BSME-ASME International Conference on Thermal Engineering 31 December 2001 2 January 2002, Dhaka ISBN

Towards The Implementation Of CNG Engine: A Literature Review Approach To Problems And Solutions
Rosli Abu Bakar, Mardani Ali Sera and Wong Hong Mun
Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 UTM Skudai Johor Darul Tazim Malaysia ABSTRACT Alternative fuels used in gasoline and diesel engines are becoming the subjects of interest today, driven by various new laws pertaining to clean air and/or energy independence. The major alternative fuels under consideration are propane, methanol, ethanol and natural gas. Natural gas was commented by many organizations and government officials as the fuel for the future vehicle. Natural gas clearly has some substantial benefits compared to gasoline and diesel. These include lower fuel cost, higher octane content, lower maintenance cost and produce cleaner exhaust emissions. There are at least two trends in the Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) Engine research. Car manufacturers such as Honda, Ford, Chrysler and John Doo focus their research in converting and modifying the gasoline or diesel engine to be fuelled by the CNG. The trend is just doing the modification. The fuel storage, fuel metering, power train and emission control system, the injector timing, spark advance and the implementation of EGR were included in the car manufacturers trend. University researchers and the research organizations, however tries to look for into the fundamental research. Area of interests include flame speed, the combustion process and the burning process. Major problems of the CNG Engine was low in volumetric efficiency, low flame speed, low compression ratio usage, inappropriate air/fuel ratio usage and high ignition temperature and high ignition pressure.

Keywords: Alternative Fuel, CNG Engine, Performance, Low emission and Malaysia Scenario
I. INTRODUCTION Over the past decade, alternative fuel had been studied for the possibility of lower emission, lower fuel cost, better (more secure) fuel availability and lower dependence on petroleum. Before any alternative fuels could be used as an alternative to petrol or diesel, it has to fulfill some criteria. Stratton (1996) has listed some suitability factors that would support alternative fuel to become a choice over petroleum. These factors were shown in Table 1. It is necessary to finalize the decision of alternative fuel type usage based on the suitability of each alternative fuels. Natural gas, however, has many advantages compare to other alternative fuels. The Dennis Dart, one of the United Kingdom bus manufacturers, has already evaluate eight promising

alternative fuels as shown in Table 2. All the conditions are refers to the United Kingdom environment. Table. 1: Factor Affecting the Suitability of an Alternative Fuel
Item Fuel Reserves Refueling infrastructure Component availability Emission potential Safety Financial requirements Requirements Reserves of the fuel must be plentiful A sufficient number of refueling points must exist. Specialized engines, fuel tanks, etc. must be commercially available The alternative fuel must offer reduced emissions The fuel storage system must be capable of being installed into the subject vehicle The costs associated with using the alternative fuel must be comparable with existing vehicles

Table. 2: Dennis Dart Fuel Requirements for Various Alternative Fuels (Stratton, 1996)
Fuel Storage Pressure (bar) 1 1 200 8 6 1 1 300 Fuel Storage Volume (liters) 135 160 540 230 260 300 270 Fuel Container Weight (kg) 30 35 460 70 80 70 5000+ 950 Fuel Storage Temperature (Deg C) 15 15 15 15 -161 15 15 15 Calorific Value NET (MJ/kg) 42.9 43 47.2 46.1 47.2 19.7 119.8 Commercial Fuel Availability in UK EXCELLENT EXCELLENT GOOD LIMITED NIL POOR EXCELLENT NIL Refueling Point Availability in the UK EXCELLENT EXCELLENT LIMITED LIMITED NIL POOR EXCELLENT

Diesel Petrol CNG LPG LNG Methanol Electric Hydrogen

Another researchers, Brekken and Durbin (1998), had compared the efficiency and the vehicle range, base weight and power to weight ratio of existing gasoline to series of alternative fuels. From the five alternative fuels, such as hybrid electric vehicles (SHEV), battery electric vehicles (BEV), fuel cell with storing hydrogen onboard vehicles (FCVH2), fuel cell with reformers (FCVR) for gasoline fuel, and advance natural gas vehicle (NGV), the result showed that NGV and SHEV were at the same value to replace gasoline based on the above criteria. 2. CNG AS ALTERNATIVE FUEL CNG is a mixture of hydrocarbons in gaseous form, consists of approximately 80 to 90 percent of methane. Due to the CNGs low energy density, it is compressed to a pressure of 200 to 250 MPa to enhance the vehicle on-board energy storage. CNG is colorless, odorless, non-toxic, lighter than air and inflammable (DERN, 1998). CNG has higher octane number than petrol. CNG octane number would range from 120 to 130 octane compare to 93 octane for gasoline. CNG was widely accepted as an alternative fuel by many top organization and government officials. more car manufacturers produced the CNG engine for their environment friendly cars, i.e. Honda, Ford, Toyota, Volvo, Mercedes Benz, Optare, Iveco and Scania (Crowther, 1996). Benefits of using CNG includes lower fuel cost, higher octane content, lower maintenance cost and produce cleaner exhaust emissions. Table 3. showed the reductions in urban vehicle emissions (based on performance of van) under real world tested by British Gas.

Operation cost of vehicles running on CNG is approximately one third of petrol (DERN, 1998). Due to its advantages and superiority over conventional fuels, CNG is among the most promising alternative fuel for city transport. Table. 4 shows the comparison between CNG costs and other fuels in Malaysia and USA. Emissions
Carbon Monoxide Carbon Dioxide Nitrogen Oxides Non Methane Hydrocarbons Benzene Lead Sulphur

Table. 3: Emissions reduction by CNG Reduction against Petrol Reduction against Diesel
22-24% 76% 83% 88% 99% 100% Nearly 100% 10% Natural gas and diesel both low 80% 80% 97% not applicable nearly 100%

3. THE MALAYSIAN SCENARIO Objectives of implementation of CNG engines in Malaysia are: a. Low Emission Vehicle The CNG engine is hoped to fulfill the clean air policy by reducing CO, CO2 and NOx produced. b. Alternative Energy Operation of CNG engine will support the effort in the independence from petroleum energy policy. c. Low Cost Abundance reserve with no addition costs in producing CNG made this fuel can be sold in lower price compare to gasoline and diesel. d. Comparable Performance to the Existing Vehicle With the usage of advance technology in a CNG engine operation, the performance of CNG engine is expected to be the same with the existing engines. e. Practical Fueling System Continuing the development of the CNG refueling stations all around rural cities in Malaysia will make this alternative fuel vehicle practical to be used . To fulfill these objectives, the Malaysian government had issued a current government incentives and legislations to encourage the use of CNG as a fuel by: i. Import duty and sales tax exemption on conversion kits ii. Set CNGs pump price at 56.5 sen/litre equivalent (since 1992). On October 1, 2000 other fuels increase by 9% but there are no change in CNG price. iii. Additional reduction of Road tax from existing levels: a. - monogas (dedicated) vehicle 50% Off b. - bi-fuel vehicle 25% Off c. - dual-fuel vehicle 25% Off iv. Accelerated capital allowance for purchase of monogas (dedicated) buses and construction of CNG outlets v. Commercial vehicle licensing board of regulated that 25% of new taxis (under new permits) in Kuala Lumpur to be on CNG vehicle

By implementing the environmental friendly vehicle, the Malaysian government had set the CNG with the lowest fuel price compared to other fuel, as shown in Table 4. Table. 4: Retail price of various automotive fuel
Fuel NGV Petrol (Unleaded) RON 97 Petrol (Unleaded) RON 92 Diesel Autogas (LPG) Note:
1)

Pump Price/Litre 1) RM 0.56 (US$ 0.15) RM 1.20 (US$ 0.32) RM 1.16 (US$ 0.31) RM 0.70 (US$ 0.18) RM 0.751 (US$ 0.20)
2)

Projected Price per Equivalent Gallon of gasoline2) US$ 0.88 US$ 1.21 US$ 1.07

Petronas (2000) and

Maxwell and Jones (1995)

To date, there are about 3700 CNG or Natural Gas Vehicle (NGV). These vehicles include 1000 Enviro 2000 NGV taxis operating in and around Kuala Lumpur. As much of them 95% of the NGVs are city taxis. The fueling stations are totaled in is about 16 for public use and 2 for private use. It was planned that the numbers would increase to 29 outlets in 2001 and 71 outlets in 2005. Natural gas is supplied to these NGV stations through natural gas pipelines (conventional system) and trailers (mother-daughter system). 4. THE CNG ENGINE The use of CNG as an alternative fuel in an engine could be divided into three main types according to their fuel usage and they are: i. Dual Fuel This is a development from conventional diesel engine. In this type of engine, both diesel and natural gas were introduced into the engine cylinders during compression. As natural gas will not ignite under compression alone, the diesel is required to act ignite the gas/air mixture. When natural gas refueling points are not available, the engine can revert to conventional operation. ii. Bi-Fuel This type of engine development is based on the conventional petrol engines where the fuel system has been modified to operate either petrol or gas. When natural gas refueling is not available, normal running on petrol is possible. iii. Dedicated/Mono Fuel This is a specialized engine type, which has been designed and optimized to operate only on natural gas. This enable the characteristics of natural gas to be fully exploited without the need to compromise in design to enable other fuel usage. Up to now, most of the CNG engine are simply conversions from either petrol or diesel, which are far from the optimal design (Duan, 1996). Example of such conversion includes Honda Civic GX which was based on the Civic 1.6-liter gasoline while the Ford Crown Victoria Dedicated Vehicle from a base gasoline Crown Victoria. The Honda Civic was modified through the change of compression ratio, valve train system and exhaust system (Lapetz et.al, 1995). The modification done as the Ford Crown Victoria consists of four major areas: fuel storage, fuel metering, power train and the emission control system (Suga, Knight and Arai, 1997).

The main problem to commercialize the CNG engine was the lack of engine performance. The CNG engine, either in dual-fuel, bi-fuel or dedicated forms are lower performance compare to that of gasoline. The range for CNG engine is typically limited to about 40% - 50% of gasoline fueled engine(Beale, 1997). However, in the Volvo Bi Fuel S70/V70, maximum engine output is reduce by only 15 horsepower when switching from gasoline to CNG with a corresponding reduction in acceleration and top speed (Brauer, 1998). Several factors affecting the low engine power and torque are: i. Loses in volumetric efficiency The power loss could be partly explained by the low density of natural gas. Because gaseous fuel occupies a larger volume per unit energy than a liquid fuel. The natural gas in the mixture drawn into the cylinder displaces approximately 8 to 10% of oxygen available for combustion. Total volumetric efficiency decrease up to 2.5% for the CNG Crown Victoria compared to the gasoline Crown Victoria. In other words, CNG in its gaseous state, decreases volumetric efficiency by the same amount and consequently reducing torque and power. ii. Low flame speed Natural gas has a very low flame speed, which is much lower than gasoline. Values as much as 60% decrease in lower burning velocity for natural gas has been measured (Duan, 1996). This effects the total combustion duration prolonged compared with diesel and gasoline. With the conventional valve timing setting for liquid fuel engines, it would be impossible for CNG operation to complete the whole combustion before the exhaust valve opens, even if the gas mixture was ignited earlier. This can cause a further reduction in the engine output of 5 to 10%. iii. Low compression ratio (CR) Current gas engine practice are mainly limited to simple conversion from either gasoline or diesel engines. For gasoline engines, the CR are in the range of 8:1 to 9.5:1. On the other hand, the CNG with higher octane rating allows engine CR increase up to 15:1. Increasing the CR would partially increase ideal efficiency and the power output (Maxwell and Jones, 1995). Heywood (1988) states, For the important compression ratio range of 9 to 11 the relative efficiency improvement is between 1-3% per unit compression ratio increase, depending on cylinder size and operating conditions. iv. Absence of fuel evaporation When gasoline evaporates (required before combustion), the energy required for the phase change decrease intake charge temperature and air partial pressure. The decrease in temperature offsets the decrease in air partial pressure and results in a positive increase to volumetric efficiency of about 2%. CNG does not evaporate before combustion, losing any potential gain from the heat vaporization. v. Change in stoichiometric air/fuel ratio The stoichiometric air/fuel ratio for gasoline is about 14.6 while CNG is about 16.9 (methane is 17.2), indicating less CNG is required for a given air charge. Furthermore, CNG has a greater lower heating value (LHV) indicating more available energy for each unit of mass. The LHV value for CNG is around 46736 kJ/kg while the LHV for gasoline approximately 43961 kJ/kg. For the case of Honda 1997 Civic GX 1.6L, the use of natural gas in a conventional gasoline engine led to a 12% reduction in power and a 13 % reduction in torque at Wide Open Throttle (WOT) (Suga, Knight and Arai, 1997). In addition,the Ford 1996 Crown Victoria decrease approximately 12% for torque and power (Lapetz et.al, 1995) . Based on the Maxwell and Jones works, the average power and torque loss of CNG compared to gasoline is in the range of 3 to 19.7% and 1.6 to 21.6%, respectively.

5. PROBLEM AND SOLUTION IN LITERATURE APPROACH The analysis here is limited to Spark Ignition (SI) engine operation and focused in performance only. The CNG engine will be best operated if such conditions as listed in Figure 1. Operated in high volumetric Efficiency High Flame Speed CNG Engine Ideal Operation Supercharge or turbocharge New Design of Combustion Chamber Injection Type Turbulent Effect (intake process and/or Combustion Chamber geometry design) Addition/Injection of H2 High Compression Ratio Suitable Air fuel Ratio Suitable Combustion Chamber for high CR Lean Burn Operation Injection Type Turbulent Effect Low Emission Fuel System Storage Ultra Low Emission Vehicle (ULEV or SULEV) Composite or others material that is light and stronger for CNG tank Setting up: ignition timing, max best torque (MBT), injector timing and intake valve close timing

Engine Operating Condition

Figure 1. Ideal CNG Engine Operating Conditions To achieve the optimum operation of CNG engine as listed in Fig.1, many researchers and institutions have contributed in improving the CNG engine performance. In area of increasing volumetric efficiency, Kubesh et.al (1995) developed an electronically controlled natural gas-fueled engine with a turbocharged-aftercooled engine controlled by an electronic control system. Tilagone et al.(1996) found that an increase up to 16% of thermal efficiency on a turbocharge SI CNG fuelled engine with multi point injection and optimized ignition timing with spark advance 200 higher running on stoichiometric A/F ratio. In designing a turbulent effect in order to increase the flame speed combustion, Johansson and Olsson (1995) developed ten different geometries of the combustion chamber (CC). The results showed a high correlation between in cylinder turbulence and rate of heat release in the combustion process.

However, the results also showed that geometries that gave the fastest combustion would also gave the highest NOx values. In their further study, Johansson and other co-worker (1997), developed six different CC to find its effect on the combustion performance. The results showed different geometrical CC, with the same compression ratio (12:1), have very different combustion performance. The Quartette type of CC gave the highest peak turbulence. A squish-generated charge motion combustion chamber had its effect to the burning rates. High levels of turbulent generated from the squish affected to faster burning rates, which resulted in improvement of thermal efficiency . Evan (1996) proved that the faster burning rates led to an average of 1.5% reduction in BSFC or 1.5% increase in power output under wide open throttle condition, as compare to the slowest burning cases. However the highest turbulence level combustion chamber also showed the highest emission levels. In optimizing the gasoline SI engine convertion to CNG operation, Duan (1996) propose the modification of setting up MBT, higher compression ratio and the use of gaseous fuel injection systems. Meanwhile, Ford introduces the Natural Gas Vehicle (NGV) truck by modifying fuel storage, fuel metering and emission control system. The injector timing, fuel control, spark advance, and exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) were also changed (Vermiglio et.al, 1997). ETH-Zurich Engine System Lab designed a Fuzzy Optimized Realtime Control Equipment (FORCE) for Compressed Natural Gas Engine. The goal of this work is to investigate the behavior of the natural gas burning process in order to find an optimal model based control strategy, which consist the following: o Model based control Air/Fuel and EGR ratio o Mixed lean-stoichiometric control and switch strategy tuned by Neuro-Fuzzy knowledge base o Swirl Control Valve o Dynamic Optimization of the best injection timing and the best ignition timing o Cylinder Pressure sensors for adaptation of engine operation to different natural gas qualities The simulations areas also conducted to increase the performance of CNG engine. Oullette et.al (1998) had simulated the combustion process and provides better understanding of the injection and combustion process of the pilot-ignited directly-injected natural gas. The mathematical simulation was expected to optimize the injection process by looking in particularly at the geometry and the injection delay between two fuels. The model includes modifications for underexpanded natural gas jets and includes a turbulent combustion model. Yossefi et.al (2000) used a large-scale computer simulation of natural gas engine to examine the long delay from the time of ignition to the start of significant heat release. Adding hydrogen into the CNG/air mixture had its adverse effect into the combustion delay where hydrogen increases the combustion burning rate. The addition of 20% hydrogen into the natural gas will reduced equivalent ratio by 15% without increasing ignition delay and combustion duration. (Swain et.al. ,1993) Toyota designed a CNG Camry (Kato, 1999) with a new engine that uses CNG as fuel, developed from modifying the basic 2.2-liter gasoline engine. The new engine has adopted high compression ratio, early intake valves closed timing, increased of intake and exhaust valves lift and a low back pressure muffler, to restore the loss of engine power. In order to reduce exhaust emissions, a multi-

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