Effect of microwave pulse parameters on energy coupling and enhancement of microwave assisted ignition

Microwave Assisted Ignition (MAI) is a promising technology to optimize the lean combustion characteristics of internal combustion engines. This research investigated the effects of microwave pulse waveform and delay time on energy coupling and ignition enhancement by using a power diagnostic with high time-resolution. The pulse width ranged from 80 to 200 μs and the corresponding peak power was adjusted between 1000 and 400 W to keep the incident energy of microwave pulse constant. Results showed that a high power and short width pulse waveform was conducive to the microwave energy absorption. The coupled energy generally decreased with delay time. There was a significant ignition enhancement with only 6∼7 mJ energy coupled into the flame kernel, which was approximately 1/5 of total spark energy. Moreover, the ignition enhancement was well correlated with the coupled energy, suggesting that ignition enhancement was determined by coupled energy via electron collision reactions. Finally, the main influencing factor of coupled energy was the energy coupling pattern which changed from none-coupling to saturated coupling. A high pulse power and short delay time facilitated this change. This study revealed the saturated coupling pattern independent of waveform and delay time, which is caused by a stable electron number density due to the cut-off effect.