Investigating feasibility and advantage of gasoline reformer on turbo gasoline direct injection engine at lean condition

Thermal efficiency of gasoline engine can be improved by lean combustion. But lean combustion leads to combustion instability so that it is hard that gasoline engine is operated on lean condition. This barrier to achieve stable lean combustion on gasoline engine can be eased by using hydrogen addition. One of possible ways to adding hydrogen to gasoline engine on real vehicle is on-board reformer. In this paper, an experimental study of investigating feasibility and advantage of gasoline reformer on turbo gasoline direct injection engine at lean condition. The engine was operated on 2900RPM, BMEP 10bar at lambda 1, lambda 1.1 and lambda 1.2. The result showed that feasibility of reformer was verified with results of reformed H ₂ and CO. In addition, advantages of gasoline reformer were checked out. Burn duration were reduced, Combustion stability and indicated thermal efficiency were improved after reforming started.