i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y 3 8 ( 2 0 1 3 ) 1 1 1 6 4 e1 1 1 6 8

Available online at www.sciencedirect.com

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/he

The experimental study on cyclic variation in

a spark ignited engine fueled with biogas and
hydrogen blends

Zhang Xin, Xu Jian*, Zheng Shizhuo, Hou Xiaosen, Liu Jianhua

Department of Power Mechanical Engineering, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing 100044, PR China

article info abstract

Article history: An experimental research on combustion instability of a spark ignited single cylinder
Received 9 November 2012 engine operating on biogas with different distribution ratio of hydrogen (15%, 20%, 25%,
Received in revised form 30%, 35% in volume) is studied. The results show that the increase of the hydrogen fraction
3 January 2013 in the fuel blends leads to the decrease of the cyclic variation coefficient of indicated mean
Accepted 13 January 2013 effective pressure in a certain fraction range (15% w 35%). The combustion heat release
Available online 14 February 2013 rate accelerates. The flame development angle shortens because the chemical reaction
takes the dominant effects. Increasing the ignition advance angle can decrease the cyclic
Keywords: variation. The engine work stability is largely improved with the higher hydrogen fraction
Biogas in the fuel blends.
Hydrogen Copyright ª 2013, Hydrogen Energy Publications, LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights
Engine reserved.
Combustion characteristic
Cyclic variation

1. Introduction
With the increasingly prominence of energy and environment
problems, it is important to explore new fuels instead of the
petroleum-based fuel and develop efficient low-pollution in-
ternal combustion engine. In recent years, the natural gas has
been known as the high-quality gaseous fuel. In addition, some
gaseous fuels with lower heat value (such as coal-bed methane,
biogas, etc.) are becoming the research focus around the world
[1,2]. The coal-bed methane is mainly composed by 40% w 80%
methane and 20% w 60% nitrogen and the biogas is mainly
composed by 40% w 60% methane and 40% w 60% carbon di-
oxide [3]. In these fuels, the proportion of the methane (CH4)
content is relatively lower and that of non-hydrocarbon gases
(mostly CO2, N2, etc.) are higher in general. Therefore, the heat
values of those fuels are lower compared with nature gas. The
challenge of using the lower heat value gas as the engine’s fuel
is that lower heat release rate and the instable combustion
could lead to a much lower engine efficiency and a bigger cyclic
variation. Cyclic variations in the combustion process are
important since the optimum spark timing is set for the average
cycle, faster cycles have effectively over advanced spark timing
and slower cycles have retarded timing, so losses in power and
efficiency result. In addition, the extremes of the cyclic varia-
tions can limit engine operation. The fastest burning cycles are
most likely to knock, which limit its compression ratio. The
slowest burning cycles are most likely to burn incompletely,
which limit the amount of exhaust gas recycle. Due to cyclic
variations, the spark timing and average equivalent ratio must
always be compromises, which are not necessarily the opti-
mum for the average cylinder combustion process [4]. To un-
derstand the phenomenon in lower heat value gas engine is

* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ86 51684521.

E-mail address: faithhidy@hotmail.com (X. Jian).
0360-3199/$ e see front matter Copyright ª 2013, Hydrogen Energy Publications, LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2013.01.097
 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y 3 8 ( 2 0 1 3 ) 1 1 1 6 4 e1 1 1 6 8
also important. One attractive feature of biogas is that it can be
produced close to the consumption points and hence is ideal for
decentralized power generation in remote rural areas. SI en-
gines with a high compression ratio is more suitable for biogas
combustion because it has an extremely low energy density on
the volume basis, low flame velocity and not so wide flamma-
bility limits on account of its high CO2 content [5]. In practice,
with the increase of the volume fraction of CO2 in biogas, the
combustion duration increases and the combustion is retarded
seriously. Furthermore, the temperature of the exhaust gas is
higher and the engine’s performance is apparently decreased
[6]. Therefore, it is important to improve the combustion sta-
bility of the lower heat value gas like the biogas for the clean
fuel engine development.
Relative research showed that adding a small amount of
other fuels which have wider flammability range, higher
flame velocity and heating value, such as hydrogen and Liq-
uefied Petroleum Gas, can improve the performance with
nature gas and biogas engines [7,8]. Jeong et al. [9] defined an
efficiency per NOx emissions ratio (EPN) to consider the
relationship between the generating efficiency and NOx
emissions for a biogas-hydrogen fueled engine. These results
demonstrated that the addition of hydrogen to biogas ena-
bled the effective generation of electricity using a gas engine
generator through lean-burn combustion. Park et al. [10]
investigated for a turbocharged, heavy-duty natural gas-
hydrogen fueled engine. They found that the thermal effi-
ciency improvement at high compression ratios is reduced
under relatively rich mixture conditions because spark tim-
ing is retarded to avoid knocking. The excess air ratio cor-
responding to maximum thermal efficiency decreases to 1.6
for an HCNG engine due to the decrease in exhaust gas en-
ergy for intake-air charging. Karim et al. [11] showed that the
addition of some hydrogen to methane in a spark-ignition
engine enhanced the Performance, particularly when oper-
ating with relatively low equivalence ratio mixtures. The
optimum concentration of hydrogen in the fuel mixture for
producing a power gain and avoiding knock appeared to be
about 20e25% by volume, over the range of conditions con-
sidered. Wang et al. [12] studied the direct injection com-
bustion cyclic variation of the nature gas and hydrogen
blends in a constant volume vessel and found that the cyclic
variation appears at the beginning stage of the flame devel-
opment. With the increase of the volume fraction of hydro-
gen in the blends, the flame kernel is closed to the ignition
site gradually and the flame shape is less disorder. Porpat-
ham et al. [5] found that the biogas with hydrogen enrich-
ment can raise the thermal efficiency and the power of the
engine and also diminish the cyclic variation under the lean
burn condition. Though the use of hydrogen along with bio-
gas may not be viable in a rural situation, it can be an option
in the case of large stationary engines and in cases where
hydrogen is available as a byproduct in a process and can be
used in small quantities.
In this paper, the biogas is simulated by CNG/CO2 blend
and the volume fraction of CO2 is 50%. The objective of this
study is to investigate the performance and combustion sta-
bility of the engine operating on the biogas with hydrogen
enrichment in volume. The distribution ratio of hydrogen in
the fuel blends is relatively 15% w 40% in volume.
11165
2. Experimental apparatus and procedures
The test was carried out at an electronic controlled single-
cylinder engine research facility in Beijing Jiaotong Univer-
sity. The core of the facility is a ZS1100M series single-
cylinder, four-stroke, port fuel injection diesel engine, modi-
fied to be a CNG engine in order to provide power for the
generator set by Shanghai Marine Diesel Engine Research
Institute. The specific details of modified single-cylinder en-
gine are given in Table 1.
The testing engine was equipped with the electronic con-
trol system developed by the engine lab of Beijing Jiaotong
University. Electronic throttle was used in order to change the
engine torque from quality regulation to quantity regulation.
Intake port injection was controlled by ECU which could be
beneficial to obtain the accurate air-fuel ratio. The engine was
coupled to DS2-10 rotational speed meter and CW25 eddy-
current dynamometer for engine speed and load measure-
ment. During the experiment process, the cylinder pressure
was measured by an in-cylinder piezoelectric sensor which
made by Kistler Company. The signal of cylinder pressure was
taken by a developed acquisition system. The pressure sam-
pling interval was set each 0.25 deg CA. There were 720  4
sampling points for every engine work cycle. The data of 200
work cycles were acquired continually and calculated in order
to gain mean value of each sampling points. Since the exis-
tence of engine cyclic variation, averaging the great amount of
cycles is needed for the correct statistical evaluation. The
number of cycles which must be averaged to obtain the
desired accuracy depends on the extent of the combustion
variability. For example, 40 to 100 cycles may define IMEP to
within a few percent when combustion is highly repeatable.
Several hundred cycles of data may be required when cyclic
combustion variations are large [13]. According to Yao’s
experimental research [14], for engine fueled with nature gas,
200 cycles is large enough to evaluate the cyclic variation
when the correlation coefficient of IMEP is not large.
As shown in Fig. 1, the biogas and the hydrogen are injec-
ted into the manifold through the two electromagnetic valves.
The injection amount is controlled by a developed electric
control unit. An electronic throttle is installed at the intake
manifold to accurately adjust the power output of the engine.
The test is carried out at 1500 rpm. The spark advance is 18 CA
Table 1 e Engine specification.
Item Value
Engine series ZS1100M-CNG
Engine type Single cylinder 4-stroke
Bore  Stroke (mm) 100  115
Displacement (L) 0.93
Compression ratio 10.2
Combustion chamber Bowl
Rated power/speed (kW/r/min) 10.3 kW/2000 r/min
Intake valve open ( BTDC) 5 ( CA)
Intake valve close ( ABDC) 56 ( CA)
Exhaust valve open ( BBDC) 47 ( CA)
Exhaust valve close ( ATDC) 4 ( CA)
11166 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y 3 8 ( 2 0 1 3 ) 1 1 1 6 4 e1 1 1 6 8

(a)

Fig. 1 e Layout for biogas and hydrogen double injection

fuel supply system.

BTDC. The throttle opening is 30%. The total injection pulse

width is 25 ms for each blend. Meanwhile, the contrast test of
(b)
the engine fueled biogas only is conducted. The contrast test is
carried out at 1500 rpm, 100% for the throttle opening, and
25 ms for the total injection pulse width. The volume fraction
of CO2 is 10%, 20%, 30% and 40% in the biogas, respectively. For
the fuel blends with nonflammable components, the air to
fuel ratio is defined as the mass of the required air to be
divided by the mass of the combustible components in the
fuel blends. In this paper, the combustible components in the
blends are CH4 and H2. The brake thermal efficiency of the fuel
blends increases with the increase of the H2 volume fraction
when in the range of 15% w 35%. The equivalence ratio of each
blend is kept as 0.5.

3. Results and discussion Fig. 2 e Cylinder pressure curves and accumulated heat
release curves of different biogas/H2 blends, (a) cylinder
3.1. Analysis to combustion parameters pressure curves, (b) accumulated heat release curves.

Fig. 2 show the cylinder pressure and the accumulated heat

flame propagation [15]. It is shown that with the increase of H2
release curves of the different biogas/H2 blends fueled engine.
volume fraction in the fuel blends, there is no obvious trend
As shown is Fig. 2(a), when the H2 addition is in the range of
for the rapid burning angle. But the flame development angle
15% w 35%, the maximum pressure increases with the
decreases evidently. The increase of H2 leads to a more stable
increase of the amount of H2 in the fuel blends. Especially
when the H2 volume fraction is 20%, the maximum pressure
increases by 25% and the corresponding crank angle retards
by 11 CA as compared with that of 15% H2 volume fraction. It
is suggested in paper [9] that with the increase of CO2 volume
fraction in the biogas, the corresponding crank angle of each
blend to achieve the same accumulated heat release retards at
the same time. However, it is found in Fig. 2(b) that with the
increase of H2 volume fraction in the biogas-hydrogen blends,
the corresponding crank angle advances. It indicates that the
blends with larger H2 volume fraction have a faster heat
release. The combustion process is more concentrated to the
top dead center. The thermal efficiency is higher.
Fig. 3 illustrates that the flame development angle and the
rapid burning angle of the biogas/H2 blends. The flame
development angle is defined as the period which is from the
spark ignition to the 10% chemical energy of the fuel is
released. The rapid burning angle is defined as the period Fig. 3 e Flame development angle and rapid burning angle
which is from the 10% burned mass fraction to the end of the versus volume fraction of H2.
 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y 3 8 ( 2 0 1 3 ) 1 1 1 6 4 e1 1 1 6 8 11167

combustion at the early stage. It improves the flame kernel

(a)
formation and propagation process. Once the stable flame
kernel appears, the effect of the H2 addition in biogas on the
combustion process is not such great.

3.2. Statistical analysis to the characteristic parameters

of cyclic variations

Fig. 4 show the cyclic variation curves of the mean indicated

pressure (IMEP) of the different biogas/H2 blends fueled en-
gine. It is clear that when the H2 volume fraction is 25% or 35%
in the fuel blends, the cyclic variation of IMEP is slighter than
that of the H2 volume fraction is 15%.
Fig. 5 illustrate the correlation coefficient of Pmax/IMEP
and the coefficient of IMEP cyclic variation versus different
fuel blends. It is suggested that the larger the correlation (b)
coefficient is, the stronger the linear correlation between the
two characteristic parameters is. As shown is Fig. 5(a), the
linear correlation between Pmax and IMEP decreases with
the increase of the volume fractions of CO2 in general.
However, the linear correlation rises slowly when the CO2
volume fraction is lower than 20%, since the combustion of
the fuel blend with 10% CO2 is more stable, hence the heat
release rate is faster. Nevertheless, with the increase of CO2
volume fraction, the stability of combustion reduces and the
variation range of maximum cylinder pressure gradually in-
creases with the same mean indicated pressure. When the
volume fraction of CO2 enhances further, a mass of abnormal
combustion phenomenon would appear, which makes the
variation of mean indicated pressure become larger. In
addition, it is shown that the linear characteristic weakens Fig. 5 e Correlation coefficient of Pmax/IMEP and
gradually as stated in [16]. The cyclic variation coefficient of coefficient of IMEP cyclic variation versus different fuel
IMEP is an important index which reflects the combustion blends, (a) biogas blends, (b) biogas/H2 blends.
stability and dynamical performance of practical engine cy-
cles. It is regarded that if the value is lower than 10%, the
effects on driving car may be tiny [15]. It is shown in Fig. 5(a)
that with the increase of CO2 volume fraction in biogas, the misfiring and the flameout phenomenon start to happen in
variation coefficient of indicated mean effective pressure more and more engine cycles which can lead to a very seri-
increases. When the volume fraction of CO2 in fuel blend ous cyclic variation [17].
increases up to 40%, the variation coefficient of mean indi- Just contrary to what is shown in Fig. 5(a) and (b) illustrate
cated pressure is larger than 10%. It is because that the that the linear correlation increases with the increase of the
H2 volume fractions. The reason is the increase of H2 volume
fraction lead to the heat release rate faster, the value of the
maximum cylinder pressure and the mean indicated pressure
are relatively more concentrated. It is also found in Fig. 5(b)
that with the increase of H2 volume fraction in the fuel blends,
especially when it is larger than 20%, the cyclic variation co-
efficient of IMEP decreases dramatically to a lower level. This
is because that early stage of flame kernel formation and its
development advance. The flame development duration is
shorter and the burning rate is faster.
Fig. 6 shows that the coefficient of cyclic variation curve of
the IMEP of different ignition advance angles for each biogas/
H2 blend. It is illustrated that, for H2 volume fraction between
20% and 35%, with the increase of ignition advance angles, the
cyclic variation coefficient of the IMEP decreases. For each fuel
blend, when the ignition advance angles are larger than 18 ,
the cyclic variation coefficient of the IMEP can keep at a rela-
tively low level. It is also obvious that the improvement of
Fig. 4 e Variations in IMEP of engine fuelled with blends. increasing the ignition advance angle in order to decrease the
11168 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y 3 8 ( 2 0 1 3 ) 1 1 1 6 4 e1 1 1 6 8
Fig. 6 e Coefficient of IMEP cyclic variation versus ignition
advance angles.
cyclic variation for blends with less H2 addition is more
significant.
4. Conclusions
An experimental research on combustion stability of a port-
injection spark ignited single cylinder engine operating on
biogas with 15% w 35% (in volume) H2 enrichment has been
studied. The main results are summarized as follows:
(1) Hydrogen addition into the fuel blends can improve the
engine power. When the H2 volume fraction is in the range
of 15% w 35%, with its increase, the maximum pressure
raises and the corresponding crank angle advances.
(2) With the increase of the volume fraction of CO2 in biogas,
the coefficient of the cyclic variation of the IMEP increases.
However, when mixing the biogas with H2 of 15% w 35%
volume fractions, the correlation coefficient of Pmax and
IMEP raises and the coefficient of the cyclic variation of the
IMEP decrease.
(3) With the increase of ignition advance angle, the cyclic
variation of the IMEP decreases. The improvement is more
obvious for the fuel blends with less hydrogen added.
(4) With the increase of the volume fraction of H2 in the fuel
blends, which is the range of 15% w 35%, the heat release is
faster, the flame development angle decreases which leads
to a more stable combustion at the early stage.
In addition, in this paper we focus on the cyclic variation of
SI engine fueled with biogas-hydrogen blends. However, in
practice engine emissions as an important evaluating indi-
cator should also be studied and therefore some attractive
results of optimization of the hydrogen concentration added
to biogas have been obtained to reduce the NOx emissions [8].
In future work, we will study the engine power and cyclic
variation combined with engine emissions (NOx, CO2) to pro-
pose an optimum operating conditions and corresponding
hydrogen concentrations.
Acknowledgment
The authors would like to express their gratitude for the
financial support received from the National Science Fund of
China (50976012), Beijing Nature Science Foundation
(3112020), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central
Universities (2013YJS079) and the Doctoral Innovation Funds
for Beijing Jiaotong Universities (2012YJS099).
references
[1] Zhang X, Li C, Xu J, Liu J. Experimental study on combustion
characteristics of a lower-heat-value gas engine. Trans CSICE
2009;27:30e5 [in Chinese].
[2] Zuo C, Guo W, Qian Y, Tan J, Teng Q, Xu T. Operation stability
and emission characteristic of spark ignition engines fuelled
with variable components of coal-bed gas. Trans CSICE 2003;
21:329e32 [in Chinese].
[3] Zhang X, Li C, Xu J. Investigation of combustion
characteristics and emissions in SI engine fuelled with LHV
gas. J Energy Inst 2010;83(1):12e6 (5).
[4] Heywood JB. Internal combustion engine fundamentals.
USA: McGraw-Hill Book Company; 1988. 383e427.
[5] Porpatham E, Ramesh A, Nagalingam B. Effect of hydrogen
addition on the performance of a biogas fuelled spark
ignition engine. Int J Hydrogen Energy 2007;32:2057e65.
[6] Liu Q, Zhai C, Luo F. Review of biogas engine. J Jiangsu
University:Nature Sci Edition 2003;24:37e40 [in Chinese].
[7] Akansu SO, Dulger Z, Kahraman N, Veziroglu TN. Internal
combustion engines fuelled by natural gasehydrogenmixtures.
Int J Hydrogen Energy 2004;29:1527e39.
[8] Das A, Watson HC. Development of a natural gas spark
ignition engine for optimum performance. Proc Inst Mech
Eng Part D: J Automobile Eng 1997;211(D5):361e78.
[9] Jeong Chulyoung, Kim Taesoo, Lee Kyungtaek, Song Soonho,
Chun Kwang Min. Generating efficiency and emissions of
a spark-ignition gas engine generator fuelled with
biogasehydrogen blends. Int J Hydrogen Energy 2009;34:
9620e7.
[10] Park Cheolwoong, Kim Changgi, Choi Young. Power output
characteristics of hydrogen-natural gas blend fuel engine at
different compression ratios. Int J Hydrogen Energy 2012;37:
8681e7.
[11] Karim GA, Shrestha B. Hydrogen as an additive to methane
for spark ignition engine applications. Int J Hydrogen Energy
1999;24:577e86.
[12] Wang J, Huang Z, Miao H, Wang X, Jiang D. Study of cyclic
variations of direct-injection combustion fueled with natural
gas-hydrogen blends using a constant volume vessel. Int J
Hydrogen Energy 2008;33:7580e91.
[13] Lancaster DR, Kreiger RB, Lienesch JH. Measurement and
analysis of engine pressure data. SAE paper 750026. SAE
Trans 1975;84.
[14] Yao BF. The research on combustion instability of lean burn
CNG engine. Master thesis, Beijing Jiaotong University; 2006.
[in chinese].
[15] Zhou L. Internal combustion engine. Beijing: China Machine
Press; 2006. 94e95[in Chinese].
[16] Huang Z, Liu L, Jiang D, Ren Y, Liu B, Zeng K, et al. Study on
cycle by cycle variations of combustion in a natural-gas
direct-injection engine. J.Automobile Eng 2008;222:1657e67.
[17] Xu J, Zhang X, Liu J, Shen Z. Experimental study on cycle to
cycle variation of NG/CO2 blend engine. J Chin Intern
Combust Engine Eng 2011;32:12e6 [in Chinese].