A fuel injection valve has first injection holes, second injection holes, a first needle that opens and closes the first injection holes, and a second needle. The fuel injection valve is arranged such that a part of fuel injected from the first injection hole and a part of fuel injected from the second injection hole are gathered together at a position spaced from the side wall of the cavity by a predetermined distance. The second needle starts operating to open the second injection holes, after a predetermined time elapses from a point in time at which the first needle starts operating to open the first injection holes.

A method for operating an internal combustion engine of a motor vehicle, where the internal combustion engine includes a combustion chamber and a prechamber spark plug which is assigned to the combustion chamber and which has a prechamber which is fluidically connected to the combustion chamber via a plurality of openings. The method includes operating the internal combustion engine in a catalytic converter heating operation in which an ignition time, at which an ignition spark for igniting a fuel-air mixture in the combustion chamber is generated in the prechamber within a particular operating cycle of the internal combustion engine, is shifted later compared to a normal operation. An injection time, at which a last direct fuel injection into the combustion chamber is carried out within the particular operating cycle, is a same in the catalytic converter heating operation and in the normal operation.

A method for starting a direct-injection internal combustion engine of a vehicle includes: rotating the high-pressure injection pump by a starter; measuring fuel pressure delivered by the pump, taken at two successive compression top dead centers of the pump operating in maximum output mode; establishing the pressure gradient of the fuel, on an angular reference system, based on the two successive pressure measurements; comparing the established gradient with a predefined bijective table that respectively matches a plurality of quantities of fuel to be injected and a plurality of pressure gradients; and adapting the quantity of fuel injected during the starting phase before the engine reaches steady operating speed, depending on the result of the comparison, in order to inject a quantity of fuel that corresponds, in the predefined bijective table, to the established pressure gradient, upon authorization of the first injection given by the engine control unit.

A vehicle control system for an internal combustion engine having a fuel injection valve for injecting fuel directly into a combustion chamber includes a controller configured to perform a fuel cut-off when a predetermined fuel cut-off condition is met during travel of the vehicle to thereby stop fuel injection from the fuel injection valve. The controller is configured to resume the fuel injection from the fuel injection valve when a predetermined fuel cut-off recovery condition is met during the fuel cut-off. The controller is configured, upon elapse of a predetermined time that is required for a wall temperature of the combustion chamber to rise after resuming the fuel injection from the fuel injection valve, to perform a rich spike that temporarily increases the fuel injection amount from the fuel injection valve.

Operating an engine system and fuel system includes energizing a solenoid actuator for a spill valve in a fuel injector in a first engine cycle via a standard waveform to inject a shot of fuel. Operating an engine system and fuel system further includes determining suitability for reduced energy operating of the fuel system, and energizing the solenoid actuator via a reduced energy waveform based on the determining suitability so as to inject one or more shots of fuel in a second engine cycle. The operating methodology and control logic can extend an engine speed range for multi-shot fuel injection in an engine.

An internal combustion engine system includes an internal combustion engine including an in-cylinder injection valve and a fuel pressure adjustment mechanism, and a control device that executes fuel injection control at a time of automatic restart of the internal combustion engine that is automatically stopped, by controlling the in-cylinder injection valve and the fuel pressure adjustment mechanism, in which the control device includes a first controller that executes the compression stroke injection a first number of times after an automatic restart request is made and control the pressure of the fuel to a predetermined value, and a second controller that executes the intake stroke injection a second number of times after the compression stroke injection is executed the first number of times and make the pressure of the fuel lower than the predetermined value.

A control device for an internal combustion engine of a vehicle has a controller that controls a fuel injection valve of the internal combustion engine arranged to directly inject a fuel into a combustion chamber, and a pressure regulator of the internal combustion engine arranged to vary a pressure of the fuel supplied to the fuel injection valve. The controller performs a fuel cut that stops the fuel injection of the fuel injection valve when a predetermined fuel cut condition is satisfied during a traveling of the vehicle. The controller restarts the fuel injection of the fuel injection valve when a predetermined fuel cut recovery condition is satisfied during the fuel cut.

A large two-stroke turbocharged compression-ignited internal combustion crosshead engine with a plurality of cylinders has at least one pressure booster for each cylinder for boosting fuel pressure, two or more electronically controlled fuel valves for each cylinder with an inlet of the two or more electronically controlled fuel valves being connected to an outlet of the at least one pressure booster. An electronic control unit is connected to the at least one pressure booster and the two or more electronically controlled fuel valves. The electronic control unit is configured to determine a start time for a fuel injection event, activate the at least one pressure booster ahead of the determined start time and pen the two or more electronically controlled fuel valves at the determined start time.

A controller for an internal combustion engine including a fuel pressure control processor that controls a fuel pressure at a target fuel pressure, an instruction value calculating processor that calculates a peak instruction value, an upper limit guard processor that executes a guard process on the peak instruction value, an energizing processor that energizes the coil based on the peak instruction value that has undergone the guard process, a convergence determination processor that determines whether or not the detected fuel pressure has converged on the target fuel pressure, and a decreasing processor that decreases the upper limit guard value to a lower value when the fuel pressure has converged on the target fuel pressure than when the fuel pressure has not converged on the target fuel pressure.

Methods and systems are provided for direct fuel injection. In one example, a fuel injector system includes an injector needle with an injector pin with a curved fuel channel of non-uniform width around the outer circumference of the injector pin, fluidically connected along the length of the curved fuel channel with a fuel reservoir inside the injector pin. An actuator coupled to the injector needle may sequentially move and position the injector needle to establish fluidic connection between the curved fuel channel and with one or more nozzle holes of the fuel injector at each position, where a duration of the fluidic connection at each position is based on a width of the curved fuel channel, and may determine the volume of fuel being discharged from only those nozzle holes, thereby reducing fuel spray interaction and increasing fuel spray atomization.