Fuel 106 (2013) 651666

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Fuel
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Optical characterization of bio-ethanol injection and combustion in a small

DISI engine for two wheels vehicles
Francesco Catapano, Paolo Sementa , Bianca Maria Vaglieco
Istituto Motori-CNR, Viale Marconi 4, 80125 Napoli, Italy

h i g h l i g h t s
" We performed optical measurements in a GDI engine for two wheels vehicles.
" We investigated two injection pressures in two engine condition using two fuels, gasoline and pure ethanol.
" Gasoline spray was more sensible to changes in injection pressure than ethanols.
" At low speed and load ethanol combustion showed faster burning rates and so higher peak pressures than gasoline.
" Ethanol combustion shows less diffusive ames than gasoline, associated with lower levels of soot.

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 5 June 2012
Received in revised form 14 November 2012
Accepted 19 November 2012
Available online 11 December 2012
Keywords:
Bio-ethanol
GDI engine
Optical measurements
2-wheels vehicles
Injection pressure

a b s t r a c t
Non-intrusive optical measurements were carried out in the combustion chamber of an optical direct
injection spark ignition (DISI) engine in order to characterize the chemical and physical processes
involved using bio-ethanol fuel with respect to commercial gasoline. In particular, an optical four strokes
small single cylinder engine for two wheels vehicles was used. It was equipped with an elongated piston
with a wide sapphire window in the head and a quartz cylinder. Two different engine conditions based on
different engine speed and load were investigated considering the effect of injection pressure. Exhaust
emissions and engine performances were assessed during the imaging and spectral measurements in
order to investigate the spray characteristics and ame propagation with high spatial and temporal resolution.
The simultaneous application of high injection pressures and bio-ethanol showed to be a valid answer
to pollutants reduction demand without worsening the performances in DISI engines, even if it needs a
careful optimization of the injection system in order to better exploit the ethanols properties.
2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Transport accounts about 19% of global energy use and 23% of
energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and these shares
Abbreviations: A/F ratio, air fuel ratio; ABDC, after bottom dead center; AKI, anti
knock index; ASOS, after start of spark; ASOI, after spark of injection; ATDC, after
top dead center; Bio, Biological; BBDC, before bottom dead center; BTDC, before top
dead center; CA, crank angle; CoV, Coefcient of Variance; DI, direct injection; DOI,
duration of injection; EOI, end of injection; EVC, exhaust valve closing; EVO, exhaust
valve opening; FWHM, Full Width at Half Maximum; GDI, gasoline direct injection;
HR, heat release; ICCD, intensied charge coupled device; IMEP, Indicated Mean
Effective Pressure; IVC, intake valve closing; IVO, intake valve opening; LHV, Lower
Heating Value; MBT, maximum brake torque; PAHs, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons; PFI, port fuel injection; Pinj, injection pressure; PM, particulate matter; ROHR,
rate of heat release; RON, research octane number; Rpm, revolution per minute;
SOI, start of injection; SOS, Start Of Spark; TDC, Top Dead Center; UHC, unburned
hydrocarbon; UV, ultra violet.
Corresponding author. Tel.: +39 0817177123; fax: +39 0812396097.
E-mail address: p.sementa@im.cnr.it (P. Sementa).
0016-2361/$ - see front matter 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.fuel.2012.11.064

will likely rise in the future. Road transport (passenger cars and
freight trucks), particularly, will continue to dominate overall
transport energy and oil use, accounting for nearly 80% of demand
in 2050. Since in EU passenger cars are responsible for around 12%
of EU CO2 emissions, innovative and technological advanced two-,
three- or light four-wheels vehicles can signicantly improve urban mobility, by requiring less space, needing less fuel energy, producing less emissions for production and operation, offering at the
same time connectivity, productivity and enjoyment. Powered
two-wheelers (PTW) play an important role in the transport sector.
In some countries mopeds with low displacements represent a
large fraction of PTW particularly in southern Europe and Asia
(Fig. 1).
In particular, two-wheels and three-wheels vehicles have been
expanding rapidly over the past several years, especially in the
urbanized areas of Asia and South Europe [1]. Across the 27 European Union (EU) countries we have now 18.4 million registered
motorcycles compared to 12.9 million mopeds in 2006. In Asia,

652

F. Catapano et al. / Fuel 106 (2013) 651666

Fig. 1. Worldwide passenger vehicles distribution by type and region [1].

PTW account for up to 75% of the whole vehicle eet, and approximately 85% of these are powered by two-stroke engines [2]. This is
due to the smaller physical size of motorcycles that allows an easier navigation in heavily congested areas. In addition, the purchase
and maintenance costs are substantially lower than the corresponding costs for even small automobiles. They emit remarkable
quantities of unburned hydrocarbons (UHCs), carbon monoxide
(CO), and particulate matter (PM), which represent a limitation because they have signicant adverse health effects and deteriorate
environmental quality. Transport sector is a major contributor to
the greenhouse effect due to the heavy, and increasing, trafc levels. In spite of ongoing activity to promote efciency, the sector is
still generating signicant increases in CO2 emissions. As the transport levels are expected to rise substantially, especially in developing countries, drastic political decisions could be taken to address
this problem in the future. Furthermore, the expected shortage of
oil fuels supply will sooner or later become a limiting factor.
An important step in the efforts aimed to solve the problem is to
replace fossil source energy with bio-energy. In the transport sector, this means either introducing bio fuels using adapted vehicles,
or blending bio fuels with petroleum-based fuels for use in present
vehicle eets. The two alternatives are not mutually exclusive.
However, blending bio fuels with petroleum-based fuels for use
in the present conventional vehicle eets has the advantage that
even using quite low blending concentrations will result in
remarkable total volumes of gasoline replaced by bio fuels, and
that the present fuel distribution infrastructure can be used as
well. The impulse to search and use alternative/biological fuels
with respect to fossil ones for spark ignition engines must be evaluated. Probably, the best candidate bio fuels to replace gasoline in
the short term are alcohols. Alcohols can be blended with gasoline
or used as pure fuel in both optimized spark ignition engines and
compression ignition engines. In the medium term, wheat ethanol
will probably be the most important alternative fuel for replacing
gasoline and in the long-term cellulose ethanol might take over
wheat ethanol [3,4].
The gasoline direct injection (GDI) engine represents, at present,
the state-of-the-art in engine research and development in reducing fuel consumption or CO2 emissions from gasoline engines. Its
potential fuel economy benet is achieved by employing necessary
stratication with lean-burn operation at part-load in order to
burn a very lean or diluted mixture mainly, inherently keeping

pumping losses at part-load and at minimum. However, combustion of the stratied charge in this engine shows some difculties
such as optimization of fuel injection, in-cylinder ow, and piston
geometry, all crucial parameters to achieve the stratied charge
condition. In particular, these parameters affect the start of injection in order to have a stoichiometric lambda value near the spark
plug at the Start Of Spark (SOS) [58]. Particularly, the wrong
choice of the timing of the above events can lead to an excess of
unburned hydrocarbons and smoke emissions. Moreover, a larger
amount of NOx is produced in the stratied charge operation than
the homogeneous lean-burn combustion. In addition, since the
spark timing is strongly linked to injection timing, it is often too
advanced for minimizing in-cylinder NOx formation. Furthermore,
the lean-burn operation necessitates the use of less efcient,
expensive, and fuel sensitive NOx after-treatment [6]. Considering
these issues, the development of GDI engine fuelled with bio fuel
has simultaneously the advantages of pollutants emission reduction and higher thermal efciency due to direct fuel injection and
higher power output than conventional engines. Ethanol can be
identied as alternative fuel to replace gasoline in automotive
applications [3,4,9]. Two signicant advantages of ethanol are its
high octane number providing excellent knock resistance, and high
latent heat of vaporization, which promotes charge cooling for increased power density (Table 1). However, ethanol shows 33%
reduction in Lower Heating Value (LHV) on a volume basis in comparison with gasoline. It is also a preferred fuel for a turbo charged
direct injection engine, which can increase compression ratio and
achieve further improvement of fuel economy by engine downsizing because of its anti-knock characteristic [3].
In order to improve the understanding of direct injection engines emission and performance using bio-fuels, optical and conventional measurements were carried out in a GDI engine fuelled
with pure bio-ethanol produced from grape pomace. In particular,
a four strokes small single cylinder engine for two wheels vehicles
was characterized.
2. Experimental apparatus and procedures
2.1. Engine
The experimental apparatus included the following modules: the
Direct Injection spark ignition (GDI) optical engine, an electrical

F. Catapano et al. / Fuel 106 (2013) 651666

Table 1
Fuels properties.
Fuel property

Ethanol

Gasoline

Formula
Molecular weight (g/mol)
Carbon (mass%)
Hydrogen (mass%)
Oxygen (mass%)
Aromatic content (%v/v)
Density, kg/l, 15/15 C
Boiling point, C
Vapor pres., kPa at 38 C
Specic heat, kJ kg1 K1
Viscosity, mPa s at 20 C
Low. heating val., 103 kJ/l
Autoignition temp., C
Research octane number
Motor octane
AKI or (R + M)/2
Cetane
Flammability lim., Vol.%
Water tolerance, Vol.%
Stoichiometric air/fuel
Carbonyl (ppm) as CO
Carbonyl (ppm) as acetone
Carbonyl (ppm) as acetaldehyde
Sulphur (mg/kg)
Copper (mg/kg)

C2H5OH
46.07
52.2
13.1
34.7

0.79
78
15.9
2.4
1.19
21.1
423
108.6
92
100

4.3/19
Compl.miscible
9
567
1117
893
<0.8
<0.1

C4C12
100105
8588
1215
2.7
35
0.720.775
27225
48103
2
0.370.44
3033
257
98
87
92.5
520
1.4/7.6
Negligible
14.6

10

dynamometer, the fuel injection line, the data acquisition and control units as well as the emission measurement system (Fig. 2a).
The electrical dynamometer allowed operating both in motoring
and ring conditions that was appropriate to detect the in-cylinder
pressure data and to explore the engine behavior in stationary and
simple dynamic conditions. The optical engine was an optically
accessible elongated single cylinder engine. It was equipped with
the cylinder head of two-wheels GDI 250 cm3 engine and six holes
injector located between the intake valves. The engine was not

653

equipped with any after-treatment device. The head had four

valves and centrally located spark plug. The engine piston was at
and transparent through a sapphire window. To reduce the window contaminations by lubricating oil, an elongated piston
arrangement was used together with un-lubricated Teon-bronze
composite piston rings in the optical section. In Fig. 2b, the sketch
of the bottom eld of view of the combustion chamber is reported.
Further details are shown in Table 2.
An optical shaft encoder was used to transmit the crank shaft
position to the electronic control unit. The information was in digital pulses, the encoder had two outputs, the rst is Top Dead Center (TDC) index signal, and it had a resolution of 1 pulse/revolution.
The second is the crank angle degree marker (CDM) 1 pulse/0.2.
The engine is a 4-stroke and the encoder gives as output two
TDC signal per engine cycle so, in order to have the right crank
shaft position, one pulse was suppressed via software.
A quartz pressure transducer was installed into the spark plug
in order to measure the in-cylinder pressure with a sensitivity of
19 pC/bar and a natural frequency of 130 kHz. The in-cylinder
pressure, the rate of heat release and the related parameters were
evaluated on an individual cycle basis and/or averaged on 400 cycles [10,11].
In all experiments the in-cylinder pressure, exhaust emissions
and performance in terms of Indicate Mean Effective Pressure
(IMEP) and Coefcient of Variance (CoV) of IMEP were measured
and evaluated. In particular, steady-state measurements of CO,
CO2, O2, UHC (unburned hydrocarbons) and NOx were performed
in the raw exhaust by commercial analyzers. CO, CO2 and UHC
were measured by Non-Dispersive Infrared Detectors (NDIR);
NOx and O2 were detected through electrochemical sensors. An
opacimeter was employed to measure the smoke emissions. The
opacity value could be translated to Bosch smoke number called
FSN (Filter Smoke Number). The opacimeter is a partial-ow system that measures the visible light attenuation (550 nm) through
the exhaust gas. From empirical relations it is possible to convert
the FSN in particulate mass concentration [12,13].

Fig. 2. (a) Experimental GDI optical engine and optical setup for digital imaging, (b) eld of view of the combustion chamber.

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F. Catapano et al. / Fuel 106 (2013) 651666

Table 2
Specications of the single cylinder spark ignition engine.
Cylinder volume (cm3)
Bore (mm)
Stroke (mm)
Valve timing (deg)
Max boost press (MPa)
Compression ratio
Max power (kW)
Max torque (Nm)

250
72
60
IVO = 6 ATDC, IVC = 50 ABDC,
EVO = 41 BBDC, EVC = 1 ATDC
0.1
10.5
16 at 8000 rpm
20 at 5500 rpm

2.2. Optical set-up

Imaging and chemiluminescence measurements from ultraviolet (UV) to visible were performed by means of the optical experimental set-up shown in Fig. 2. In particular, two different CCD
cameras with different capabilities were used. The rst had an
intensied charge coupled device (ICCD) and sensitivity from
200 nm to 800 nm; the second one was sensitive only in the visible
range.
This latter one was used to investigate the temporal and spatial
evolution of ame due to its better spatial resolution and was
equipped with a 50 mm focal length, f/3.8 Nikon lens. Its spectral
range spreads from 400 to 700 nm and it allowed performing 2D
ame visualization in order to evaluate the spatial distribution of
soot temperature and concentration by the two-color method.
The resulting spatial resolution for this optical assessment was
about 0.12 mm/pixel.
In particular by the knowledge of the absolute ame emission
intensity and the in-cylinder ame temperature, the soot emissivity was determined applying the Wien law (Eq. (1)):

Ik T ek

C1




k5 exp CkT2  1

where k is the wavelength, C1 and C2 are the rst and second Planck
constants, and ek is the emissivity which is equal to the absorptivity
according to the Kirchhoffs law. In more practical terms, the monochromatic emissivity of the diesel combustion ame can be assumed to vary as a power of the wavelength in accordance to the
relationship developed by Hottel and Broughton (Eq. (2))[14]:

ek 1  exp 


KL
ka

where K is the absorption coefcient that is proportional to the soot

concentration, L is the optical path length or ame thickness and a
is the absorption index constant for a given wavelength range. The
value of the parameter a depends on the physical and optical properties of the soot in the ame. Matsui et al. [15] carried out a validation study of the above correlation by performing measurements
of soot emissivity in a diesel engine. They concluded that in the visible range this is the correct functional relationship between emissivity and wavelength. These equations, using two proper
wavelengths, allow estimating a KL-factor, which is proportional
to the soot amount.
The wavelengths selected for this experiment were 550 nm and
650 nm in order to avoid radiation from the radicals involved in the
combustion. A Full Width at Half Maximum (FWHM) 10 bandpass
lters centered at these wavelengths was used.
It is important to point out that the sensitivity of this method
was at its low limits for low sooting conditions.
The ICCD camera was used to perform in-cylinder spray visualization to identify the ame front evolution. The images were recorded through the piston crown window and 45 mirror placed
in the elongated piston single cylinder engine and two highly

luminous CW halogen lamps have been used to light the combustion chamber trough the transparent cylinder during the injection
process. The intensier-gate duration was set equal to 1 CA (crank
angle) for all investigated events in order to have a good accuracy
in the timing. It corresponds to 83.3 ls at an engine speed of
2000 rpm and 41.6 ls at 4000 rpm. In this work, the image sequence was obtained by acquiring one frame every six engine cycles at 2000 rpm and every 12 engine cycles at 4000 rpm. The
sequence was made of 45 CA for the combustion and 22 CA for
the injection, then for each CA 10 frames were acquired in order
to take into account cycle-to-cycle variability. The dwell time between two consecutive images was set at 1 CA for both engine
speeds. For all the optical measurements, the synchronization between the cameras and the engine was made by the crank angle
encoder signal through a unit delay and the spatial resolution
was equal to about 0.13 mm/pixel.
A post-processing of the optical data was carried out by Labview of National Instruments to obtain geometrical information
from each average image, such as the mean radius of ame front
and the penetration length of the injection jets. As regards combustion evolution, every image was processed subtracting the background and xing a threshold of 5% with respect to its maximum
light intensity. The background was detected in motored condition
before the acquisition of all sequences. This procedure allowed
obtaining the ame area and the ame outline. Then, the procedure labelled all the outline points and evaluated the centroid position and the distances of each point from it, along six different
directions. The ame radius was obtained for each image by the
average on these six distances. The local light signal in each point
of the combustion chamber was evaluated by processing each image. In this way, it was possible to identify the ame front, its mean
diameter and then the ame front mean propagation speed. The
ame radius curve was calculated by a non-linear regression analysis (third degree polynomial function) using the ame radius extracts from the average image for each CA. Considering that each
single frame belongs to a different engine cycle, we obtain a statistics based on 250 cycles. In this way, we have a good accuracy on
the R trend. In particular, in the worst case in terms of cycle-to-cycle variability, we get the coefcient of determination R2 = 0.95
using only three images for each CA. Using 10 images the R2 was
equal to 0.99. However this methodology is able to evaluate only
the 2D projection of the actual ame front [16].
For the spectroscopic investigations, the combustion light emission was focused by a 78 mm focal length, f/3.8 UV Nikon objective
onto micrometer controlled entrance slit of an Acton spectrometer
with 150 mm focal length, f/3.8 aperture, 300 groove/mm grating
(Fig. 2a). In order to investigate the natural emissions from the
UV (250 nm) to the visible (750 nm), the central wavelength of
the spectrometer was xed at 375 nm and 625 nm. The output of
the spectrometer (254 nm spectral range) was coupled to the ICCD
camera. The spectrometer eld of view was due to the magnication of the optics, the slit height (14 mm) and width, pixel size
and ICCD format. The recorded data contained spectral information
along the rows of the ICCD and spatial information along the columns. In this work, the width slit was xed at 150 lm and the optical set-up allowed visualizing the central region (3  57 mm) of the
combustion chamber in 450 rows. These were binned by software
in three groups of 150 rows. Thus each spectrum corresponded to
a 3  19 mm region of the chamber. The exposure time was xed
at 83.3 ls and 41.6 ls that correspond to 1 CA at engine speed of
2000 rpm and 4000 rpm respectively. In this setup, the spectral resolution was around 0.45 nm/pixel. The ICCD operated at a digitiser
offset of about 230 counts; the dark noise uctuation in the background was less than 50 counts. For all the spectroscopic measurements the subtraction of background spectrum was performed.

F. Catapano et al. / Fuel 106 (2013) 651666

The synchronization of the CCD and ICCD camera with engine

motion was driven by the crank angle encoder signal through a delay unit.
AVL indimodul recorded the TTL signal of CCD and ICCD acquisition together with the pressure trace from the pressure transducer. In this way, it was possible to determine the crank angles
where optical data were detected.
3. Results and discussion
The aim of this paper is the investigation of the injection pressure inuence on the performance and emissions of a small GDI
single cylinder engine fuelled with gasoline and pure bio-ethanol.
In-cylinder pressure based indicated analysis, exhaust emissions
and optical measurements were carried out. In particular, a deep
characterization of the thermo-uid dynamic processes involved
in combustion evolution and in the mixture formation was performed by means of several optical diagnostics, varying the injection pressure.
The investigations were focused on two engine conditions as
they are representative of two signicant engine operating points.
The 2000 rpm low load condition represents a critical condition in
terms of stability for GDI engine, and the 4000 rpm medium load
was a point of urban driving conditions in the NEDC (New European Driving Cycle). The injection pressure varied from 3 to
12 MPa. All the tests were carried out xing the absolute intake
air pressure and temperature at 1 bar and 303 K, respectively,
and the cooling water temperature at 343 K.
The Star of Spark (SOS) was xed to operate at the maximum
brake torque (MBT) condition for gasoline and we selected the
same SOS for ethanol in every condition. A long experimental
activity on this engine allows to verify that different fuels and
injection pressures did not affect substantially the best SOS in this
conditions [17]. The Duration Of Injection (DOI) was set to obtain
stoichiometric equivalence ratio, as measured by a lambda sensor
installed at the engine exhaust and the End Of Injection (EOI) was
equal to 250 CA BTDC in order to obtain best engine stability as
experienced during a long experimental activity on this engine.
Moreover, in this way, the time between the injection and the
SOS was xed for each regime and so the time available for evaporation for both fuels results to be equal in all engine condition
tested. More details and specications are reported in Table 3.
This experimental set-up allowed to obtain a similar Indicated
Mean Effective Pressure (IMEP) and to achieve the best combustion
stability as reported in Table 3. Ethanols DOI was longer than gasolines as the ethanol stoichiometric air/fuel ratio is smaller than
gasolines, 9 vs. 14.6 (Table 1). Moreover, ethanol has a smaller
Lower Heating Value (LHV), about 26.8 MJ/kg vs. 43.2 MJ/kg (Table 1), and therefore the amount of energy per kg of stoichiometric
mixture is similar for ethanol and gasoline, respectively 2.68 MJ/kg
vs. 2.77 MJ/kg.
3.1. Engine operating condition: 2000 rpm low load
At 2000 rpm low load condition a strong variation of the CoV
was observed for different injection pressures (Table 3). For
2000G-pinj30 it reaches values higher than 5%, stating an instable
engine operating condition, and it is probably due to the poor mixing caused by the low air motion and vaporization. Increasing the
injection pressure, CoV follows a clear trend both for gasoline and
ethanol so that the highest stability can be identied with the maximum of the injection pressure. This indicates the achievement of a
stable homogeneous charge operating condition that is due to the
early injection and a good atomization of the fuel helped by the
high injection pressure. This effect is more evident with ethanol

655

fuel that, thanks to its properties, evaporates better than gasoline

in this thermo and uid dynamic condition, as would be explained
in more detail, below.
The in-cylinder pressure and related parameters (ROHR and HR)
reported in Fig. 3 conrm these considerations. In-cylinder pressure peak rises with the increase of the injection pressure and is always higher for ethanol than gasoline. In particular, the highest
pressure peak was measured for 2000E-pinj120. This suggests a
better mixture formation and so a faster and more efcient combustion obtainable with ethanol and with higher injection pressures, in the thermo-uid dynamic condition related with this
engine operating point.
Moreover, UHC and PM exhaust measurements, reported in
Fig. 4, corroborate these considerations. UHC show the same trend
of CoV as they decrease with the increase of injection pressure.
Moreover, the use of ethanol furthermore contributes to the reduction of UHC indicating the occurrence of a better atomization due
to both the high injection pressure and a fast vaporization thanks
to its boiling point value. On the other hand, the PM increases with
the decrease of injection pressure. This probably reects the spray
impact during the piston movement and its incomplete evaporation that occurs both for gasoline and ethanol. In particular, at
low injection pressure, the stoichiometric condition is obtained
by moving the SOI towards the TDC (xed EOI). This causes a large
amount of the fuel impingement in the bowl because the piston is
closer to injector [18].
Soot measurements were obtained by the opacimeter and the
values are generally correlated to the particulate carbon [13]. Nevertheless, this system has an intrinsic limitation due to the use of a
light source that emits in the visible range where the absorption
bands of heavy hydrocarbons are present too [13]. More details
on the chemical characteristics of particulate present in the exhaust are necessary; the soot in-cylinder measurements based on
spectroscopic technique can furthermore help [14,15].
The NOx emission shows a slight variation for different injection
pressure, in particular NOx increase with the increases of the injection pressure as well as the in-cylinder pressure, while a strong
reduction occurs with the use of ethanol, which is probably due
to the cooling of the charge caused by the higher quantity of ethanol injected to reach the stoichiometric A/F ratio with respect to
gasoline.
3.1.1. Injection phase at 2000 rpm low load condition
Fig. 5 reports a selection of images of the engine running with
gasoline and ethanol for all the tested condition in terms of injection pressure at 2000 rpm low load. Gasoline sprays show a single
cloud that indicates rapid fuel vaporization and a good charge
homogenization even if at such engine speed the in-cylinder air
motion is not signicant due to the low speed and load. At the start
of the injection, the intake valves are open and the piston is
descending, the air motion depends on the intake duct shape that
provides a tumble motion. This air motion enhances fuel vaporization and fuelair mixing. On the other hand, at higher injection
pressures, the spray penetration and the cone angle increases
showing a better shape which is index of the fuel vaporization. It
is important to note that at this engine speed the spray seems
not to impinge on the piston for all the injection pressures
reported.
About ethanol, a rst analysis of the spray images shows features similar to gasoline. The observations of the injection process
have furthermore revealed that there are some basic differences in
the ethanol and gasoline sprays. Ethanol shows six individual jets
in contrast with gasoline which shows a single cloud. This originates from differences in the liquid properties of alcohol fuels compared to the aromatics compounds typically found in gasoline
(Table 1). Ethanol has a more than double viscosity than the main

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F. Catapano et al. / Fuel 106 (2013) 651666

Table 3
Engine operating conditions.
Case name

Load

Fuel

Speed (rpm)

PInj. (MPa)

SOS (deg)

SOI (deg)

EOI (deg)

DOI (deg)

IMEP (MPa)

CoV IMEP (%)

2000G-pinj30
2000G-pinj120
2000E-pinj30
2000E-pinj120
4000G-pinj30
4000G-pinj120
4000E-pinj30
4000E-pinj120

Low
Low
Low
Low
Medium
Medium
Medium
Medium

Gasoline
Gasoline
Ethanol
Ethanol
Gasoline
Gasoline
Ethanol
Ethanol

2000
2000
2000
2000
4000
4000
4000
4000

3
12
3
12
3
12
3
12

24
24
24
24
21
21
21
21

283
266.5
296
275
365
305
294
335

250
250
250
250
250
250
250
250

33
16.5
46
25
115
55
176
85

0.28
0.28
0.28
0.28
0.65
0.67
0.65
0.67

5.57
3.95
5.14
2.85
4.35
1.90
3.69
2.72

Fig. 3. (a) In-cylinder pressure, (b) ROHR, and (c) HR averaged curves for the experimental optical engine fuelled with ethanol and gasoline at 2000 rpm low load condition.

Fig. 4. PM, UHC, and NOx exhaust emission for the experimental optical engine fuelled with ethanol and gasoline at 2000 rpm low load condition.

gasoline hydrocarbon components such as pentanes, octanes and

xylenes and gasolines vapor pressure is higher than ethanol between the temperatures of 300 K and 410 K. In these engine conditions, injection occurs during the intake stroke and so at low
pressure and temperature, but EOI is very far from SOS and so fuels
has many time to evaporate before the start of combustion. Thus,
even if ethanol spray features a slower evaporation and so a deeper
penetration than gasoline, during the compression stroke ethanol
could evaporate better than gasoline, as well as the impinged fuel.
This enhances a local homogeneity of the mixture and limits the
formation of liquid fuel deposits [19].
Post-detection methodologies were applied to recover the optical data. About the in-cylinder spray visualization, the fundamental
steps of the image processing are reported in Fig. 6ac. The 12-bit
color-scale image was converted in 12-bit grey-scale image
(Fig. 6a). After a convolution ltering, a binary image was obtained
xing a threshold of 15% for the instantaneous luminosity (Fig. 6b).
Finally the region of interest was selected and an outline was

obtained (Fig. 6c). The procedure allowed assessing the maximum

distance between the spray tip and the injector.
Fig. 7 shows the jets penetration for both fuels at 2000 rpm low
load condition with the two different injection pressures. As expected, as the injection pressure increases jets penetration length
grows more for gasoline than ethanol. Ethanol plumes penetration
is deeper than gasoline one on average at every injection pressure.
This effect is due to the different properties of the two fuels, as explained before.
3.1.2. Combustion phase at 2000 rpm low load condition
Fig. 8 shows a selection of images detected during the combustion phase for ethanol and gasoline at the 2000 rpm and for the
injection pressures of 3 and 12 MPa. For both fuels, a luminous
arc represents the evidence of spark ignition. It occurs around
24 CA BTDC and persists until 15 CA BTDC when the ame kernel
is well observable, even if its luminosity is much lower than the
spark. Then, the ame kernel moves from the spark plug along a

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657

Fig. 5. Selection of gasoline and ethanol images of injection at 2000 rpm low load condition for both injection pressures.

Fig. 6. Step of post-detection methodologies realized to calculate the spray penetration from the optical data.

similar radial path suggests a good mixing at the SOS. In this case,
both fuels have enough time to evaporate and mix with air. This
leads to the formation of a homogeneous charge and therefore to
a prevalent premixed combustion. The effect of injection pressure
is evident, especially for gasoline fuel. Increasing the injection
pressure, the evaporation is faster and the mixing is complete. This
leads to a more efcient combustion as conrmed by the almost
total absence of diffusive ames. A better mixing, a consequent absence of diffusive ames, and more efcient combustion it is also
observed for ethanol with the increase of the injection pressure.
Moreover, the combustion process becomes faster at the increase of the injection pressure, as shown by the heat release rate
(Fig. 3b) and by the evaluated ame front speed (Fig. 9). Flame
front propagation velocity is closely related to turbulence, airfuel
ratio (k) and fuel; in particular, it increases with the increase of turbulence and the decrease of k [11,18]. At 2000 rpm low load condition, the turbulence in the intake air is not so strong and the ame
speed depends mainly on homogeneity of the charge. As it is
shown in Fig. 9, the injection pressure has more inuence on ame
front speed than the fuels properties. In particular, the speed
reaches the highest value of about 10 m/s for the pinj120 conditions for both fuels, while a further difference in the time evolution
can be observed. More in detail, the ame speed has a fast slope
and starts with a higher value with the increase of the injection

Fig. 7. Penetration length of gasoline and ethanol injection spray at 2000 rpm low
load for both injection pressures.

pressure. Then, it reaches the highest value in 20 CA for the gasoline. This time is reduced to 17 CA for the ethanol. After this time,
the speed decreases due to the increase of pressure in the end gas.

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Fig. 8. Selection of ame front propagation images for ethanol and gasoline at
2000 rpm low load engine condition.

At lower injection pressure condition, the ame speed reaches a

maximum value lower of 2 m/s for 2000E-pinj30 than 2000Epinj120 and 1 m/s for 2000G-pinj30 than 2000G-pinj120 case
(Fig. 9). Therefore, at 3 MPa condition the ame takes 30 CA to
touch the chamber wall in the region of exhaust valves and
40 CA to ll the entire chamber. As injection pressure increases,
the more efcient vaporization and homogenization allows to reduce the time of ame propagation towards the walls of about
5 CA at pinj12 MPa condition.

During the late phase of combustion (Fig. 10), it is present a yellow ame wide spread in the combustion chamber. As you can see,
an intense ame was detected, rst near the injector and then in
the whole chamber in 2000G-pinj30 case. As shown in Fig. 10, gasoline combustion is characterized by a higher number of diffusive
ames than ethanol, in all conditions. The time evolution curves of
soot formation were evaluated as the integral KL factor curves over
the entire chamber and reported in Fig. 11. The total soot amount
built up in the combustion chamber is the highest for 2000Gpinj30 and decreases when the injection pressure increases, due
to the better fuelair interaction. About ethanol, the soot amount
production increases at the rise of injection pressure due to the
amount of fuel impinged on the piston. In this case it is important
to note that at the opening of exhaust valves the differences of soot
amount in the combustion chamber decrease.
In order to better evaluate the chemical process involved into
the combustion chamber, spectroscopic measurements were performed by means of the ICCD camera and two bandpass lters
FWHM 10 with a central wavelength of 310 nm and 430 nm for
OH and CH, respectively. OH and CH radical species were detected
since they are considered more signicant in the combustion process [15]. Fig. 12a shows the temporal evolution of the integral
emission of the OH radical measured in the combustion chamber.
Light emission from the OH radicals is an effective indicator of
the combustion reaction; OH intensity depends on the local temperature and equivalence ratio [15]. For both fuels, from the start
of spark, the OH emission is higher for 12 MPa injection pressure
than 30 MPa, accordingly with the in-cylinder pressure measurements (Fig. 3a). This indicates the better air fuel mixing as good
as the faster rising of ROHR (Fig. 3b). Moreover, the OH emission
for gasoline condition is higher than ethanol one, this is probably
due to locally rich mixture zones in the combustion chamber.
Fig. 12b shows the temporal evolution of the integral emission
of the CH radical measured in the combustion chamber. The production of the CH radicals is closely related to temperature [20],
CH radicals increase with the peak combustion temperature. It is
important to note that for the same fuel the CH production increases with the rise in the fuel injection pressure. It is due to
the increase of performance and ROHR peak. Using gasoline, the
CH production is much higher than ethanol probably as inhomogeneity of the charge can lead to a local enhancement of combustion
temperature. These results allow understanding better the NOx exhaust emission trend for all the investigated strategy. In particular
it is evident the increase at the rise of injection pressure and with
gasoline (Fig. 4).
A further analysis of OH and CH data allow the determination of
local air fuel ratio using experimental relations [21]. Different

Fig. 9. (a) Flame front mean radius and (b) mean ame speed for ethanol and gasoline at 2000 rpm low load for both injection pressures.

F. Catapano et al. / Fuel 106 (2013) 651666

659

formulas were tested and the following Eqs. (3) and (4) were chosen as the ones that better evaluate the actual k in the tested conditions. Fig. 12c shows the integral k value during the combustion,
obtained from the following empirical equation:

k 1=0:6  0:314  lnOH=CH

 0:344=0:999 for gasoline

k 1=0:9  0:146  lnOH=CH

 0:590=0:749 for ethanol

Fig. 10. Selection of late phase of combustion images for ethanol and gasoline at
2000 rpm low load condition for both injection pressure.

The lambda value for 2000G-pinj30 is very irregular, it is high in

the rst combustion phase, indicating a globally lean mixture, and
decrease in the second phase because of the big amount of fuel that
burns with diffusive ames (rich mixture), accordingly to soot evolution in combustion chamber (Fig. 11) and exhaust measurements
(Fig. 4). Using ethanol fuel the lambda value is slightly higher than
gasoline one. It is important to note that the lambda for which
there is the maximum ame speed is higher for ethanol k = 0.9
than for gasoline k = 0.83, and also the laminar ame speed is higher for ethanol than for gasoline. This may explain the higher ame
speed calculated for ethanol combustion in the investigated
strategies.
Finally, the ethanol ames show a green dominant color, probably due to the copper amount from grape pomace. In order to analyze this hypothesis, spectroscopic measurements were carried out
on the same engine by means of ICCD camera coupled with a

Fig. 11. Temporal evolution of KL factor for gasoline and ethanol at 2000 rpm low load for both injection pressures.

Fig. 12. (a) OH integral emission intensity (b) CH integral emission intensity; and (c) k value, for 2000 rpm low load condition.

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spectrometer (Fig. 2a). Fig. 13 shows the emission spectra versus

wavelength and crank angle, for ethanol and gasoline at
2000 rpm pinj120 in the spark plug region. Images were carried
out from the Start of Spark (SOS) until exhaust valve opening. A
strong peak at 586 nm was evident in the ethanol spectrum, while
in gasoline one, the 586 nm emission intensity is lower, and however, is hidden by the strong emission band of the soot. Thus, we
hypothesize that this peak is due to the combustion of particles
coming from the Teon-bronze ring of the engine. However, the
green color is evident only for ethanol, so the presence of copper
in bio-ethanol probably can amplify the emission in the range between 500 and 600 nm, in particular at 586 nm. Moreover, the relative weight of the green band (500600 nm) compared to the
blue band (400500 nm) is greater for ethanol than gasoline,
and however gasoline shows always the strong emission band typical of soot that mask the green band.
3.2. Engine operating condition: 4000 rpm medium load
At 4000 rpm medium load, the CoV shows a similar behavior to
the one observed at 2000 rpm even if the combustion is more stable. In particular, for gasoline the CoV decreases with the increase
of injection pressure probably due to the achievement of a more
homogeneous charge into the cylinder. Fig. 14 reports the in-cylinder
pressure, the rate of heat release and heat release averaged on 500
consecutive cycles and Fig. 15 shows the PM, UHC and NOx emissions at the exhaust, for different injection pressure at 4000 rpm
medium load using gasoline and bio-ethanol. The related IMEP
and the CoV are reported in Table 3. At this engine speed, the increase of injection pressures contributes to improve the combustion stability and the regulated emission especially for gasoline.
Data analysis show that the increase of injection pressure leads
to higher pressure peaks in the cylinder during the combustion
both for gasoline and ethanol. Moreover, with the rise of injection
pressure the ame velocity increases strongly. It is due to the better homogenization at stoichiometric lambda value induced by
shorter injection duration and by a good atomization of fuel. In

fact, the ame propagation is inuenced by the thermodynamic

conditions, mixture composition, and the local turbulence intensity [11]. When the ame propagates in the radial direction to a region with equivalence ratio gradient, each part of the front evolves
in a eld characterized by a different fuel concentration. This induces variation of the propagation speed along the ame front.
In particular, for gasoline the ame speed increase with the rise
of injection pressure, it is probably due to impingement of fuel
on the piston caused by the longer duration of the injection at pressure of 3 MPa [18]. This is also shown by ethanols HR curves
(Fig. 14b) that are lower than gasoline ones during the ame front
propagation and indicates a less efcient combustion and hence
more fuel available to diffusive ame in the second phase of the
combustion process [2224]. As regards exhausts emission, NOx
shows a slight variation for different injection pressures and a
strong reduction using ethanol that it is due to the cooling of the
charge caused by the bigger amount of ethanol injected and ethanols vaporization heat higher than gasoline one, as said before.
UHC show for gasoline the same trend of CoV as they decrease with
the increase of the injection pressure. Moreover, the use of ethanol
further contributes to the reduction of UHC only at pinj 3 MPa indicating the occurrence of a better atomization and fast vaporization
due to its boiling point value, increasing the injection pressure the
UHC emission rise because of the longer penetration of the spray
that cause greater fuel lm on the piston surface. At the same time,
the opacity in the gasoline case increases with decrease of injection
pressure. This probably reects the spray impact during the piston
movement and its incomplete evaporation. In the ethanol case the
opacity is similar for the different injection pressure probably because of the longer penetration of the spray plumes at injection
pressure of 12 MPa that balance the longer duration of the injection at injection pressure of 30 MPa. In particular, at low injection
pressure, the stoichiometric condition is obtained moving the SOI
towards the TDC (xed EOI). This causes a large amount of the fuel
impingement in the bowl because the piston is closer to injector
[25]. Nevertheless, the use of ethanol improves furthermore the
stability and particulate emissions even if it does not occur for

Fig. 13. Emission spectra versus wavelength and crank angle, for ethanol and gasoline at 2000 rpm pinj120 in the spark plug region.

F. Catapano et al. / Fuel 106 (2013) 651666

661

Fig. 14. (a) In-cylinder pressure, (b) ROHR, and (c) HR averaged curves for the experimental optical engine fuelled with ethanol and gasoline at 4000 rpm medium load
condition and all injection pressure tested.

Fig. 15. PM, UHC, and NOx exhaust emission for the experimental optical engine fuelled with ethanol and gasoline at 4000 rpm medium load condition.

all the injection pressures. In particular, gasolines CoV was lower

than ethanols at pinj 12 MPa. Moreover, the ethanols in-cylinder
pressure peak and combustion speed are always lower than gasoline for all the injection pressures (Fig. 14). This is probably due to
both the high quantity of fuel impinged on the piston surface
caused by the longer ethanol injection than gasoline as well as to
the shorter time available to the fuel to evaporate at 4000 rpm
with respect to 2000 rpm.

3.2.1. Injection phase at 4000 rpm medium load

Fig. 16 shows a selection of ethanol and gasoline spray images
obtained at 4000 rpm medium load, at injection pressure of 3
and 12 MPa. In this condition the high tumble motion, due to the
opening of throttle valve, enhances the fuel vaporization and
fuelair mixing too. Nevertheless, the longer DOI, compared to
2000 rpm low load condition, causes higher quantity of fuel impinged on the piston surface. Moreover, both for gasoline and for
ethanol, the spray cone angle is smaller than the one at
2000 rpm low load condition indicating a faster vaporization of liquid fuel because of the higher air motion.
Fig. 17 shows jets penetration at 4000 rpm medium load evaluated as described before for 2000 rpm condition. At this engine
speed, DOI is much longer than previous condition and so the
SOI is near the TDC especially for ethanol as it needs a longer
DOI in order to obtain stoichiometric AFR. A growth at injection
pressure increase can be detected for both fuels but the effect of
pressure is more evident for gasoline. About ethanol injection,
most of fuel injected impacts on piston head forming liquid fuel
deposits. Nevertheless, as it will be shown below by the investigation of soot process formation, these deposits burn before the

opening of exhaust valve and the combustion of liquid fuel generate less particulate.
3.2.2. Combustion phase at 4000 rpm medium load
Images of early phase of the combustion evolution, for both
fuels and all injection pressures tested, are displayed in Fig. 18.
In particular, before the ame front reaches the chamber walls,
several bright spots, visible in the burned gas especially at low
injection pressure, characterize gasoline combustion. This event,
which leads to the formation of particulate and incomplete burning (UHC emissions), is signicantly lower for ethanol than gasoline in this phase.
For both fuels it is clear that the higher injection pressure
(pinj120 conditions) leads to a faster combustion process than
pinj30 condition. The faster and more efcient combustion process improves the engine performance and emission measurements as reported in Fig. 5 and Table 3. In particular, ethanol
performances in term of IMEP are worse than gasoline ones probably because of the very long duration of injection (DOI) that is
necessary to reach stoichiometric AFR. The end of injection in fact,
is xed at 250 CA BTDC in order to obtain the most stable engine
operating condition and so while the DOI increases the start of
injection moves to the TDC (Table 3), and even the 4000E-pinj30
SOI is located at 294 CA ATDC when the exhaust valves are
closing.
Therefore, the 4000 rpm medium load condition leads to a
worse mixing and a higher formation of fuel lms than at
2000 rpm, especially for ethanol. It depends on the piston that is
close to the nozzle when the most of injection occurs. Thus, ethanol combustion at all injection pressures is globally leaner than
gasoline, during the ame front propagation. This could be noticed

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F. Catapano et al. / Fuel 106 (2013) 651666

Fig. 16. Selection of gasoline and ethanol images of injection at 4000 rpm medium load condition for both injection pressures.

Fig. 17. Penetration of gasoline and ethanol injection spray at 4000 rpm medium
load for both injection pressures.

looking at the ame speed evaluated with the same procedure previously described and represented in Fig. 19. Lower ame front
speed could be explained with a higher k, as other parameters, generally involved in ame speed variation, could be assumed similar
for both fuels in this condition [11,18]. Unlike at 2000 rpm condition, ame front speed depends mainly on fuel properties and less
on injection pressure. In particular ame speed results higher for
gasoline than ethanol for all injection pressures studied. Then,
4000E-pinj120 combustion is less efcient compared to 4000Gpinj120, as a signicant amount of fuel burns releasing a lower
amount of energy. This suggests an injection system improvement
using higher ow rate injectors, in order to reduce the DOI and better exploit ethanol properties.
Nevertheless air fuel ratio (k), as measured at the exhaust, is
equal for both fuels and UHC emissions are even slightly lower
for ethanol than gasoline. This means that most of the ethanol liquid deposits anyway take part to combustion. They could burn

Fig. 18. Selection of ame front propagation images for ethanol and gasoline at
4000 rpm medium load condition.

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663

Fig. 19. Flame front mean radius and mean ame speed for ethanol and gasoline at 4000 rpm medium load condition.

Fig. 20. Selection of late phase of combustion images for ethanol and gasoline at
4000 rpm medium load condition for both injection pressures.

with a quite complete combustion, thanks to their boiling point in

the average lower than gasoline ones and absence of heavy hydrocarbon compounds (Table 1).
While the ame front propagates into the chamber and reaches
the walls and the piston head (Fig. 15), fuel lm deposits start
burning with diffusive ames. At this time, the diffusive ames
are present also for ethanol, mainly in 4000E-pinj120. However,
in this condition a lower level of UHC and particulate matter emissions are observed. These phenomena are probably due to the better vaporization of the fuel provided by higher pressure and the
absence of low volatile compounds, as mentioned before, and a
better behavior of ethanol in liquid phase combustion [2529].
Fig. 20 shows a selection of images detected during the late
phase of combustion at 4000 rpm for ethanol and gasoline obtained varying the injection pressures. When the gasoline ame
front interacted with the fuel deposits on the piston, several diffusion-controlled ames with high luminosity were observed. These

ames persisted in the late combustion phase and their presence

could be detected until the exhaust valves opening (25% open at
150 CA ATDC). The space distribution of diffusion-controlled
ames can be analyzed through the image selection reported in
Fig. 20. It shows the ame emissions revealed just after the crank
angle of maximum pressure until the end of the combustion process. The highly intense ames were observed especially near the
injector region, as expected. The diffusive ames were possible
since the oxygen was not completely consumed after the normal
ame front propagation. Moreover, the images show that the diffusive ames and so the amount of fuel impinged on the piston decrease at the increase of injection pressure. This demonstrates
that the high fuel injection pressure provides a better vaporization
and a more complete combustion.
On the other side, the ethanol ames are characterized by a
green dominant color due probably to the copper amount from
grape pomace rings, as said before, and during the combustion evolution the diffusive ames are almost completely absent indicating
that the fast evaporation of fuel avoids the liquid deposits on the
piston. The combustion shows some bright spots caused by liquid
fuel droplets that ignite and burns as diffusive ames at the injection pressure of 12 MPa.
Previous spectroscopic investigations showed that the diffusion-controlled ames spectra are characterized by a strong continuous contribution in the visible range that increases with the
wavelength that is typical of soot material [15]. In order to study
this effect, two-color pyrometry measurement was performed also
for all the selected condition at 4000 rpm in order to follow the
soot formation and oxidation directly in the combustion chamber.
This methodology allowed the evaluation of soot space distribution
since the main source of soot in GDI engines is the diffusioncontrolled combustion of the fuel deposits on the piston [2528].
The time evolution of KL factor (proportional to the soot concentration) is integrated on the chamber volume and measured between
0 and 100 CA (Fig. 21). The KL factor value is still high at the exhaust valves opening only for 4000G-pinj30 case. In particular, for
gasoline fuel the KL reaches lower values with the increase of injection pressure demonstrating that a better atomization of the fuel
provides at a good airfuel mixing and reduction of soot in chamber and then in the exhaust. About ethanol, the KL intensity is always less than two orders of magnitude compared to gasoline
fuel one but it increases at the rise of injection pressure due to
amount of fuel impinged on the piston caused by the deeper
penetration and duration of the fuel spray. However, for all the selected conditions, around 40 CA ATDC, the integral soot intensity
reaches the maximum value that matched with the second peak
of the rate of heat release (Fig. 14b), indicating the heat released

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F. Catapano et al. / Fuel 106 (2013) 651666

by the combustion with diffusive ames of the fuel deposited on

the piston. This heat did not help the engine work [18,26].
Summarizing, the diagrams of the KL factor, conrm the formation of a big amount of soot during the rst phase of combustion
between 10 and 30 CA ATDC. In particular, bigger quantities built
up in 4000G-pinj30 and 4000E-pinj120 for gasoline and ethanol,
respectively, while 4000E-pinj30 case shows the lower emission
intensity. During the development of the combustion process, the
soot oxidation appears different for each condition. In 4000Epinj120, the soot formation continues until 100 CA ATDC. It is
probably due to the big amount of liquid fuel burning. The other
conditions show a progressive soot oxidation, which leads to a
strong reduction of the total amount of particulate in the exhaust
gas. It is important to note that ethanol has little tendency to soot
also burning in rich ames, as observed by other authors [2931].
Ethanol combustion reaction-pathway is characterized by lower
concentration of typical species which are precursors for aromatics
and eventually soot, than other hydrocarbon fuels such gasoline.
Moreover, even if in the ethanol rich ames all hydrocarbon intermediates are more abundant, they are always lower than in gasolines one [30]. Looking at 4000E-pinj120 soot diagram, in fact, in
the rst phase it shows a big amount of soot formation due to
the burning of the big amount of liquid fuel deposited on the piston, comparable to 4000G-pinj120. Ethanol soot oxidation, however, is more efcient thus reducing the formation of PAHs and
of precursors of nanoparticles [29]. Our measurements, both into
the cylinder and at the exhaust, conrm this literature data as
shown by the lower quantity of particulate detected at the exhaust,
even in 4000E-pinj120 test case, which leads to a high fuel lm
layer.
This study conrms that the ethanol capability in reducing particulate emission depends both on its physical and chemical properties but also, strongly, on combustion conditions.
The lambda value for ethanol, at 4000 rpm medium load, results
to be higher than 2000 rpm strategy one especially in the rst combustion phase (Fig. 22). It states that the combustion process is
characterized by a less homogeneous mixture, globally lean in
the front ame propagation phase, causing low ame speed and
globally rich in the second combustion phase, conrmed by the
presence of a higher amount of liquid fuel deposits. A higher quantity of fuel burns in the late phase of combustion with diffusive
ames. We can also apply these considerations for 4000G-pinj30
condition, in good agreement with soot evolution in combustion
chamber (Fig. 21) and exhaust measurements (Fig. 15). On the
other side, for 4000G-pinj120 the lambda value achieved during
the rst phase of combustion is next to stoichiometric one and it
is quite constant around this value indicating a good vaporization

and homogenization. This can explain the faster ame speed of this
condition.
4. Summary/conclusions
This work deals with thermodynamic and optical investigation
of injection and combustion process in an optically accessible engine derived from a small GDI engine for motorcycle applications.
Two engine operating conditions were thoroughly analyzed:
2000 rpm low load condition was selected in order to study a critical condition, in terms of stability, for GDI engine, and the
4000 rpm medium load was chosen as a representative point of urban driving conditions in the NEDC. In particular, the effect of injection pressure on engine performance and emissions were tested
varying the injection pressure from 3 to 12 MPa and using gasoline
and bio-ethanol. Injection process and soot formation process formation were studied using imaging and two-color pyrometry,
through a CCD color camera. Flame front evolution was investigated
by means of an intensied CCD camera capable to perform chemiluminescence measurements from ultraviolet (UV) to visible.
Injection investigation, at 2000 rpm low load condition, showed
that the jets penetration grows with the injection pressure increase, especially for gasoline. This is due to the different physical
properties between the two fuels. On the other hand, ethanol spray
features a slower evaporation and so a deeper penetration than
gasoline during injection at low temperature and pressure. However, during the compression stroke until the SOS, ethanol could
evaporate better than gasoline, as well as the impinged fuel, leading to an enhanced local homogeneity and a smaller liquid fuel
deposits than gasoline. Combustion was characterized by diffusive
ames caused by the burning of liquid fuel impinged on the piston.
Their intensity decreases at the rise of injection pressure. This
demonstrates a better vaporization and a more complete combustion with high fuel injection pressure. About ethanol, the diffusive
ames are almost completely absent during the evolution of the
combustion process in 2000E-pinj30 condition since the fuel accumulated on the piston can evaporate before burning. At injection
pressure of 12 MPa, some bright spots can observed because of liquid fuel droplets that ignite completely. A further investigation of
combustion process was carried out using two-color pyrometry,
which allowed to assess the space and time distribution of the soot
into the combustion chamber through a KL factor. This analysis
conrmed that the engine performances in terms of particulate
emissions improve with the increase of the injection pressure, particularly this effect is more relevant for gasoline. On the other
hand, ethanol shows a low tendency to soot formation caused by
its chemical properties.

Fig. 21. Temporal evolution of integral KL factor for gasoline and ethanol at 4000 rpm medium load for both injection pressures.

F. Catapano et al. / Fuel 106 (2013) 651666

665

Fig. 22. (a) OH integral emission intensity, (b) CH integral emission intensity; and (c) k value, for 4000 rpm medium load condition.

At 4000 rpm medium load, the effect of the air motion better
helps to airfuel mixing. The impingement phenomena are relevant for both fuels and particularly for ethanol as the duration of
injection substantially increases. The jets penetration is characterized by a no-linear trend as DOI is much longer and the injection
occurs when the piston is close to the injector. However, the penetration increases with the injection pressure particularly for gasoline. About the ethanol injection, most of the fuel injected
impacts on piston head forming liquid fuel accumulation. This
leads to a less efcient combustion and in particular the ame
speed results higher for gasoline than ethanol at this engine operating condition with all injection pressures tested. Then, the ethanol combustion at 4000 rpm medium load is less efcient
compared to gasoline, as a signicant amount of fuel burns releasing a lower amount of energy. Nevertheless, these fuel burns
before the opening of exhaust valve generating less soot than gasoline as shown by in-cylinder soot analysis trough the two-color
pyrometry and accordingly to exhaust measurements.
This work conrms the high potentialities of bio-ethanol as fuel
in direct injection engines as regard both performance and emission. But it points out the need of a careful optimization of the control strategies and in particular of the injection system in all the
engine operating condition, as ethanols behavior is remarkably
inuenced by the in-cylinder thermo-uid dynamic and by DOI.
In conclusion the use of direct injection with high injection pressure and bio-ethanol fuel could be very useful to optimize small
spark ignition in two wheels engines for their use in congested urban area especially for their further development in the urbanized
areas of Asia and South of Europe.
Acknowledgments
This research effort was funded in part by the Italian Ministry of
University and Research and FIRB-RBIP06YLMY Fundamental
methodologies for development of two wheels DI engines with
low fuel consumption and pollutant emissions fuelled by gasoline
and gaseous alternative fuels.
The authors are grateful to Mr. Carlo Rossi and Mr. Bruno
Sgammato for the support in the experimental activities carried out.
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