Evaluating air-tightness of a gaseous fuel manifold during purge gas flushing

• Main Authors: SIXEL, EIKE JOACHIM, TUEXEN, THORSTEN, HOHENWALD, CHRISTIAN, STUBBS, ADAM, MARSCHEIDER, HANNES, WESTER, DANIEL, SIVASUBRAMANIAN, ARVIND
• Format: Patent
• Language: English; French; German
• Published: 09.09.2015
• Subjects: BLASTING; CLIMATE CHANGE MITIGATION TECHNOLOGIES RELATED TOTRANSPORTATION; COMBUSTION ENGINES; CONTROLLING COMBUSTION ENGINES; GENERAL TAGGING OF CROSS-SECTIONAL TECHNOLOGIES SPANNING OVER SEVERAL SECTIONS OF THE IPC; GENERAL TAGGING OF NEW TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS; HEATING; HOT-GAS OR COMBUSTION-PRODUCT ENGINE PLANTS; LIGHTING; MECHANICAL ENGINEERING; TECHNICAL SUBJECTS COVERED BY FORMER USPC CROSS-REFERENCE ART COLLECTIONS [XRACs] AND DIGESTS; TECHNOLOGIES OR APPLICATIONS FOR MITIGATION OR ADAPTATION AGAINSTCLIMATE CHANGE; WEAPONS

For a dual fuel internal combustion engine (100) with a plurality of cylinders (9) and at least one gaseous fuel admission valve (58) for each cylinder (9) of the plurality of cylinders (9) fluidly delimiting a gaseous fuel manifold (54) with respect to the respective cylinder (9), a method of evaluating air-tightness of the gaseous fuel manifold (54) comprises flushing (step 314) and/or pressurizing (step 316) the gaseous fuel manifold (54) with a purge gas at a pressure above an intake manifold air pressure thereby setting a differential gas pressure across gaseous fuel admission valves (58); measuring (step 320) a pressure associated with the flushing (step 314) and/or the pressurizing (step 316), thereby generating pressure data; and evaluating (step 322) the air-tightness of a gaseous fuel manifold (54) based on the measured pressure data.