{"title":"Optical Study on Spark Plug Gap in Extending Methane Lean Combustion\u0000 Limits under High Ignition Energy Conditions","authors":"Xiao Zhang, Ren Zhang, Lin Chen","doi":"10.4271/03-16-08-0059","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4271/03-16-08-0059","url":null,"abstract":"Lean combustion has the potential to achieve high thermal efficiency for internal\u0000 combustion engines. However, natural gas (NG) engines often suffer from slow\u0000 burning rates and large cyclic variations when adopting lean combustion. In this\u0000 study, the effects of spark plug gaps (SPGs) on methane lean combustion are\u0000 optically investigated under high ignition energy conditions. Synchronization\u0000 measurements of in-cylinder pressure and high-speed photography are performed\u0000 for combustion analysis. The results show that large SPGs with high ignition\u0000 energy exhibit great improvement in engine combustion stability and power\u0000 capability. Under ultra-lean conditions, a large SPG with a high ignition energy\u0000 of 150–200 mJ can extend the lean limit to 1.55. Combustion images indicate that\u0000 this is contributed by the enlarged initial flame kernel, which promotes early\u0000 flame propagation. Besides, an empirical criterion is adopted to quantify the\u0000 underlying mechanism, and the results confirm that a more stable early flame\u0000 development with a faster burning rate can be obtained by a larger SPG and\u0000 higher ignition energy under lean conditions. Therefore, a large SPG is an\u0000 effective way to improve combustion stability and thermal efficiency for NG\u0000 engines.","PeriodicalId":47948,"journal":{"name":"SAE International Journal of Engines","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2023-06-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76216011","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}