Open-Faced Piston Openings for Burning Crevice Fuel
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional combustion engines experience unburned hydrocarbon emissions due to crevice volumes between the piston and cylinder, where the fuel and air mixture cools and fails to undergo complete chemical reactions, leading to reduced engine efficiency and emissions.
Innovation Solution
An open-faced piston design with communicating openings between the piston ring and circumferential groove, allowing the combustion reaction to propagate into the crevice volumes and burn the fuel, with opening sizes greater than the quench distance to ensure complete combustion.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of manufacture
If a conventional closed piston design is used, then the piston structure is simple and manufacturing is easy, but unburned hydrocarbon emissions increase due to fuel cooling in crevice volumes
Solution Approach 1:
The piston face is segmented with multiple openings that divide the crevice volume into smaller regions. These openings allow combustion to penetrate into areas that would otherwise be isolated, enabling complete burning of fuel in crevice volumes while maintaining a relatively simple piston structure that is easy to manufacture.
Solution Approach 2:
Instead of keeping the piston face closed and isolated, the invention inverts the approach by creating openings that expose the crevice volumes to the main combustion chamber. This allows the combustion reaction to propagate into the crevice volumes, converting the harmful isolated spaces into beneficial combustion zones that reduce unburned hydrocarbon emissions.
2Object-generated harmful factors
If opening sizes are made larger than quench distance, then complete combustion is ensured in crevice volumes, but piston structural complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The piston design applies local quality by creating openings with specific size characteristics (larger than quench distance) only in the critical areas where crevice volumes exist. The openings are strategically positioned to expose specific crevice regions to combustion while maintaining the overall simplicity of the piston structure. This localized approach ensures complete combustion where needed without unnecessarily complicating the entire piston design.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The open-faced piston design effectively reduces unburned hydrocarbon emissions by ensuring that the fuel and air mixture in crevice volumes undergoes complete combustion, enhancing engine efficiency and minimizing emissions.
Implementation Method 1
allowing the combustion reaction to propagate into the crevice volumes and burn the fuel
Data Source
AI summary
The present disclosure provides an open-faced piston with a circumferential groove into which a piston ring assembly is arranged. Openings at the bottom of the circumferential groove and between a front land of the open-faced piston and the piston face are provided. The openings are arranged to allow for a combustion reaction to propagate through the volume defined between the bottom of the piston ring assembly and the piston face such that at least a portion of an air and fuel mixture located in that volume is reacted.