1. INTRODUCTION OF LASER INDUCED IGNITION OF GASOLINE DIRECT INJECTION ENGINES 1.

1 INTRODUCTION
Economic as well as environmental constraints demand a further reduction in the fuelconsumption and the exhaust emissions of motor vehicles. At the moment, directInjected fuel engines show the highest potential in reducing fuel consumption and exhaust emissions. Unfortunately, conventional spark plug ignition shows a major disadvantage with modern spray-guided combustion processes since the ignition location cannot be chosen optimally. It is important that the spark plug electrodes are not hit by the injected fuel because otherwise severe damage will occur.Additionally, the spark plug electrodes can influence the gas flow inside the combustion chamber. It is well know that short and intensive laser pulses are able to produce an optical breakdown in air. Necessary intensities are in the range between 1010 1011W/cm2.1, 2 at such intensities, gas molecules are dissociated and ionized Within the vicinity of the focal spot of a laser beam and a hot plasma is generated. ThisPlasma is heated by the incoming laser beam and a strong shock wave occurs. The expanding hot plasma can be used for the ignition of fuel-gas mixtures.

2 .CONVENTIONAL SPARK IGNITION 2.1 DRAWBACKS OF CONVENTIONAL SPARK IGNITION

Location of spark plug is not flexible as it require shielding of plug from immense heat and fuel spray. It is not possible to ignite inside the fuel spray. It require frequent maintenance to remove carbon deposits.. Leaner mixtures cannot be burned. Degradation of electrodes at high pressure and temperature. Flame propagation is slow. Multi point fuel ignition is not feasible. Higher turbulence levels are required.. All the above drawbacks are overcome in laser ignition system explained asfollows.

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3. LASER IGNITION SYSTEMS

3.1 WHAT IS LASER? Lasers provide intense and unidirectional beam of light. Laser light is monochromatic (onespecific wavelength). Wavelength of light is determined by amount of energy releasedwhen electron drops to lower orbit. Light is coherent; all the photons have same wavefronts that launch to unison. Laser light has tight beam and is strong and concentrated. Tomake these three properties occur takes something called Stimulated Emission, inwhich photon emission is organized. Main parts of laser are power supply, lasing medium and a pair of precisely aligned mirrors. One has totally reflective surface and other is partially reflective (96 %). The most important part of laser apparatus is laser crystal. Most commonly used laser crystalis manmade ruby consisting of aluminum oxide and 0.05% chromium. Crystal rods are round and end surfaces are made reflective. A laser rod for 3 J is 6 mm in diameter and70 mm in length approximately. Laser rod is excited by xenon filled lamp, whichsurrounds it. Both are enclosed in highly reflective cylinder, which directs light fromflash lamp in to the rod. Chromium atoms are excited to higher energy levels. The excitedions meet photons when they return to normal state. Thus very high energy is obtained inshort pulses. Ruby rod becomes less efficient at higher temperatures, so it is continuouslycooled with water, air or liquid nitrogen. The Ruby rod is the lasing medium and flashtube pumps it.

FIG 3.11. Laser in its non lasing state.

FIG3.12. The flash tube fires and injects light into the ruby rod. The light excites atomsin the ruby.

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FIG 3.13 some of these atoms emit photons.

FIG 3.14 Photons run in a directional ruby axis, so they bounce back and forth off themirrors. As they pass through the crystal, they stimulate emission in other atoms.

FIG 3.15 Monochromatic, single phase calumniated light leaves the ruby through the halfsilvered mirror laser light. 3.2 RUBY LASER :( TWO ENERGY LEVEL):

Monochromatic, single-phase, columnated light leaves the rubythrough the half-silvered mirror--laser light

PHOTO 3.21 working of ruby Laser [6]

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3.3 GAS LASERS The Helium-neon laser (HeNe) emits 543 nm and 633 nm and is very common ineducation because of its low cost. Carbon dioxide lasers emit up to 100 kW at 9.6 m and10.6 m, and are used in industry for cutting and welding. Argon -Ion lasers emit 458 nm,488 nm or 514.5 nm. Carbon monoxide lasers must be cooled but can produce up to 500kW. The Transverse Electrical discharge in gas at Atmospheric pressure (TEA) laser isan inexpensive gas laser producing UV Light at 337.1 nm. Metal ion lasers are gas lasers that generate deep ultraviolet wavelengths. Helium-Silver (HeAg) 224 nm and Neon-Copper (NeCu) 248 nm are two examples. These lasershave particularly narrow oscillation linewidths of less than 3 GHz (0.5 picometers) [6]making them candidates for use in fluorescence suppressed Raman spectroscopy. 3.4 CHEMICAL LASERS Chemical lasers are powered by a chemical reaction, and can achieve high powers incontinuous operation. For example, in the Hydrogen fluoride laser (27002900 nm) andthe Deuterium fluoride laser (3800 nm) the reaction is the combination of hydrogen ordeuterium gas with combustion products of ethylene in nitrogen trifluoride. 3.5 EXCIMER LASERS Excimer lasers produce ultraviolet light, and are used in semiconductor manufacturingand in LASIK eye surgery. Commonly used excimer molecules include F2 (emitting at157 nm), ArF (193 nm), KrCl (222 nm), KrF (248 nm), XeCl (308 nm), and XeF (351nm). 3.6 SOLID-STATE LASERS Solid state laser materials are commonly made by doping a crystalline solid host withions that provide the required energy states. For example, the first working laser wasmade from ruby, or chromium-doped sapphire. Another common type is made from neodymium-doped yttrium aluminium garnet (YAG), known as Nd:YAG. Nd:YAG lasers can produce high powers in the infrared spectrum at 1064 nm. They are used forcutting, welding and marking of metals and other materials, and also in spectroscopy andfor pumping dye lasers. Nd:YAG lasers are also commonly doubled their frequency toproduce 532 nm when a visible (green) coherent source is required. Ytterbium, holmium, thulium and erbium are other common dopants in solid statelasers.

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The Ho-YAG is usually operated in a pulsed mode, and passedthrough optical fiber surgical devices to resurface joints, remove rot from teeth, Vaporizecancers, and pulverize kidney and gall stones. Titanium-doped sapphire (Ti:sapphire)produces a highly tunable infrared laser, used for spectroscopy. Solid state lasers also include glass or optical fiber hosted lasers, for example, with erbium or ytterbium ions as the active species. These allow extremely long gain regions,and can support very high output powers because the fiber's high surface area to volumeratio allows efficient cooling, and its waveguiding properties reduce thermal distortion ofthe beam. 3.7 SEMICONDUCTOR LASERS Laser diodes produce wavelengths from 405 nm to 1550 nm. Low power laser diodes areused in laser pointers, laser printers, and CD/DVD players. More powerful laser diodesare frequently used to optically pump other lasers with high efficiency. The highestpower industrial laser diodes, with power up to 10 kW, are used in industry for cuttingand welding. External-cavity semiconductor lasers have a semiconductor active mediumin a larger cavity. These devices can generate high power outputs with good beamquality, wavelength-tunable narrow-linewidth radiation, or ultrashort laser pulses. Vertical cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) are semiconductor lasers whoseemission direction is perpendicular to the surface of the wafer. VCSEL devices typicallyhave a more circular output beam than conventional laser diodes, and potentially could bemuch cheaper to manufacture. As of 2005, only 850 nm VCSELs are widely available,with 1300 nm VCSELs beginning to be commercialized [7], and 1550 nm devices an areaof research. VECSELs are external-cavity VCSELs. Quantum cascade lasers aresemiconductor lasers that have an active transition between energy sub-bands of anelectron in a structure containing several quantum wells. 3.8 DYE LASERS Dye lasers use an organic dye as the gain medium. The wide gain spectrum of availabledyes allows these lasers to be highly tunable, or to produce very shortduration pulses (onthe order of a few femtoseconds).

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4. LASER INDUCED SPARK IGNITION

4.1 INTRODUCTION

FIG.6 Optical breakdown in air generated by a Nd:YAG laser. Left: at a wavelength of 1064 nm, right: at 532 nm [4]

The process begins with multi-photon ionization of few gas molecules which releaseselectrons that readily absorb more photons via the inverse bremsstrahlung process toincrease their kinetic energy. Electrons liberated by this means collide with othermolecules and ionize them, leading to an electron avalanche, and breakdown of the gas.Multiphoton absorption processes are usually essential for the initial stage of breakdownbecause the available photon energy at visible and near IR wavelengths is much smaller than the ionization energy. For very short pulse duration (few picoseconds) themultiphoton processes alone must provide breakdown, since there is insufficient time forelectron-molecule collision to occur. Thus this avalanche of electrons and resultant ionscollide with each other producing immense heat hence creating plasma which issufficiently strong to ignite the fuel. The wavelength of laser depend upon the absorptionproperties of the laser and the minimum energy required depends upon the number ofphotons required for producing the electron avalanche.

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4.2 IGNITION IN COMBUSTION CHAMBER

The laser beam is passed through a convex lens, this convex lens diverge the beam andmake it immensely strong and sufficient enough to start combustion at that point. Hencethe fuel is ignited, at the focal point, with the mechanism shown above. The focal point isadjusted where the ignition is required to have. [3]

4.3 MINIMUM ENERGY REQUIRED FOR IGNITION The minimum ignition energy required for laser ignition is more than that for electric spark ignition because of following reasons: An initial comparison is useful for establishing the model requirements, and for identifying causes of the higher laser MIE. First, the volume of a typical electrical ignition spark is 10^-3 cm3. The focal volume for a typical laser spark is 10^-5 cm3. Since atmospheric air contains _1000 charged particles/cm3, the probability of finding a charged particle in the discharge volume is very low for a laser spark. Second, an electrical discharge is part of an external circuit that controls the power input, which may last milliseconds, although high power input to ignition sparks isusually designed to last <100 ns. Breakdown and heating of laser sparks depend only onthe gas, optical, and laser parameters, while the energy balance of spark dischargesdepends on the circuit, gas, and electrode characteristics. The efficiency of energytransfer to near-threshold laser sparks is substantially lower than to electrical sparks, somore power is required to heat laser sparks. Another reason is that, energy in the form of photons is wasted before the beam reach the focal point. Hence heating and ionizing the charge present in the path of laserbeam. This can also be seen from the propagation of flame which propagates longitudinally along the laser beam. Hence this loss of photons is another reason forhigher minimum energy required for laser ignition than that for electric spark.

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4.4 FLAME PROPAGATION IN COMBUSTION CHAMBER

FIG.8 Flame propagation [4]

4.5 ADVANTAGES OF LASER INDUCED SPARK IGNITION Location of spark plug is flexible as it does not require shielding from immense heat and fuel spray and focal point can be made any where in thecombustion chamber from any point It is possible to ignite inside the fuel spray asthere is no physical component at ignition location. It does not require maintenance to remove carbon deposits because of itsself cleaning property. Leaner mixtures can be burned as fuel ignition inside combustion chamberis also possible here certainty of fuel presence is very high. High pressure and temperature does not affect the performance allowing the use of high compression ratios. Flame propagation is fast as multipoint fuel ignition is also possible. Higher turbulence levels are not required due to above said advantages. 5. COMBUSTION CHAMBER EXPERIMENT 5.1 INTRODUCTION As a feasibility test, an excimer laser has been used for ignition of inflammablegases inside a combustion bomb. The laser used for the first experiments was aLambda Physik LPX205, equipped with an unstable resonator system and operatedwith KrF, delivering pulses with a wavelength of 248 nm and a duration of approximately 34 ns with maximum pulse energy of 400 mJ.10 The combustion chamber has had adiameter of 65 mm and a height of 86mm, with a resulting volume of 290cm3 and wasmade of steel.

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Thelaser beam was focused into the chamber by means of a lens with a focal length of50 mm. Variations of pulse energies as well as gas mixtures have been performed tojudge the feasibility of the process. Results indicate that ignitiondelay times aresmaller and pressure gradients are much steeper compared to conventional spark plugignition. 5.2 ENGINE EXPERIMENTS Since the first feasibility experiments could be concluded successfully, an engine wasmodified for laser ignition. The engine has been modified by a replacement of theconventional spark plug by a window installed into a cylindrical mount. The position ofthe focusing lens Inside the mount can be changed to allow variations of the location of the initial optical breakdown. First experiment with laser ignition of theengine have been performed with an excimer laser, later a q switched Nd:YAG has beenused, see table 1.

PHOTO 5.2.1 Research engine with the q-switched Nd:YAG laser system The replacement of the excimer laser was mainly caused by the fact that especially atvery low pulse energies the excimer laser shows strong energy fluctuations.
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Pulse energies, ignitionlocation and fuel/air ratios have been varied during the experiments. The engine hasbeen operated at each setting for several hours, repeatedly. All laser ignitionexperiments have been accompanied by conventional spark plug ignition as referencemeasurements.

Table 5.2.1. Technical data of the research engine and the Nd:YAG laser used for The experiments. Research engine No. of cylinders No. of valves Injector Stroke Bore Displacement vol. Comp. ratio switched Nd:YAG Pump source 1 1 Multihole 85 mm 88 mm 517 cm3 11.6 Wavelength Max. pulse energy Pulse duration Power consumption Beam Type Flash lamp 1064 or 532 nm 1064 or 532 nm 6 ns 1 kW diameter 6 mm Quantel Brilliant

5.3 RESULTS OF EXPERIMENT Results of the experiments are summarized in fig9. Fig. 9 shows that laser ignition hasadvantages compared to conventional spark plug ignition. Compared to conventionalspark plug ignition, laser ignition reduces the fuel consumption by several per cents.Exhaust emissions are reduced by nearly 20%. It is important that the benefits from laserignition can be achieved at almost the same engine smoothness level, as can be seen fromfig.9. Additionally, a frequency-doubled Nd:YAG laser has been used to examinepossible influences of the wavelength on the laser ignition process. No influences couldbe found. Best results in terms of fuel consumption as well as exhaust gases have beenachieved by laser ignition within the fuel spray. As already mentioned, it is not possibleto use conventional spark plugs within the fuel spray since they will be destroyed veryrapidly. Laser ignition doesnt suffer from that restriction.

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FIG. 9 Result Comparison [4] Another important question with a laser ignition system is its reliability. It is clearthat the operation of an engine causes very strong pollution within the combustion Chamber. Deposits caused by the combustion process can contaminate the beam entrancewindow and the laser ignition system will probably fail. To quantify the influence ofdeposits on the laser ignition system, the engine has been operated with a spark plug atdifferent load points for more than 20 hours with an installed beam entrance window. Ascan be seen in fig.10, the window was soiled with a dark layer of combustion deposits.Afterwards, a cold start of the engine was simulated. Already the first laser pulse ignitedthe fuel/air mixture. Following laser pulses ignited the engine without misfiring, too. After 100 cycles the engine was stopped and the window was disassembled. As can beseen from fig10, all deposits have been removed by the laser beam. Additionalexperiments showed that for smooth operation of the engine the minimum pulse energyof the laser is determined by the necessary intensity for cleaning of the beam entrancewindow. Estimated minimum pulse energies are too low since such self-cleaningmechanisms are not taken into account. Engine operation without misfiring was alwayspossible above a certain threshold intensity at the beam entrance window. For safeoperation of an engine even at cold start conditions an increased pulse energy of the firstfew laser pulses would be beneficial for cleaning of the beam entrance window.

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FIG. 10 Self Cleaning Property [4]

6. CONCLUSION: The applicability of a laser-induced ignition system on direct injected gasolineengine has been proven. Main advantages are the almost free choice of the ignitionlocation within the combustion chamber, even inside the fuel spray. Significantreductions in fuel consumption as well as reductions of exhaust gases show thepotential of the laser ignition process. At present, a laser ignition plug is very expensive compared to a standard electrical spark plug ignition system and it is nowhere near ready for deployment.But the potential and advantages certainly make the laser ignition more attractive inmany practical applications.

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REFERENCES
[1] Bergmann and Schaefer, Lehrbuch der Experimentalphysik: Elektrizitat und Magnetism us, vol. 2, Walter de Gruyter Berlin, 1981. [2] D. R. Lidde, ed., CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, CRC Press, 2000 [3] J. Ma, D. Alexander, and D. Poulain, Laser spark ignition and combustion Characteristics of methane-air mixtures, Combustion and Flame 112 (4), pp. 492506, 1998 [4] J. Syage, E. Fournier, R. Rianda, and R. Cohn, Dynamics of flame propagation Using laser-induced spark initiation: Ignition energy measurements, Journal of Applied Physics 64 (3), pp. 14991507, 1988. [5] Lambda Physik, Manual for the LPX205 Excimer Laser, 1991 [6] M. Gower, Krf laser-induced breakdown of gases, Opt. Commun. 36, No. 1, pp. 4345, 1981. [7] M. Lavid, A. Poulos, and S. Gulati, Infrared multiphoton ignition and Combustion enhancement of natural gas, in SPIE Proc.: Laser Applications in Combustion and Combustion Diagnostics, 1862, pp. 3344,1993. [8] P. Ronney, Laser versus conventional ignition of flames, Opt. Eng. 33 (2), pp. 510521, 1994. [9] R. Hill, Ignition-delay times in laser initiated combustion, Applied Optics. 20 (13), pp. 22392242, 1981. [10] T. Huges, Plasma and laser light, Adam Hilger, Bristol, 1975.

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