ABNORMAL COMBUSTION

1. KNOCK OR DETONATION 2. SURFACE IGNITION: (a) PRE-IGNITION (b) POST IGNITION

J.P. Subrahmanyam

KNOCK
KNOCK is the term used to describe a pinging noise emitted from a SI engine undergoing abnormal combustion. The noise is generated by shock waves produced in the cylinder when unburned gas auto-ignites.

Engine Damage From Severe Knock

Damage to the engine is caused by a combination of high temperature and high pressure.

Piston

Piston crown

Cylinder head gasket

Aluminum cylinder head

Knock Limited Parameters

1. Knock Limited Compression ratio. The highest compression ratio that gives border-line or trace knock. 2. Knock Limited Inlet Pressure. The highest inlet pressure that gives border-line or trace knock. 3. Knock Limited Indicated Mean Effective Pressure, or klimep, the imep at border-line or trace knock. 4. Octane number requirement. The minimum octane number of a fuel to give border-line or trace knock.

Knock
Engine parameters that effect occurrence of knock are: i) Compression ratio at high compression ratios, even before spark ignition, the fuel-air mixture is compressed to a high pressure and temperature which promotes auto-ignition ii) Engine speed At low engine speeds the flame velocity is slow and thus the burn time is long, this results in more time for autoignition. However at high engine speeds there is less heat loss so the unburned gas temperature is higher which promotes autoignition These are competing effects, thus some engines show an increase in propensity to knock at high speeds while others do not.

Knock
iii) Spark timing maximum compression from the piston advance occurs at TC, increasing the spark advance makes the end of combustion crank angle approach TC and thus get higher pressure and temperature in the unburned gas just before burnout.
iv) Mass of Inducted charge reduction in the mass of the charge by throttling or reduction in the amount of supercharging will reduce knock. v) Inlet Temperature reduction in inlet temperature will reduce knock and will also improve the volumetric efficiency.

vi)Temperature of the cylinder walls particularly near the end charge this will reduce heat transfer to the end charge.

Knock Mitigation Using Spark Advance Spark advance is set to 1% below MBT to avoid Knock but it will affect power and torque
x x X

crank angle corresponding to borderline knock 1% below MBT

x
x x

Effect of fuel-air ratio on knock limited inlet pressure, compression ratio and imep.

Knock Detection
A knock sensor is mounted on the engine block to determine if an engine is knocking. The sensor consists of a piezoelectric accelerometer that produces an analog electrical signal when the engine vibration at a specific frequency (6-15 kHz) is measured. In-cylinder pressure transducers are very expensive and not widely used for knock detection. On receiving a knock signal, the ECU temporarily retards the spark timing as a counter measure to prevent engine damage from knock.

Fuel Knock Scale

To provide a standard measure of a fuels ability to resist knock, a scale has been devised by which fuels are assigned an octane number ON.
The octane number determines whether or not a fuel will knock in a given engine under given operating conditions. By definition, normal heptane (n-C7H16) has an octane number of zero and Isooctane 2,2,4 tri-methyl pentane - (C8H18) has a number of 100. The higher the octane number, the higher the resistance to knock. Blends of these two hydrocarbons define the knock resistance of intermediate octane numbers: e.g., a blend of 10% n-heptane and 90% isooctane has an octane number of 90. A fuels octane number is determined by measuring what blend of these two hydrocarbons matches the test fuels knocking tendency.

Octane Number Measurement

Two methods have been developed to measure ON using a standardized single-cylinder engine developed under the auspices of the Cooperative Fuel Research (CFR) Committee in 1931. The CFR engine is 4-stroke with 3.25 bore and 4.5 stroke, compression ratio can be varied from 3 to 30. Research Inlet temperature (oC) Speed (rpm) Spark advance (oBTC) Coolant temperature (oC) Inlet pressure (atm) Humidity (kg water/kg dry air) 52 600 13 100 1.0 0.0036 - 0.0072 Motor 149 900 19-26 (varies with r)

Note: In 1931 iso-octane was the most knock resistant HC, now there are fuels that are more knock resistant than isooctane.

Octane Number Measurement

Testing procedure: Run the CFR engine on the test fuel at both research and motor conditions. Slowly increase the compression ratio until a standard amount of knock occurs as measured by a knock detector. At that compression ratio run the engines on blends of n-heptane and isooctane. ON is the % by volume of isooctane in the blend that produces the same knock. The antiknock index which is displayed at the fuel pump is the average of the research and motor octane numbers:
Antiknock index RON MON 2

Note the motor octane number is always lower because it uses more severe operating conditions: higher inlet temperature and more spark advance. The automobile manufacturer will specify the minimum fuel ON that will resist knock throughout the engines operating speed and load range.

Knock Characteristics of Various Fuels

Formula CH4 C3H8 CH4O C2H6O C8H18 Blend of HCs n-C7H16 Name Methane Propane Methanol Ethanol Isooctane 7.3 Regular gasoline n-heptane Critical r 12.6 12.2 100 91 0 0 RON 120 112 106 107 100 83 MON 120 97 92 89

For fuels with antiknock quality better than octane, the octane number is: ON = 100 + 28.28T / [1.0 + 0.736T+(1.0 + 1.472T - 0.035216T2)1/2] where T is milliliters of tetraethyl lead per U.S. gallon in isooctane. Another option is to use performance number which is the ratio of the klimep to the klimep with isooctane as fuel at the same inlet pressure.

Fuel Additives
Chemical additives are used to raise the octane number of gasoline. The most effective antiknock agents are lead alkyls; (i) Tetraethyl lead (TEL), (C2H5)4Pb was introduced in 1923 (ii) Tetramethyl lead (TML), (CH3)4Pb was introduced in 1960 In 1959 a manganese antiknock compound known as MMT (methylcyclopentadienyl manganese tricarbonyl) was introduced to supplement TEL. But it had some major emission related problems and so it was discontinued. In the US, around 1970, low-lead and unleaded gasoline were introduced over toxicological concerns with lead alkyls (TEL contains 64% by weight lead). Alcohols such as ethanol and methanol have high knock resistance and have been used as anti-knock additives as well as gasoline fuel supplements. Since 1970 another alcohol methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE) has been added to gasoline to increase octane number. MTBE is formed by reacting methanol and isobutylene. Another option is to used the ethyl ether (ETBE).

Surface Ignition
Any local hot spot on the combustion chamber wall like burr or metallic projection hot carbonaceous deposit hot exhaust valve seat spark plug electrode will result in ignition of the charge coming in contact. If ignition is before the spark, it is called pre-ignition. It can occur at any time and can lead to knocking and severe engine damage. This is called knocking preignition. It is the most serious form of abnormal combustion. Alcohols are generally more prone to pre-ignition.

The Ricardo method uses an electrically heated wire in the engine to measure pre-ignition tendency. The scale uses isooctane as 100 and cyclohexane as 0. Some common fuel components: Paraffins 50-100 Benzene 26 Toluene 93 Xylene >100 Cyclopentane 70 Di-isobutylene 64 There is no direct correlation between anti-knock ability (ON) and pre-ignition tendency

Pre-ignition tendency

Other forms of abnormal combustion

1. Run-on. This is the tendency of an engine to continue running after the ignition is switched off. Caused by the spontaneous ignition of the fuel-air mixture and not due to surface ignition. 2. Runaway surface ignition. This occurs when pre-ignition is persistent and it can cause melting of pistons.

Engine Stability - Misfire

If the fuel-air mixture is leaned out with excess air, or is diluted with increasing amounts of residual gas or exhaust gas recycle, the burn time increases the cycle-by-cycle fluctuations in the combustion process increases.
Eventually a point is reached where engine operation becomes rough and unstable, this point defines the engines stable operating limit.

With little or no dilution completion of combustion occurs prior to the exhaust valve opening consistently cycle after cycle.

With increasing dilution, first, in a fraction of the cycles the burns are so slow that combustion is only just completed prior to the exhaust valve opening.
As dilution increases further, in some cycles combustion is not complete prior to the exhaust valve opening and the flame extinguishes before all the fuel is burned. Finally misfire cycles start to occur where the mixture is not ignited.

As the dilution is further increased the proportion of partial burns and misfires increase to a point where the engine no longer runs.