Detection of Combustion Properties in a Diesel Engine using Block Mounted Accelerometers

Engine block mounted accelerometers was used for estimating combustion phasing parameters for a heavy duty diesel engine. Several sensor locations were evaluated for its sensitivity to combustion related vibrations and mechanical noise.One sensor-cylinder combination was selected for the evaluation of a simple algorithm to detect 10% and 50% burned mass fraction. The algorithm uses the accumulated accelerometer vibration energy as a base for extracting the 10% and 50% points respectively.The results show that the angular positions for 10% and 50% burned mass fraction can be estimated with precisions of 1.5 and 3 CAD respectively. It is also concluded that the early part of the accelerometer signal has a significant influence from a mechanical noise source related to the start of injection