Determination of Engine Cylinder Pressures from Crankshaft Speed Fluctuations

Abstract

<div class="htmlview paragraph">An experimental test of a non-contact method for determining simultaneously the pressure in each cylinder of a reciprocating engine is reported. The method exploits a pattern recognition technique to compare crankshaft speed fluctuations to reference patterns in a knowledge base. The crankshaft speed is measured by timing the passage of gear teeth on the engine's flywheel.</div> <div class="htmlview paragraph">The experiment was carried out on a Detroit Diesel Corporation 6V-92TA engine. The baseline operating condition was 75 percent rated load at 1200 rpm. The engine's six cylinders were individually under-fuelled from the baseline operating condition to achieve peak pressure reductions of 5 to 20 percent. The required reference angular velocity waveforms were obtained by measuring the effect of under-fuelling individual cylinders to reduce their peak pressures by 10 percent.</div> <div class="htmlview paragraph">The experimental results show that the method evaluates the cylinder pressures with an RMS error of less than 6 percent. With further work. it is expected that a practical diagnostic tool could be developed for accurately determining cylinder pressures in diesel engines.</div>