame morphology previously found
using the image processing. It can be defined as equation (1), where P is
the perimeter of the binary flame and the other is the WDD arc length in
mm.
( )
P − Wdd*π
Wr(%) = * 100 (1)
Wdd*π
For each operative condition, the curvature frequency distributions
and the wrinkling value were obtained by the cumulative of selected
images from 10 consecutive cycles in correspondence to a flame area of
40% compared to the piston cross-section. Results from the curvature
distributions were represented as histograms, as seen in Fig. 8, and the
related probability density functions (PDFs) were obtained by Gaussian
curve fitting with the histogram distribution in the sense that a wider
curve corresponds to a more corrugated flame front [38]. Therefore, a
perfectly circular flame will be 100% concave with a constant radius,
whereas a corrugated flame front will present a variability in the radius,
and it will present regions of convexity and concavity, which it will
reflect on the Gaussian that was fixed in the distribution.
3. Results and discussion
The combustion process in a centrally mounted DI engine for
E95W05 and E27G73 for stoichiometric and lean-burn conditions was
E.R. Malheiro de Oliveira et al.
Fig. 7. (a) Bottom view and the optical limit, and an (b) example of flame centroid displacement inside the combustion chamber with E27G73 stoichio­
metric combustion.
Fig. 8. Typical histogram representation of the curvature frequency distribu­
tion and related Gaussian-fitting curve evaluated for E27G73 at stoichiom­
etry condition.
characterized by in-cylinder pressure measurements, exhaust gas mea­
surements and by flame front images acquired with a high-speed
camera.
3.1. Cycle resolved flame morphology analysis
A sequence of images after TDC (CAD aTDC) for E95W05 and
E27G73, respectively, is displayed in Fig. 9. All camera acquisitions used
the same optical setup and acquisition time. From the sequence of im­
ages, it can be seen that the luminosity decreased for both fuels when
combustion was set to leaner conditions. Moreover, the flame
morphology exhibits different visual characteristics and when there was
a more unstable lean burn condition, a more wrinkled flame was
observed. This can be explained by comparing the optical investigation
with the thermodynamic data previously described.
Fig. 10 shows the average flame propagation speed for E95W05 and
E23G73. Fig. 11 also exhibits the evolution of the normalized flame area
up to the optical limit. The speed decreased for both fuels when the
8
Fuel 327 (2022) 125137
Fig. 9. Flame development images at the same position with both fuels at
stoichiometry and lean-burn conditions.
combustion became leaner, which was similar to what happens to the
laminar flame speed. Thus, increasing the physical processes in the
cylinder, such as swirl and tumble movements along with turbulence
which were induced by opening of throttle to increase air intake with
leaner mixtures, did not change the trend of slower combustion due to
temperature reduction when the air–fuel ratio increases [24].
Comparing both fuels, the average flame propagation speed was
lower for E95W05 than that for E23G73, despite using the same thermal
power input for all values of λ investigated. Therefore, as ethanol
combustion enthalpy was lower than that of gasoline, the mass of fuel
injected into the cylinder was about 30% higher for E95W05 than for
E27G73. The increased mass of liquid fuel to be evaporated before
combustion, combined with the high enthalpy of vaporization of etha­
nol–water blend, resulted in a much greater cooling effect for E95W05
than for E27G73.
The initial part of the normalized area profiles (Fig. 11) is related to
E.R. Malheiro de Oliveira et al.
Fig. 10. Flame propagation speed evolution over an average of 25 consecutive
cycles for both fuels.
the flame kernel inception (up to 5% of normalized area, before the
linear area growth). It was noted a correlation between the air–fuel
ratios and the inception time, which presents an increased time as
mixture became leaner and temperature decreases as aforementioned.
The kernel inception time was more critical for E95W05 than it was for
E27G73, as the volatile compounds present in the gasoline played an
important role in reducing the inception time.
Table 4 corresponds to the parameters calculated from the inter­
mediate zone interval from the normalized flame area at Fig. 11, which
was used for the flame propagation speed. It was observed that the sit­
uation of maximum piston displacement is 1.705 mm in the expansion
phase, for a crankshaft angle variation of 8 CA◦ . Since the total
displacement of the piston is 90 mm, the mean speed at which the flame
front develops is much higher than the displacement speed of the piston.
In addition, the Table 4 also shows that the angles between the begin­
ning and the end of the flame front velocity calculation region are close
to the TDC; therefore, close to the region of minimum cylinder volume.
Thus, as the flame front velocity is much higher than the piston
Fig. 11. Normalized flame areas evolution over an average of 25 consecutive cycles.
9
Fuel 327 (2022) 125137
displacement velocity, the flame development occurs mostly radially
than in the piston displacement direction, which minimizes the three-
dimensional effects.
Table 4 also presents the variation of pressure inside the cylinder in
the range of the calculation of the average speed of flame propagation.
Note that the average pressure variation was 1.38 bar, with a minimum
value of 0.61 bar and a maximum of 2.18 bar; in terms of percentages
concerning the maximum cylinder pressure reached, the average value
was 7.03% with a minimum of 3.19% and a maximum of 10.19%.
Therefore, there is no significant pressure increase in the calculation
interval, highlighting that this interval occurs before the maximum
pressure angle. In addition, as the growth of the internal area of the
flame is linear, it is possible to say that the effect of the expansion of the
gases due to the pressure increase is minimized in this region of analysis.
Martinez et al. [27] indicated that the displacement of the flame area
centroid provides an indicative of the motion and turbulence interaction
with the combustion and flame propagation. Fig. 12 shows the flame
centroid evolution for both fuels. The flame centroid displacement al­
ways begins at the spark plug and tends to move toward the intake
valves. As the injection plume was directed at the intake valves, there
was a fuel impingement at the valve and a fuel film was formed, which
was reinforced by diffusive flames therein observed for E27G73
(Fig. 13). When comparing λ = 1.0 with the other λ ś , it possible to infer
that the centroid path presented a trend of elongating as the combustion
became leaner.
The Heywood Circularity Factor evaluated details regarding flame
circularity represented at Fig. 14. When this curve begins to become
asymptotic, it means that part of the flame has already gone the optical
disk limit. The shape of the flame can be affected by the fuel distribution
and homogeneity of the air–fuel mixture inside the combustion chamber
and principally by the difficulty of mixture formation, and combustion
development. For gasoline, the HCF presented an increasing trend for
leaner mixtures. Additionally, the flames distorted at the beginning of
combustion, and stabilized in the linear flame growth phase and
thereafter. The ethanol flames presented the same trends up to λ = 1.3,
while the two leanest cases presented a trend of flame distortion beyond
the linear growth phase. For example, in the case E95W05, for λ = 1.0
the analysis is limited up until 18 CAD ASOS, but for λ = 1.4 it is around
25 CAD ASOS.
The dilution led to an evident increase of flame instability, which
may be due to the flame being more susceptible to charge motion as its
propagation speed was decreased. In general, for the same λ it is possible
to point out that the E95W05 flames were more unstable than E27G73
flames. Up to air–fuel ratio of 1.3, the flame spreads more roundly and
E.R. Malheiro de Oliveira et al. Fuel 327 (2022) 125137

Table 4
Parameters from the intermediate zone interval used for the calculation of flame propagation speed.
Fuel Thermodynamic Optical methodology Flame propagation speed Correlation ΔP/ Stroke - Stroke - Displacement
(Pmax_cyl) CA1 CA2
λ Pmax_cyl CA Pmax ΔCA CA1 CA2 P_i ΔP P_max ΔL_exp ΔL_comp

E95 1.0 16.97 26 8 8 16 10.81 0.98 11.79 5.76 0.575 2.280 1.705 0
W05 1.1 18.35 25 8 6 14 11.95 1.67 13.63 9.13 0.324 1.750 1.426 0
1.2 19.11 22 8 2 10 12.50 0.94 13.44 4.90 0.036 0.897 0.861 0
1.3 19.30 21 10 1 11 13.79 1.79 15.58 9.27 0.009 1.084 1.075 0
1.4 20.32 18 11 − 2 9 14.62 2.07 16.69 10.19 0.036 0.727 0.727 0.036
1.5 19.31 17 10 − 1 9 15.71 1.32 17.03 6.82 0.009 0.727 0.727 0.009

E27 1.0 14.85 26 5 7 12 10.84 0.78 11.63 4.30 0.441 1.289 0.848 0
G73 1.1 15.2 23 5 5 10 11.44 0.61 12.05 3.19 0.225 0.897 0.672 0
1.2 16.96 24 4 9 13 12.52 0.96 13.48 5.02 0.727 1.511 0.784 0
1.3 18.68 23 8 3 12 13.14 1.55 14.68 7.56 0.144 1.289 1.145 0
1.4 19.37 22 10 0 10 13.65 1.73 15.38 8.04 0.000 0.897 0.897 0
1.5 19.84 21 8 3 11 14.87 2.18 17.05 10.18 0.081 1.084 1.003 0
Unit bar CAD CA◦ CA◦ CA◦ bar bar bar % [mm] [mm] [mm] [mm]
aTDC

Nomenclature: Pmax_cyl: In-cylinder pressure peak. // CA Pmax: Angle of the in-cylinder pressure peak. // ΔCA: Difference between the last and first point of the curve
to be linearized. // CA1: First point of the curve is linearized for flame propagation speed. // CA2: Last point of the curve is linearized for flame propagation speed. //
P_i: Minimum pressure in the quoted range of flame propagation speed. // ΔP: Variation between maximum and minimum pressure in the interval to calculate the
flame propagation speed. // P_max: Maximum pressure in the quoted range. // Stroke - CA1: Stroke displacement at CA1. // Stroke - CA2: Stroke displacement at CA2.
// ΔL _exp: Total y-axis displacement in expansion (stroke axis). // ΔL _comp: Total y-axis displacement in compression (stroke axis).

Fig. 12. Displacement of flame area centroid. E27G73 on the left and E95W05 on the right.

circularly, and tends to deform at some moments. In the leanest cases
above 1.3, the flame deforms to a peak and then tends to round off.
The curvature and wrinkling of the flame front were also analyzed in
the interval in which the growth of the internal area of the flame is
linear; therefore, all the aforementioned comments about the influence
of three-dimensional effects, pressure variation, and expansion of gases
effects on the average flame propagation speed are also valid for these
parameters. The burning rate has a strong influence on the curvature
and wrinkling of the flame front, as verified in works in a constant
volume chamber. However, in optical access engines, the more slowly
propagating flames are more susceptible to the influence of movements
like swirl and tumble among all phenomena affecting its propagation,
consequently increasing the rates of curvature and wrinkling. These
instabilities have a direct relationship with the engine cycle variability,
resulting in a coefficient of variability of the indicated mean pressure
(COVIMEP), jeopardizing the use of a fuel under certain operating con­
ditions. In the present work, we tried to show that for high levels of lean
combustion, these rates increased more for ethanol than for gasoline due
to the lower flame propagation speed.
The results of wrinkling are presented in Fig. 15. For both fuels, a
larger wrinkling value was expected for lean combustion than for stoi­
chiometry conditions from the direct visualization of the flame. The
most wrinkled flame was found for E27G73, even though this fuel had a
lower HCF than E95W05.
The center of the curvature distributions and the full width at half
maximum values (FWHM) of the Gaussian distribution, Fig. 16, evaluate
the micro-scale analysis of local flame curvature. The mean curvature
distributions exhibited slightly negative values that correspond to more
convexity of the flame front, hence hydrous ethanol were slightly larger
compared to ethanol-gasoline blends for the stoichiometric cases, but
the trend was the opposite for their lean-burn cases. Additionally,
average curvature distributions close to zero, such as the lean-burn
cases, indicated a more wrinkled flame, with intense alternation be­
tween concavity and convexity occurring.
The FWHM of the Gaussian increased for both fuels with air-dilution.
E27G73 presented a wider distribution than E95W05 for both stoichi­
ometry and lean-burn conditions. A larger FWHM value was expected
for the lean-burn case of E95W05 given its instability. However, it was

10
E.R. Malheiro de Oliveira et al. Fuel 327 (2022) 125137

Fig. 13. Diffusive flame presence in late combustion on the intake valves for λ = 1.2 and λ = 1.4 fueled with E27G73 in different cycles.

Fig. 14. Heywood circularity factor obtained over an average of 25 consecutive cycles.

E27G73 that exhibited the higher FWHM value. The results confirmed
the influence of air-dilution and fuel composition on the FWHM [45], as
it increased by 34.0% and 56.0% for hydrous ethanol and ethanol-
gasoline blends, respectively, when comparing the lean to the stoi­
chiometric burn, which indicates that gasoline was more prone to tur­
bulence than hydrous ethanol. The comparison between HCF and
FWHM gives the impressions that hydrated ethanol locally burns faster
than gasoline-ethanol blend, which provoked fewer distortions on flame
curvature, justified by a smaller FWHM for hydrous ethanol. On the
other hand, as hydrous ethanol has a difficulty to vaporize and it
probably generates fuel concentration gradient inside the cylinder,
producing a more heterogeneous flame supporting the higher HCF for
E95W05, and therefore the average flame propagation speed gets
slower.

3.2. Thermodynamic analysis

Fig. 15. Wrinkling values over 10 images from different cycles with the same
flame area. Fig. 17 shows the nIMEP, gIMEP, PMEP, and the CoVIMEP for both
fuels up to the air–fuel ratio 1.5. A significant enhancement on the
nIMEP was observed for the lean-burn condition, and a high CCV with
increased burn instability was also seen. At lean-burn conditions, as

11
E.R. Malheiro de Oliveira et al. Fuel 327 (2022) 125137

E95W05. The peak pressure for both fuels increased for leaner mixtures
because of the strategy of increasing trapped air in the cylinder for
combustion enleanment used in the experiments. As a consequence, the
initial pressure in the compression phase is higher, leading to an increase
in the maximum pressure of the cycle. However, from a point where the
mass of inert gases absorbs a lot of energy and the flame propagation
speed reduces considerably, the maximum pressure value starts to
decrease, as can be seen in Fig. 18 for E95W05 with lambda 1.5.
Cycle variability was more pronounced for E95W05 (8.30%) than for
E27G73 (2.09%) under the same air–fuel ratio conditions. The trend of
CoVIMEP presented a correlation to that of HCF presented in Fig. 14,
indicating an increase in combustion instabilities at lean-burn condi­
tions. Furthermore, this correlation suggests that instabilities in flame
propagation have a strong influence on engine cycle variability and
affect engine performance. This increase may be probably due to the
aforementioned mixture heterogeneity indicated by the values of HCF.
Additionally, an advance in pressure peak location was observed,
collaborating to increase the maximum peak pressure. This advance was
due to the strategy adopted for the tests, which required a constant
combustion phasing with the 50% of mass fraction burned (AI50%)
around 22 CAD aTDC. To achieve this constant combustion phase, the
spark timing was advanced as the mixture became leaner. The engine
was verified to operate at a higher efficiency at lean conditions than that
at stoichiometric conditions (Fig. 17). This was a combined effect of the
pumping losses from the PMEP and better combustion efficiency as the
gIMEP and nIMEP increased. The average pressure trace at the leanest
condition (λ = 1.5) for E95W05 was lower because this condition was
beyond the flammability limit, so misfire cycles took place and the
CoVIMEP increased significantly (Fig. 17). In addition, in spite of the
more advanced spark timing, the operation instability for hydrous
ethanol increased.
Fig. 16. Mean curvature distributions (Top) and full width at half maximum
The profiles of the ROHR presented in Fig. 18 indicated a combustion
(FWHM) of the Gaussian curvature distributions (Bottom) for stoichiometry and
spread throughout the expansion stroke when the combustion became
lean mixtures for both fuels tested.
leaner. Consequently, much more energy was released later (in the final
stages of combustion) when the volume of the combustion chamber is
previously pointed out in the optical analyses, the temperature de­
greater, as seen for the leanest cases for E95W05 when their CoVIMEP is
creases due to higher air–fuel ratio, causing a slower flame development,
close to or above the lean limit, suggesting an incomplete vaporization
which is one of the factors to explain the higher CCV and burn insta­
or mixing for the ethanol. Additionally, there is also an advance in
bility. Another aspect to consider is the influence of physical processes,
combustion shifted to the compression stroke, which was due to the
such as swirl and tumble increased by throttle opening, as shown by
advanced spark timing for lean combustion to compensate for the lower
flame wrinkling and the displacement of flame centroid, which in­
intensity of energy release. Note that there was more energy released for
fluences the flame development and, consequently, the engine
hydrous ethanol, implying higher backpressure work during piston
performance.
displacement than when compared to E27G73.
Fig. 18 depicts the in-cylinder pressure curves for E27G73 and
Fig. 19 presents the spark timing and the indicated angle for 10%

Fig. 17. (Left) nIMEP, gIMEP, PMEP, and (Right) CoVIMEP for both fuels at λ = 1.0 to λ = 1.5.

12
E.R. Malheiro de Oliveira et al.
Fig. 18. Average pressure traces curves and ROHR at λ = 1.0 to λ = 1.5.
(AI10) and 50% (AI50) of the mass fraction burned for E95W05 and
E27G73. The angle indicated for 90% MFB was not considered in this
study as optical engines present a considerable amount of crevice burn,
which makes this parameter not suitable for the analysis as indicated by
Duarte [43] and Boggio [50].
The AI10 advances with the dilution increase, as a consequence of
the adjusted spark timing. Nevertheless, the AI10 advance was more
intense for hydrous ethanol than for gasoline; for example, considering
λ = 1.4 for E95W05 the spark timing was around 5-CAD related to λ =
1.0; while for E27G73 is around 4-CAD, and presents a lower CoVIMEP.
As the mixture became leaner, the AI10 did not follow the adjusted spark
timing, therefore the interval between spark timing and AI10 was
longer, especially for hydrous ethanol. The flame kernel development
(AI 10–50) did not present significant changes for E27G73, and for
E95W05 it showed a slower combustion with higher variability. Another
criterion to analyze in Fig. 19 was the increase of cycle variability in
terms of standard deviation of AI10 and AI50, thus, as the combustion
becomes leaner, higher value was found for hydrous ethanol, corrobo­
rating with the previous observations for CoVIMEP.
3.3. Exhaust gas measurements
The exhaust gases of greatest interest for the engine emissions
analysis are NOx, CO, and the total hydrocarbons (THC), which were
chosen according to the most restrictive worldwide emission standards
Fig. 19. AI 10, AI 50 and spark timing respect to λ for E95W05 and E27G73.
13
Fuel 327 (2022) 125137
such as the Euro VI [1,6]. However, it is important to note that aldehyde
emissions and concentrations of unburned ethanol deserve attention in
the operation using ethanol as fuel. Aldehydes are acutely reactive
organic compounds that take part in complex chemical reactions within
the atmosphere [12]. The emissions of aldehydes are higher for ethanol
fuels due to the presence of the hydroxyl functional group (OH), which
are not present in gasoline [11,51]. Aldehyde formation is most severe at
low temperatures [12], thus occurring more intensely at lean combus­
tion. Some authors include the unburned ethanol as part of THC; how­
ever, here its representation is individual due to the interest in
understanding the in-cylinder combustion dynamics. The NO and NO2
were acquired to form the NOx value with the sum of their values.
The unburned ethanol emissions (Fig. 20) were significantly higher
for E95W05 than those for E27G73 due to the ethanol concentration in
each fuel. This high ethanol content in exhaust emissions corroborates
the discussion related to the necessity of a higher energy to vaporize the
hydrous ethanol and the mass of fuel injected is higher than that of
E27G73 to keep the same thermal power input. Therefore, the cooling
charge was higher, so the temperature in-cylinder was lower, and the
fuel vaporization was slower, compromising the air–fuel mixture
formation.
This scenario reported in the previous paragraph is critical for optical
engines, because of the reduced number of continuous combustion cy­
cles (100 cycles here); so there is no engine thermal stabilization during
the experiments, and as a consequence, the in-cylinder temperatures are
E.R. Malheiro de Oliveira et al.
Fig. 20. Emissions gas measurements of THC and unburned ethanol for
both fuels.
lower than those of commercial engines. Moreover, the crevice volume
(between the piston and quartz cylinder wall) is several times higher
than commercial engines; so in the final phase of combustion, the flame
takes place in the crevice and can be quenched, then part of the mixture
does not burn.
THC emissions are represented in Fig. 20, which initially shows a
reduction for λ up to 1.2 though increasing at higher dilutions for
E27G73. The reduction in THC emissions for low dilution rates is
explained by the increase in oxidizer concentration combined with the
effect of higher charge density and motion. Beyond λ = 1.2, the effects of
temperature and crevice quench prevails over the aforementioned ef­
fects, resulting in an incomplete combustion and increasing THC emis­
sions. The THC emission were higher for E95W05 owing to the
previously discussed cooling charge. However, as the dilution rate was
increased, THC emissions decreased because of the strong increase of
unburned ethanol.
The CO emissions followed the same trend of THC (see Fig. 21), first
decreasing until λ = 1.2 for E27G73 and λ = 1.4 for E95W05 and then
increasing for higher dilution rates. Except for λ = 1.0, the CO emissions
were higher for E95W05. Emissions of NOx are also presented in Fig. 21.
The NOx emission achieved a peak approximately at λ = 1.2 for E27G73.
This behavior, where the initial availability of oxidizer without intense
Fig. 21. Emissions gas measurements of NOx and CO for both fuels.
14
Fuel 327 (2022) 125137
temperature reduction, provides a good environment for NO formation;
but, continuously increasing the air, the temperatures drops accentually
and there is a NOx reduction. Contrary to the expected, there was a
continuous reduction for E95W05 leaner combustion due to the DI in­
jection cooling effect of this fuel. According to Masum et al. [13], as the
water content absorbs heat and lowers the peak in-cylinder temperature,
hydrous ethanol blends are more efficient in NOx emission reduction
compared to gasoline.
As expected, the aldehydes emissions (Fig. 22) at stoichiometric
conditions were higher for E95W05 than those for E27G73 [17].
Furthermore, it indicates a decreasing trend in the formation of form­
aldehyde and acetaldehyde with increased λ for E95W05 until 1.4, and
the expected opposite behavior for E27G73. The assumption was that
the emissions increased for both compounds due to the lower temper­
ature for leaner combustion, which happened for E27G73. One aspect of
E27G73 was the greater Formaldehyde concentration related to
E95W05 from the λ = 1.2 until 1.5. The unexpected result for E95W05
could be a consequence of misfire cycles, and part of the fuel, which was
not burned according to Fig. 20; as less fuel was burned, intermediate
compounds were not produced and hence their emissions were reduced,
therefore, if less fuel is burned, the production of aldehydes is lower too.
4. Conclusion
An experimental study was performed to analyze the combustion
process in a spray-guided DISI engine with injection pressure at 200 bar,
using with commercial fuels, E95W05 and E27G73, under stoichiometry
(λ = 1.0) to lean (λ = 1.5) mixtures conditions. The methodology
approach evaluated their effects comparing the flame morphology, en­
gine stability, performance and exhaust emission using a spark-ignition
engine with optical access.
Ethanol combustion was chiefly affected by its considerable high
enthalpy of vaporization. In spite of the higher maximum pressure for
hydrous ethanol lean combustion in general, the IMEP was lower in
comparison with E27G73 for the same λ because of the longer and
incomplete combustion, which spread throughout the expansion stroke,
leading to a lower energetic conversion to work.
The optical analysis indicated a faster flame propagation for gasoline
than that for hydrous ethanol, as its FWHM was higher than that of
hydrous ethanol even for high instabilities conditions, indicating that
gasoline was more prone to turbulence than hydrous ethanol. However,
the deficient vaporization of the hydrous ethanol can lead to a hetero­
geneous air–fuel mixture, generating in-cylinder concentration
Fig. 22. Emissions gas measurements of Acetaldehyde and Formaldehyde for
both fuels.
E.R. Malheiro de Oliveira et al.
gradients, which resulted in distorted flames as verified by the HCF
values for leaner conditions whereas ethanol exhibited a less distorted
flame for conditions near stoichiometric mixtures. The correlation be­
tween HCF and CoVIMEP led to the hypothesis that the mixture hetero­
geneity may affect engine performance. Hydrous ethanol achieved a
limit for flammability, in which there were occurrences of misfires cy­
cles and high CCV even for advanced spark timing. The slow flame
development was correlated to combustion instabilities as the HCF
exhibited a correlation to the CoVIMEP.
Ethanol is a promising alternative to gasoline as it is renewable and it
presents combustion characteristics, which can bring engine perfor­
mance benefits and reduced pollutant emissions. This study demon­
strated that vaporization is a relevant phenomenon affecting ethanol
combustion in a direct injection mode. The cooling effect of fuel
vaporization presented itself as a powerful means for the reduction of
NOx and aldehydes, even for lean operation. However, the same cooling
effect limited the lean limit for ethanol, as well as induced combustion
instabilities owing to the excessively low combustion temperature.
Therefore, future work is required to seek an improved combustion of
hydrous ethanol in direct injection engines under lean operation, which
includes the study of new modes of injection, effects of injection pres­
sure, injector mounting, fuel temperature, and ignition strategies,
among others.
It is important to point out that the present work is related to
combine the combustion aspects determined by the flame visualization
with thermodynamics parameters and exhaust gases, so an optical en­
gine was used. If we transpose the results to a commercial engine, the
expectation is less ethanol unburned than that registered here, due to
higher operation temperature.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Enrico R. Malheiro de Oliveira: Methodology, Validation, Inves­
tigation, Writing – original draft. Caio Henrique Rufino: Writing –
review & editing. Pedro Teixeira Lacava: Conceptualization, Writing –
review & editing, Supervision.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgements
To CAPES – Brazilian Coordination of Superior Level Staff
Improvement, for Mr. Malheiro de Oliveira the research grant – process
88887.579184/2020-00.
To CNPq – Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technolog­
ical Development, for Mr. Lacava the research grant – process 309690/
2017-0.
To FAPESP – São Paulo Research Foundation (Brazil) - and Stellantis
Group for supporting the research through the project 13/50238-3, in
the context of the Engineering Research Center Prof. Urbano Ernesto
Stumpf.
The authors would like to express their gratitude for the helpful
technical support provided by Simona M. Merola, Adrian Irimescu,
Alexander Peñaranda and Maycon F. Silva.
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