In cylinder air charge prediction for VVA system: Experimental validation

Automotive companies commonly adopt hardware-in-the-loop simulators to develop new control strategies in order to reduce the effort and the cost of the testing phase. This work aims at presenting a simple intake manifold air dynamics model, suited for HIL simulations, taking into account the nonlinear effects caused by VVA system during all its operating modes, i.e. full lift, early closure, late opening and multi lift. The performances of the proposed model are finally presented through comparisons with experimental data collected by a 1.4 liter Fiat SI engine, showing good reliability and excellent robustness.