Analysis of common rail pressure signal of dual-fuel large industrial engine for identification of injection duration of pilot diesel injectors

In this paper, we address the problem of identification of injection duration of common rail (CR) diesel pilot injectors of dual-fuel engines. In these pilot injectors, the injected volume is small and the repeatability of injections and identification of drifts of injectors are important factors, which need to be taken into account in order to achieve good repeatability (shot-to-shot with every cylinder) and therefore a well-balanced engine and furthermore reduced overall wear. This information can then be used for calibration and diagnostics purposes to guarantee engine longevity facilitated by consistent operating conditions throughout the life of the unit. A diagnostics method based on analysis of CR pressure with experimental results is presented in this paper. Using the developed method, the relative duration of injection events can be identified for multiple injectors. We use the phenomenon of drop in rail pressure due to an injection event as a feature of the injection process. The method is based on filtered CR pressure data during and after the injection event. First, the pressure signal during injection is extracted after control of each injection event. After that, the signal is normalized and filtered. Then a derivative of the filtered signal is calculated. Change in the derivative of the filtered signal larger than a predefined threshold indicates an injection event that can be detected and its relative duration can be identified. We present the experimental results and demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed methods using two different types of pressure sensors. We are able to properly identify a change of ≥10 µs (2%, 500 µs) in injection time. This shows that the developed method detects drifts in injection duration and the magnitude of drift. This information can be used for adaptive control of injection duration, so that finally the injected fuel volume is the same as the original.