Balancing of a four cylinder engine for single cylinder operation

Abstract

Academic and industrial experimental campaigns on internal combustion engines typically prefer a single cylinder setup to simplify instrumentation and auxiliary requirements. Unfortunately, single cylinder engines might not be of the same “generation” as the engines on which investigations are planned. Therefore the need to modify available and current “generation” multi-cylinder engines to single cylinder operation is a task that some engine researchers might require. Detailed literature of how this modification is done is lacking. Therefore this paper details the modification carried out on a four cylinder inline Peugeot Hdi common rail diesel engine to be operated as a single cylinder. This single cylinder engine was required for the in-cylinder heat transfer research being conducted on a pressurized motored setup. The mechanical aspects of the modification as well as the balancing weights determination are explained. Finally, but most importantly, the accelerometer measurements obtained from three piezoelectric accelerometers on the front and rear of the engine (and in two orientations, i.e. along the cylinder axis and perpendicular to it) are presented. These measurements were used to trim the balancing weights.