F2016-ESYH-003

Emission and Combustion Stability Improvement on a TGDI Engine by

Multi-Injection using Controlled Valve Operation
1
Scherrer, Daniel*; 1 Kim, Joonhyuk; 1 Kim, Sungki;
2
Dr. Kim, Wootae; 2 Kim, Heungchul; 2 Hwang, Iljoong; 2 Lee, Hwangbok;
1
Robert Bosch Korea Ltd.; 2 Hyundai Motor Company, Korea

KEYWORDS – Controlled Valve Operation CVO, multi-injection, PN optimization,

combustion stability, fuel metering accuracy

ABSTRACT

The potential of emission and combustion stability improvement through usage of multi-
injection and Controlled Valve Operation (CVO) functionality was shown on the Hyundai
Motor Company Kappa 3-cylinder TGDI 1.0L engine. The CVO function enables an
individual injector feedback control leading to an equalization of the injected quantity from
injector to injector over the whole injection duration range, thus allowing the usage of multi-
injection patterns with extended degrees of freedom. Through the usage of multi-injection
with short pulses, the exhaust gas emission during catalyst heating, steady state and transient
operation could be reduced. Equalization of the cylinder individual injected quantity through
the CVO functionality enabled a significant combustion stability improvement during catalyst
heating with late ignition timing.

INTRODUCTION

Stringent emission legislations and vehicle fleet CO2 targets keep driving car manufacturers to
further optimize passenger car engines. The nowadays well established trend of engine
displacement reduction combined with turbo-charging and direct injection, the so called
downsizing, requires a strong development focus on the combustion concept design.
Especially in the case of a downsized engine with reduced bore diameter as used in this
investigation, the minimization of combustion chamber wall impingement with fuel is
mandatory to reduce particulate number emission. Besides the optimization of spray spatial
repartition enabled by laser drilling technology, the utilization of multi-injection is necessary,
whereas the subsequent requirement to fuel metering accuracy is addressed by the BOSCH
Controlled Valve Operation (CVO) allowing a lifetime control and compensation of injected
quantity tolerances and thus enabling the extensive usage of multi-injection with a wide
calibration parameters range.

MOTIVATION

This investigation has been conducted with following targets:

 Optimize emission, fuel economy and combustion stability using multi-injection with
extended short pulse duration range enabled by CVO;
 Assess the effect of injected quantity deviation on the engine behavior with and without
CVO.
In collaboration with Hyundai Motor Company, the Kappa 1.0L 3-cylinder TGDI engine has
been used for this investigation. Presented on Vienna International Motor Symposium [1]
(Lee H. et al 2015) and introduced to the European market in 2015 for the Hyundai and Kia
brands, this engine features a high maximum specific torque of 21.6 bar BMEP and a 20MPa
direct injection system with side mounted injectors. The test engine specification is listed in
table (1).

Displacement 998cm3
Number of cylinders 3
Engine layout I3
Bore 71mm
Stroke 84mm
Compression ratio 10.0:1
Maximum Power 88kW @ 6,000rpm
Maximum Torque 172Nm @ 1,500 ~ 4,000rpm
Valvetrain Dual CVVT
Fuel system BOSCH HDEV5.2 injectors w/ 6
individual diameter laser drilled
holes, side mounted
20MPa high pressure pump
Fuel RON95
ECU BOSCH MED17
CVO 2nd generation

Table 1: Hyundai Motor Company Kappa 1.0 liter TGDI test engine specification

With its bore diameter of 71mm, this engine requires a particular attention for the calibration
in order to avoid piston and cylinder wall impingement. It is nowadays well known that
beside coldstart and engine coolant warm-up phase, the first accelerations in e.g. Worldwide
harmonized Light-vehicle Test Cycle (WLTC) are as well very critical in terms of emissions
and particularly for PN emissions. Therefore, the investigation focused first on catalyst
heating operation, second on partial load steady state operation and third on a transient load
step representative of one the first accelerations in WLTC.

EFFECT OF THE MULTI-INJECTION ON THE INJECTED QUANTITY

Figure 1 shows schematically the injected quantity of a DI injector and the relative standard
deviation from injector to injector as function of injection duration. This characteristic graph
can be divided in 3 regions: ballistic, transition and full-lift range.

Figure 1: Schematic injected quantity and relative standard deviation as function of injection duration of a
HDEV5.2 injector

When applying an injection duration in the full-lift range, the injector needle is fully lifted and
maintained in its mechanical stop by the solenoid. The relative standard deviation from
injector to injector shown schematically in fig. 1 is caused by differences in the opening and
closing phase of the needle, and by the manufacturing tolerances of the spray holes. As the
injected quantity is relatively big compared to the quantity deviation, the relative standard
deviation (RSD) is small.
In the case of an injection duration in the ballistic range, the energization of the solenoid
causes a needle lift, but does not last long enough to move the needle in the top mechanical
stop. At the end of the energization, the magnetic force created by the solenoid disappears and
the needle moves back into the valve seat pushed by the injector spring, thus accomplishing a
partial lift against the spring force. Even tiny manufacturing tolerances of the injector setting
parameters can lead to high injected quantity tolerances. Further quantity deviations in
injector ballistic range can appear as a result of temperature and hydraulic pulsations in the
vehicle. At an injected quantity typically <4mg in this injection duration range, the result is a
relative standard deviation much higher than in full-lift range.

With the background of emission optimization and especially the particulate number
reduction for EU6c, a typical injection strategy optimization on a TGDI engine implies
injection pressure increase and usage of double or triple injection. Doing so, the occurrence of
shorter injection durations becomes higher and the absolute injected quantity deviation tends
to increase. Figure 2 shows an example of an injected quantity and its relative standard
deviation in the case of single injection with 12MPa versus triple injection with 20MPa.

Figure 2: Schematic comparison of injected quantity and relative standard deviation

comparison between single and triple injection

The cylinder-to-cylinder deviation sums up and the A/F ratio controller adjusts all cylinders
equally to reach a stoichiometric global A/F ratio. Figure 3 shows how the cylinder individual
A/F equivalence ratio due to injected quantity deviation becomes amplified by the effect of
the A/F ratio controller leading to a significant enrichment or enleanment of a single cylinder.

Figure 3: Example of cylinder individual A/F equivalence ratio (lambda) deviation resulting from injector
quantity deviation combined with engine A/F controller
For a 3 cylinder engine, the worst case would be one “lean” injector, meaning an injector
whose injected quantity is lower than it should be, combined with two “rich” injectors. For an
absolute injected quantity deviation of -5% percent for the lean injector and +5% for the rich
injectors, the A/F ratio controller would enlean further the cylinder with the lean injector in
order to reach a global stoichiometric exhaust A/F ratio, resulting in 6-7% enleanment on this
cylinder.

It becomes clear how starting from a state-of-the-art injector characteristic tolerance, the
deterioration of the injected quantity accuracy caused by:
i. injection duration reduction due to multi-injection;
ii. injection duration reduction due to rail pressure increase;
iii. tolerance combination among set of injectors mounted on an engine;
Can cause a significant mixture deviation in single cylinders deteriorating emissions and
combustion stability. The BOSCH CVO algorithm tackles this challenge at the root cause by
reducing the injected quantity deviation of each injector in a closed loop control and this over
vehicle lifetime.

CONTROLLED VALVE OPERATION

The requirement to the fuel system in terms of accuracy of small injected quantities has been
increasing since the first market introduction of GDI engines. The origin of this requirement
has been on the one hand, the usage of multi-injection and the increase of injection pressure
like described above resulting in an increase of the occurrence of injections in intermediate
and ballistic range. Furthermore for engines with injector mounted in central position, the best
injection strategy in terms of effective catalyst heating uses a very short injection close to
ignition like described in [2] (Kufferath A. et al. 2012) requiring high accuracy in ballistic
range.
After considering the improvement potential of injection metering via mechanical approaches
like reduction of manufacturing tolerances, injector samples classification or injector
characterization measurement and encoding in the ECU, a method based on a mechatronic
approach has been selected. The background of this choice and a detailed description of the
method, its application and the impact on the development process can be read in [3]
(Schlueter at al. 2013).
BOSCH Controlled Valve Operation (CVO) was developed with the target of injecting small
quantities with the characteristic accuracy of +/- 0.2mg in the median ballistic range and
retaining a high level of metering accuracy over the vehicle lifetime. The 1st generation of
CVO was introduced in 2012 in mass production for injection pressures up to 20MPa and is
applied today in numerous GDI engines. Currently under development, the 3rd generation with
a series introduction in 2017 further enhances metering accuracy over the whole injection
duration range and supports the flexfuel systems together with the HDEV6 injector with
35MPa system pressure and the MDG1 multi-core engine control unit.

Where a mechanical injection metering approach has the target of improving the injector
behavior in order to produce a specific response to an electrical energizing, thus reducing its
deviation from injector to injector, a mechatronic approach can be used to actuate each
injector specifically to its own mechanical characteristic in order to reach an adjusted fuel
metering. The left side of figure 4 shows a plot of the injected quantity as a function of the
injector energizing time. For small quantities in the ballistic and intermediate range this
correlation is a lot worse than on the right side shown function of the needle open time. The
approach consists therefore in detecting the injector’s specific needle open time in response to
an electrical energization and in creating a specific injector actuation for each injector in each
operation situation.
 Figure 4: Low injected quantity events (<4mg) as function of energizing time and needle open time

The injector solenoid is primarily used for the needle actuation. Additionally, due to the fact
that the armature moving inside the magnetic circuits induces a voltage, the solenoid can be
used as well as sensor of the armature’s movement it generated and thus provide information
on the needle motion. To realize that, an ECU with high performance A/D converters as well
as evaluation algorithms are required. The injector open time becomes the feedback of the
injector’s actuation and thus allows realization of a closed loop control.

Figure 5: Functional chart of closed loop injector operation compared to open loop operation

Figure 5 shows a comparison of open loop control and closed loop control logic. Instead of
using the desired fuel mass only to compute a universal energizing time for all injectors, it can
additionally be used to determine a desired open time of the needle, whereas operation
parameters like injection pressure, fuel temperature etc. are taken into account. This desired
open time is compared with the injector specific acquired open time of the last actuations. In
the case of an energizing time producing a too short or too long needle open time, the
succeeding actuation is accordingly adjusted.
The result is a significantly reduced injected quantity tolerance as shown in figure 6.
 Figure 6: Schematic injected quantity and relative standard deviation as function of injection duration of a
HDEV5.2 injector with and without CVO

The CVO algorithm is able to detect the needle open time from shot-to-shot. As the injector
behavior is influenced by the ageing of the injector over lifetime on the one hand, and by fuel
temperature, quality variations and hydraulic pulsations on the other hand. The Controlled
Valve Operation is a holistic fuel metering improvement method.

ENGINE TEST METHODOLOGY

All tests were performed on an engine dyno using state-of-the-art emission measurement
technique. The particulate number was measured with a Horiba MEXA 2100 SPCS after the
main catalyst.

The catalyst heating operation point was selected according to the engine operating condition
after start of a vehicle equipped with manual transmission: 1400rpm / intake manifold
absolute pressure (MAP) 820mbar; ignition 20 °CA aTDC. The operation on the engine dyno
was performed under forced cooling conditions, keeping the engine coolant at 40 °C.
The partial load operation point was selected based on the occurrence during WLTC:
2400rpm / 70Nm.
The load step measured comes from one of the first accelerations during WLTC: 2000rpm /
30Nm to 2400rpm / 70Nm in 2s.

In order to be able to assess the contribution of the CVO function, injector limit samples
simulating end of life injectors were used. A limit sample is an injector, whose manufacturing
parameters influencing the needle dynamic have been specifically set off the target. Doing so,
injectors with slower opening needle can be manufactured, delivering a lower injected
quantity specifically in ballistic and intermediate range compared to a nominal injector with
manufacturing parameters set in the middle of their tolerance range. These injectors are
referred as “lean limit samples”. Vice versa injectors with higher quantity can be
manufactured and are referred to as “rich limit samples”.
For this investigations, the 3 cylinders of the test engine were equipped with a combination of
2 rich and 1 lean limit samples. As explained above this combination represents the worst
case in terms of cylinder individual injected quantity deviation.
RESULTS

Catalyst heating

The reference calibration for this operation was a triple injection with one full-lift injection in
suction stroke and two injections in compression stroke with an injection duration in
intermediate range. Considering injected quantity tolerances like described in the section
‘effect of the multi-injection on the injected quantity’, the absolute quantity deviation from
cylinder to cylinder adds up to ~12% difference between the richest and the leanest cylinder.
Figure 7 on the top shows the distribution of the injection durations and a comparison of the
cylinder individual injected quantity in the reference calibration case versus with activated
CVO. The activation of CVO reduced the coefficient of variance (CoV) of IMEP by 21% and
the HC emission dropped around 60%. The effect on the PN emission improvement reached
16%, resulting from the A/F ratio enleanment of the rich cylinders caused by the activation of
CVO. Further, in fig. 7 bottom middle and right side, the effect of the equalization by CVO
on the cylinder individual IMEP and the timing of 10% mass fraction burnt (MFB10%)
provides the evidence of the A/F ratio equalization performed by the CVO functionality. The
cylinder 2 had the richest mixture and therefore showed the highest IMEP and the earliest
MFB10% timing without CVO. The activation of CVO reduced its IMEP level close to the
engine average and retarded the MFB10% timing.

Figure 7: catalyst heating operation reference calibration

As for cylinder 3, the A/F ratio being leaner than the engine average is the root cause for its
lowest IMEP and slowest inflammation visible on the late MFB10%.
As the engine is operated with late ignition timing, thus requiring a wider throttle opening
position, the air intake noise is usually louder than in normal idling operation, calling the
attention of the driver. In such condition, if the engine operates with poor combustion
stability, the NVH behavior of the engine can be perceived as disturbing and leads to
customer complaints. The injected quantity equalization realized by the CVO functionality
helps reducing the probability of engines having combustion stability issues in catalyst
heating operation and this over the vehicle lifetime. Furthermore, this advantage can be used
by calibrating the catalyst heating with further retarded ignition timings allowing an increase
of the exhaust enthalpy and thus shortening the time to reach catalyst light-off.

Partial load

The operation point of 2400rpm / 70Nm was selected based on its high occurrence during
WLTP driving cycle. The measurements were performed on warmed-up engine.
Engine parameters considered for the calibration optimization were:
 rail pressure
 start angle of 1st, 2nd and 3rd injection
 fuel quantity in 1st, 2nd and 3rd injection
The intake and exhaust camshaft phasing were taken over from the reference calibration.
The experiment was designed as room filling type and the modelling of the engine responses
was done using ETAS ASCMO software.
The optimization was performed minimizing PN-emission and fuel consumption primarily.
Figure 8 top shows the distribution of the injection durations for the reference double
injection calibration and the optimized triple injection.

Figure 8: reference double injection and optimized triple injection

Thanks to the CVO functionality enabling injections in the intermediate and ballistic range, an
increase of injection pressure from 14MPa in the case of the reference calibration to the
maximum system pressure of 20MPa was possible while using a splitting of injected quantity
including short injection durations. The start of the first injection and the injected quantity
remained almost unchanged, while its duration were shortened due to the higher injection
pressure. The optimization led to a split of the second injection.
Figure 8 bottom shows the PN emission comparison between reference double injection and
the triple injection with and without CVO. A significant reduction of the PN emission of
about 46% could be achieved through the injection pressure increase from 14 to 20MPa
combined with the usage of triple injection. Nevertheless, doing so without activating the
CVO function results in a deterioration of the CO emission caused by injected quantity
deviation from cylinder to cylinder. The residual O2 emission shows as well a clear evidence
of unequal A/F ratio among the cylinders. The activation of the CVO function equalizes the
injection quantities between the cylinders and brings the CO and O2 emission down to a
similar level as with the double injection allowing the usage of triple injection without
entering a trade-off of PN emission reduction at the costs of other gaseous emissions.

Transient operation

When the coldstart and catalyst heating operation as well as the partial load steady state
operation are optimized regarding emissions and fuel consumption, the focus goes to the
transient operation phases. As torque demand increases steeply, the increase of the intake
manifold pressure and injected quantity often leads to piston and cylinder wall impingement
with fuel. Furthermore and especially during the warm-up phase, the piston surface
temperature follows the load increase with time delay increasing the importance of a
reduction of the piston surface impingement through appropriate optimization of the injection
parameters. With focus on upcoming legislations in Europe, the PN emission trace during
WLTP driving cycle was analyzed and provided the test conditions for the engine dyno
transient measurements, as shown on figure 9.
 Figure 9: Selection of a WLTP drive cycle section for transient engine operation test

In the reference calibration, this acceleration starts in single injection mode and the injection
strategy switches after approximatively 2/3 of the load step to double injection. Thanks to the
CVO functionality, the injection parameters could be widened towards shorter injection
durations and the optimization of the injection strategy via experimental design and data
modelling similar to the partial load led to a double injection instead of a single suction stroke
injection and a triple injection instead of the double injection calibration. Figure 10 left side
shows a schematic view of the repartition of the injection duration for the reference
calibration and the optimized status in both start and end point of the transient phase.

Figure 10: Schematic injection duration overview and cumulated PN, HC and fuel consumption result

The PN emission could be reduced in both beginning and end operation point of the
acceleration. Additionally, the PN emission trace during the transient operation showed a
reduced level. Figure 10 right side shows the PN, HC and fuel consumption of the reference
calibration versus optimized. A significant PN reduction of ~30% could be reached without
draw-back on the fuel consumption. Other emissions could be maintained or reduced
compared to the reference calibration status.

CONCLUSIONS

The injection pressure increase combined with multi-injection strategies can be used to reduce
gaseous emissions and particulates number in catalyst heating, steady partial load and
transient operation. With this, the injector energizing time decreases and enters the injection
duration range having a higher relative standard deviation of the injected quantity, thus
deteriorating emission and combustion stability. BOSCH Controlled Valve Operation
algorithm is able to reduce injector-to-injector quantity deviation through feedback control of
the injector energizing time during operation and over vehicle lifetime. Doing so, CVO
enables wider calibration degrees of freedom during the development of GDI engines and
improves the injection system long-term reliability, thus contributing to the fulfillment of
stringent emission targets.
REFERENCES

[1] H. Lee, J. Kim, K. Hwang, Y. Kim, W. Kim, H. Kim, I. Hwang, B. Han, B. Shin, M.
Winkler, B. Min. „Hyundai-Kia’s New 3-Cylinder 1.0L Turbo GDI Engine“, 36th
International Vienna Motor Symposium, 2015.

[2] A. Kufferath, S. Berns, J. Hammer et al., “The EU6 Challenge at GDI – Assessment of
Feasible Solutions”, 33th International Vienna Motor Symposium, 2012.

[3] R. Schlueter, J. Kuempel, H. Okuyama, „Mechatronic Component Packages within

Gasoline Direct Injection Systems and their impact on EOM-Supplier –Cooperation“, 7th
IFAC Symposium on Advances on Automotive Control, 2013.