VOL. 10, NO.

20, NOVEMBER 2015 ISSN 1819-6608

ARPN Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences
©2006-2015 Asian Research Publishing Network (ARPN). All rights reserved.

www.arpnjournals.com

ENGINE OPTIMIZATION BY USING VARIABLE VALVE TIMING SYSTEM

AT LOW ENGINE REVOLUTION
Ainul Aniyah Sabaruddin, Surjatin Wiriadidjaja, Azmin Shakrine Mohd Rafie, Fairuz I. Romli and Harijono
Djojodihardjo
Department of Aerospace Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia
E-Mail: ainulaniyah@gmail.com

ABSTRACT
Engine optimization is one of the most cost-effective methods in reducing emissions and fuel consumption. In the
theory, the maximum overlap would be needed between the intake valves and the exhaust valves opening whenever a
common internal-combustion engine is running at high revolution per minute (RPM). At lower RPM, however, as the
engine is run at lighter load, maximum overlaps may be useful as a means to lessen the fuel consumptions and emissions.
The timing of air intake and exhaust valves are usually determined by the shapes and the phase angles of the camshaft. To
optimize the air breathing, an engine would require different valve timings at different speeds. As the revolution speed
increases, the duration of the intake and exhaust valves opening would decrease, thus less amount of fresh air may enter the
combustion chambers, while complete exhaust gas cannot exit the combustion chamber in time. Therefore, varying the
intake timing of an engine could help to produce more power and, if applied to smaller and lighter engine, it could result in
a lower fuel consumption as well. This particular investigation has been conducted through simulations and complemented
by experimental works. It has been realized in this study that optimization of an engine together with implementation of
variable valve timing was able to generate similar power with an increase in volumetric efficiency, while it is obtained with
a slightly lower fuel consumption. As reported by many researchers, the variable valve timing method has been indeed
proven to deliver better fuel economy, less emissions, but higher torque under any operating condition.

Keywords: exhaust gas recirculation, valve overlapping, variable valve timing, engine optimization.

INTRODUCTION different basic kinds that are based on their working

Improvements of the performance of piston principles, i.e. the variable phase timing, the variable cam
engines are continually investigated, so that it consumes profile, and the full flexible mechanism.
less fuel while its impact on the greenhouse emissions is The VVT system controls the opening and
reduced. Among many possibilities for achieving the closing time of intake valves according to different
above objectives, there are development works carried out working conditions of the engine to improve its
by car manufacturers and research organizations on performance and fuel economy. In other words, a VVT
different areas such as vehicle dynamics, weight reduction system would improve the brake torque, deliver better
and engine management systems, though most of the power and reduce exhaust emissions in piston engines [8-
emission and fuel consumption reduction is seen to be 10]. Numerous VVT mechanisms have been proposed and
obtained only through increasing the efficiency of power some of these have been implemented and demonstrated in
train systems. One of the effective strategies to improve engines. Most of the VVT implementation in automotive
the engine efficiency is the engine downsizing [1-3]. engines may be categorized into two modes of operations,
In engine downsizing, the reduction of the low and high speed operations [11-14].
engine’s displacement will make an engine to operate at a An important valve timing characteristic is called
higher load, thus increasing the mechanical and brake the overlap. An overlap is the period in the gas exchange
thermal efficiency, which will also reduce fuel event during which both inlet and exhaust valves are open
consumption by limiting the pumping and friction losses. at the same time. So far, the VVT system has been proved
This will in turn lower the heat transfer energy due to the in producing an improved fuel economy, less emissions
decreased total surface area [3-5]. In this particular study, and better torque under any operating condition.
the size of the investigated engine has been reduced from
10.04 cu. in. to 8.49 cu. in. while still maintaining a METHODOLOGY
compression ratio of 9. Based on previous research work
on engine downsizing for example in [6], some Experimental work
improvements must have been achieved, i.e. 74% The study started with an experimental test of a
improvement in torque, 102% improvement in power and normal four stroke engine (EX17D). The EX17D is an air
24% reduction in the brake specific fuel consumption cooled single cylinder, four stroke engine manufactured by
(BSFC). SUBARU. The tests were performed on the engine test
The variable valve timing (VVT) that was first bed TH-03 (Figure-1) that was supplied by SOLUTION
proposed in 1880[7] has been proved to be a very effective ENGINEERING. This test has been conducted to see if
methods in improving engine performance until today. the engine EX17D performance matches the power curve
The variable valve timing system may be classified into 3 as it was claimed by the manufacturer, so that it can be

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ARPN Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences
©2006-2015 Asian Research Publishing Network (ARPN). All rights reserved.

www.arpnjournals.com

used as reference for further investigation. Table-1 shows displacement and dynamic compression ratios. The
the general configuration of the used EX17D engine. program estimates a cylinder head flow curve that
Once the experimental test were completed, the generated from a percentage-based of “flow efficiency” or
study then proceed with engine simulation try out to come optional input from the user. The program includes utility
out with an engine profile configuration that could match calculation screens that help you model compression ratios
the power curve. and other auxiliary calculations needed to support the
simulator. It plots torque and horsepower per RPM
graphically with up to seven overlays for run-to-run
comparisons. From input or selected cam data it shows
valve lift per crankshaft degree to help you evaluate cam
profiles. An optimize feature of this simulations
automatically chooses the best port or runner size or length
for best peak torque and horsepower or average torque and
horsepower.

Simulation with Dynomation-5

Dynomation-5 is a simulator based on extensive
wave action simulation. It ability to allow user to
experience the engine combination to view, analyze, and
understand the powerful wave dynamics that influence
induction and exhaust flow. It could provide evaluation of
specific intake runner lengths, section widths, port taper
angles, header tubing and collector dimensions, and how
they affect valve engine and the operational gas dynamics
in the engine. The combustion chamber selector provides
nine different combustion geometries based on chamber
shape, burn rate characteristics and chamber timing
Figure-1. Engine test bed TH-03. requirements based on gasoline.
Based on EX17D configuration size, a new
Table-1. General EX17D configuration. proposed resized cylinder (Table-2) is created smaller than
the first. Below are the information used to conduct the
simulation for the study. Based on the results obtained by
these two simulation programme, this study then proceed
with the programme that gave the best desired output.

Table-2. Comparison to the new proposed engine size.

Simulation works
The simulation works implemented in this study
have been based on the two available, commercial
software:
1. PRO ENGINE ANALYZER [15] and
2. DYNOMATION-5 [15].
To implement the variable valve techniques on
Simulation with PRO engine analyzer the new proposed resized engine, two different sets of
The basic version runs simulations for gasoline cams are used. One is use from the start of the engine,
and alcohol in normally aspirated mode or with second is activated when the engine’s RPM reaches 2500
turbocharged, supercharged, or nitrous options. It uses and above. The used cam configuration in this study for
wave tuning algorithms for volumetric efficiency the resized engine are as below
prediction that includes spark settings and detonation
simulation. More than 70 engine specifications can be
input to describe your proposed engine to the program.
From this the simulation delivers up to 23 data outputs per
RPM and over 18 special calculations, such as

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ARPN Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences
©2006-2015 Asian Research Publishing Network (ARPN). All rights reserved.

www.arpnjournals.com

Table-3. Cam configuration.

Figure-2. Power output of experimental versus reference.

From the experiment, the results (Figure-2)

Table-3 refers to cam configuration used for obtained were a lot lower than the given power curve. This
normal sized (EX17D based) and the proposed smaller is normally due to several power loss that happen as the
sized engine for below 2500RPM. As the RPM increases, engine works and also regard to the age of the engine will
the cam configuration will change to another as stated in indirectly effect the performance of the engine. Figure-3
Table-4. Duration stated in the tables are the difference shows the overal results comparing the simulation done in
between the closing and opening angles. This is the try to match the power curve given by the company. Based
number of degrees the valves are "off their seats". on the results obtained, the study found that Pro Analyzer
Duration is usually expressed in crankshaft degrees. has given a better desired power curve compared to the
Dynomatiom. Study the proceed with implementation of
Table-4. Cam configuration at 2500 RPM. downsizing an engine with VVT by using Pro Analyzer.

Figure-3. Overall comparison of the power output of

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS EX17D
Based on the conducted experiment, the power
output is the compared to the power curve given by the Based on the results obtained, this study will then
company. Based on the specifications given this engine proceed for the variable valve timing settings
were supposed to be able to run at 4000 RPM speed implementation with the Pro Analyzer data as it give the
maximum. Unfortunately, during the experiment, the best and closest results to the power curve provided by the
highest RPM obtainable were 3700 RPM. company.

Implying variable valve timing for low speed engine

Based on the results, at 2500RPM the power were
increased up to 15.64% and 20.38% at 4000RPM

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ARPN Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences
©2006-2015 Asian Research Publishing Network (ARPN). All rights reserved.

www.arpnjournals.com

(Figure-4) whereas the volumetric efficiency of the engine Reducing the displacement of the engine with variable
increased about 15% (Figure-5). valve timing.
With the same configuration, the engine sized is
then changed from 10.04 cubic inches of displacement to
8.49 cubic inches (Bore : 2.6 inches, stroke : 1.6 inches) of
displacement hoping that with this slightly smaller size
perhaps this configuration are able to give out similar
output as EX17D but with any enhancement.
From the stimulated test, in term of the power
output (Figure-7) for a smaller size engine it started out
with 20% less power at 2000RPM but however it started
to surpass the bigger size’s power at 3700RPM and by the
end of 4000RPM the engine is able to give out about 1.2%
more or less the same power as the older sized engine.
Even with roughly similar power output throughout the
whole run, the smaller engine does consume slight lower
fuel and it save out about 2% throughout the whole run at
Figure-4. Brake horsepower versus RPM. every RPM.
As for the volumetric efficiency of the engine
However, unfortunately, the fuel flow of the (Figure-8) starting at 2500 RPM the efficiency increased
engine increased as well. With 16.01% increased at 4000 up to 12% overall. As for the fuel consumption, the results
RPM (Figure-6), this is something that is not desirable. shows (Figure-9) that the smaller engine indeed used
This however is possibly due to that, it is said before that slight lower amount of fuel and this can be regard as a
variable valve timing may increase power but not possible savings over time.
necessarily lower fuel consumption especially for low
speed engine.

Figure-7. BHP comparison of EX17D based engine to a

smaller one.
Figure-5. The volumetric efficiency of the engine.

Figure-8. Volumetric efficiency comparison of EX17D

based engine to a smaller one.
Figure-6. Fuel flow versus RPM.

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Afforded Through the Use of Intake Cam In Cam

Applied to a Gasoline Turbocharged Downsized
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[3] J. M. Zaccardi, A. Pagot, F. Vangraefschepe, C.

Dognin and S. Mokhtari. 2009. “Optimal Design for a
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[4] B. Lecointe and G. Monnier. 2003. “Downsizing a

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www.arpnjournals.com

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