Interesting. I wonder what makes this more efficient than a spark ignition?
I don’t know the compression ratio required to light natural gas, but I would guess it is much higher than diesel compression ratios.
I figure they get diesel fuel efficiency by using diesel to light off the natural gas.
They also don’t say how the natural gas goes into the cylinder, either via a direct injector or through the intake manifold.
I would suspect that detonation could still be a big issue if there are any hotspots in the combustion changer, perhaps from buildup of carbon in specific areas, if the engine sucks in natural gas during the intake stroke.
I’m confused too because imo the gas would ignite before diesel would. If they use, however, hot and compressed diesel gas, then the diffusion of the gas throughout the mixture would make an efficient and complete clean burn as opposed to a localized burn to spread from a single spark point.
A spark ignition has a single point of ignition that a ‘flame front’ has to spread out from to burn the fuel-air mixture, creating pollutants in its wake, as some fuel does not get completely burned.
Using a compression ignition system, all the fuel spontaneously ignites simultaneously, since pressure is equal in all parts of the combustion chamber, therefore all the fuel is ignited and burned...........