Published on Jun 05, 2023
Gasoline direct injection (GDI) engine technology has received considerable attention over the last few years as a way to significantly improve fuel efficiency without making a major shift away from conventional internal combustion technology. In many respects, GDI technology represents a further step in the natural evolution of gasoline engine fueling systems. Each step of this evolution, from mechanically based carburation, to throttle body fuel injection, through multi-point and finally sequential multi-point fuel injection, has taken advantage of improvements in fuel injector and electronic control technology to achieve incremental gains in the control of internal combustion engines. Further advancements in these technologies, as well as continuing evolutionary advancements in combustion chamber and intake valve design and combustion chamber flow dynamics, have permitted the production of GDI engines for automotive applications.
GDI technology has potential applications in a wide segment of automotive industry. It is attractive to two stroke engine designer because of the inherent ability of in cylinder injection to eliminate the exhaust of uncombusted fuel during the period of overlap in intake and exhaust valve opening. The greatest fuel efficiency advantages of GDI can be realized in direct injection stratified charge lean combustion applications, significant fuel savings can be achieved even under stochiometric operation.
Use of gasoline direct injection (GDI) can reduce charge-air temperature while allowing for higher compression ratios. This has the effect of reducing the potential for detonation yet increasing gasoline engine efficiency. Instead of fuel and air mixing prior to entering the cylinder as with typical fuel injection, GDI uses a high-pressure injector nozzle to spray gasoline directly into the combustion chamber. An example of a GDI system is shown in Figure. One advantage of GDI is that as the fuel vaporizes, it absorbs energy from the charge. This "cooling effect" lowers the temperature of the air in the cylinder, thereby reducing its tendency to detonate.
