Development of the regulation mapping of 1 MW internal combustion engine for diagnostic scopes

The present work deals with the creation, on the basis of experimental data, of the regulation maps for the I MW cogenerative internal combustion engine (ICE) installed at the Engineering Faculty of Perugia University. The regulation logic mapping is necessary for the development of a thermodynamic model of the engine behaviour to simulate the effects of possible malfunctions occurrence, such as deterioration or fouling not directly experienced on the engine. Such a work is carried out as a part of a more general research activity concerning the development of a diagnosis system for the cogenerative plant. Therefore, a first phase of the present work relates to the experimental data gathering campaign and the consequent data analysis to individuate the characteristic parameters of regulation. In the second phase, instead, a neural simulator of the control logic was developed on the basis of the experimental data for the engine operation at full load (initially considered at 980 kW) and during transitory. Consequently, through such a simulator the regulation maps of the engine were determined considering the variation range of all the characteristic parameters. Finally, a more accurate analysis of the experimental data relative to the dependence of the produced electric power at regimen on the fuel valve position, encouraged the authors to develop a further neural simulator able to reproduce the regulation commands for different values of the target power set for the regimen operation. Consequently, also the regulation mapping was revised obtaining a synthetic representation of the regulation logic useful for the implementation in the thermodynamic model of the engine dynamic behaviour. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.