System Architecture Analysis of a Hydrogen Enhanced IC Engine

This paper presents a quantitative analysis of potential system architectures for a hydrogen enhanced spark ignited, homogeneous charge, internal combustion engine. The proposed concepts all revolve around a plasma fuel reformer, a compact, fast response partial oxidation fuel reformer that can real-time convert a fraction of the fuel stream to the engine into a mixture of hydrogen, carbon monoxide and nitrogen. The intent of this work was to analyze the different engine-reformer architecture options in the context of the objectives of fuel consumption, engine out NOx emissions and system add-on cost.Copyright © 2004 by ASME