A high-pressure injection device for an internal combustion engine to which engine segment times are assigned, having a high-pressure pump, a rail connected to the high-pressure pump via a high-pressure fuel line, at least one injector, a digital pressure reduction valve connected to the rail, a fuel return line connected to the pressure reduction valve, and a control unit. The control unit is configured to switch the pressure reduction valve into the transmissive state only in predetermined engine segment times, and to maintain said transmissive state of the pressure reduction valve for a time period which is greater than the duration of one engine segment time.

The present invention determines whether multi-stage injection control is operating normally or abnormally, and carries out a failsafe of multi-stage injection control as necessary. The present invention, which solves the problem described above, has means such as the following. The invention is provided with fuel injection valves provided respectively to each cylinder, an opened/closed valve detection means for detecting either one or both of an open valve state and a closed valve state of the fuel injection valves on the basis of the drive currents or drive voltages of the fuel injection valves, and a detection execution determination means for determining a detection execution time period including the detection start timing and the detection end timing of the open valve state or closed valve state; detection interference such as overlapping detection with another cylinder and overlapping of open valve detection and closed valve detection being preventable, and risks such as erroneous detection being reducible.

A storage device stores a first mapping that receives, as an input, first input variables including a previously estimated value for a fuel temperature variable, a pump variable on a state of a fuel pump, a first engine variable on a state of an engine, and an outside air temperature variable on an outside air temperature, and outputs the fuel temperature variable. Further, an execution device is configured to acquire the first input variables and estimate the fuel temperature variable by applying the acquired first input variables to the first mapping. Therefore, it is possible to estimate the fuel temperature variable by applying the first input variables to the first mapping even without providing a temperature sensor.

An ECU has a fuel pressure sensor that detects fuel pressure inside of a common rail. The ECU detects the fuel pressure at a predetermined frequency and calculates a drop amount of the fuel pressure in accordance with fuel injection by fuel injectors based on the detected fuel pressure. The ECU acquires a fluctuation amount of a fuel injection amount of each of the fuel injectors based on the drop amount of the fuel pressure and learns an injection characteristic of each of the fuel injectors, the injection characteristic indicating a correlation between the fuel injection amount and the fluctuation amount of the fuel injection. In a case in which a detection timing of the fuel pressure is within a fuel injection period of a predetermined fuel injector, the ECU disallows the learning of the injection characteristic using the fuel pressure detected in the fuel injection period.

A method is provided for determining the fuel temperature in the high-pressure zone of a fuel injection system of a motor vehicle. The fuel injection system has at least one injector operated by a servo valve which is actuated by means of a piezo actuator. After an injection process has been carried out, the piezo actuator is discharged after the injection has ended in such a way that the servo valve can close, but a non-positive connection remains between the piezo actuator and the servo valve. This condition of reduced charge is maintained. The pressure oscillation of the actuator voltage resulting from this is recorded and from this the hydraulic natural frequency of the enclosed high-pressure volume of fuel is deduced. The prevailing fuel temperature can be determined from the natural frequency.

The present invention provides a method for analyzing and optimizing the injection of fluid into an internal combustion engine via a common rail system. Once various injection parameters are determined for a given injection system, these data may be used to model the effect of sequential injection events for the system. A processer can then be used to run the model and to adjust sequential fuel injection events to optimize engine performance and fuel usage.

When a rotational speed of an engine is higher than a predetermined rotational speed, a low-pressure fuel injection valve is controlled through the use of a fuel injection time based on an estimated fuel pressure in a low pressure supply pipe and a target fuel injection amount. When the rotational speed of the engine is equal to or lower than the predetermined rotational speed, the low-pressure fuel injection valve is controlled through the use of a fuel injection time based on a detected fuel pressure input from the fuel pressure sensor from the issuance of a command to activate energization of a solenoid to the start of energization of the solenoid and a target fuel injection amount.

In control device of an internal combustion engine, for each first period, a calculation unit calculates number of fuel injections within one combustion cycle and fuel injection rate. For first period, a first storage unit stores number of fuel injections and fuel injection rate of calculation unit. For each second period, a reference unit refers to the number of fuel injections and fuel injection rate stored by the first storage unit. A second storage unit stores for an interval, from the start time of the first fuel injection until start of the last fuel injection of at least one combustion cycle, the number of fuel injections and fuel injection rate referred to by reference unit. A control unit controls a fuel injection valve so that fuel is injected in accordance with the number of fuel injections fuel injection rate stored by second storage unit.

Systems and methods for sensing fuel vapor pressure are provided. In one example, a method for a vehicle comprises: during an engine start after the engine has been off for at least a minimum duration, actively controlling fuel pressure in the fuel system to a vapor-liquid volume ratio greater than zero and then recording sensed fuel pressure and temperature in the fuel system. In this way, the vapor pressure of a fuel at a given temperature may be accurately measured during isothermal conditions, thereby improving an estimation of fuel volatility.

When fuel injections into Otto-engines are carried out, pressure pulsations occur in the entire fuel injection system. These prevent detailed information about the fuel injection to be deduced from the pressure signals measurable in the system. When specially designed dampers for these pressure pulsations are employed, pressure difference signals over the pulsation damper can readily be employed for instantaneous volume flow rate measurements. Furthermore, the inserted pressure pulsation dampers also allow the pressure reduction in the Common-Rail, due to the fuel injections, to be employed to measure the instantaneous fuel injection volume flow rates, in running Otto-engines. The authors' development work in this field is described in this paper and results of verification measurements are presented.