Experimental investigation of an air enhancement device on the performance of a spark ignition engine

Abstract

Air enhancement devices for air intake manifold systems of automotive engines have been widely available in the market with the claim that they can improve fuel-air mixing and thus bring more power to the engine performance and better fuel efficiency. However, there is lack of evidence to complement the claim. The objective of this study is to investigate the ability of an air enhancement device in improving the performance of a Spark Ignition (SI) engine. The investigation is performed by an experiment on a four-stroke single-cylinder engine test bed, in which the air enhancement device is installed at the downstream of the air intake manifold. The result is compared to the performance of the engine without the air enhancement device. It is shown that the brake power, brake mean effective pressure (BMEP) and torque increase significantly with the engine speed when operated at 30% to 50% of the open throttle positions. However, no distinct difference in the results is observed when the engine is running at higher throttle openings.