The present invention relates to a control apparatus for an internal combustion engine with a supercharger of which a compressor is provided with a movable vane.
A supercharger having plural movable vanes at a diffuser portion of a compressor and varying supercharging efficiency by operating the movable vanes is known as a supercharger used for an internal combustion engine. There is known a control apparatus for such a supercharger to set target opening degree of movable vanes within a range not exceeding a surge limit of a compressor based on a map defining relations between rotational speed and supercharging pressure of the internal combustion engine and opening degree of the movable vanes and to control the opening degree of the movable vanes toward the target opening degree (see Patent Document 1). In addition, there are Patent Documents 2 and 3 as prior art references in relation to the present invention.
Patent Document 1: JP-A-2007-132232
Patent Document 2: JP-A-2009-062851
Patent Document 3: JP-A-2005-214095
There is known an internal combustion engine in which a section of an intake passage at the upstream side from a compressor is connected to an exhaust passage with an EGR passage to enable introduction of exhaust gas to the upstream side of the compressor. In such the internal combustion engine, foreign matter such as carbon particles in exhaust gas flows into the compressor. In a compressor having movable vanes, there is a possibility that the movable vanes are locked as foreign matter flowing to the inside thereof is stuck to the movable vanes and the like. Since the position of the movable vanes cannot be varied corresponding to air quantity flowing into the compressor when the movable vanes are locked, there is a possibility that surging is apt to occur at the compressor. The control apparatus of Patent Document 1 is for a case that movable vanes are normally operated and not for a case that the movable vanes are locked as described above. There is known a control method as a control method of an internal combustion engine to control an operating state of the internal combustion engine so that output power thereof is restricted in a case of occurrence of a malfunction to cause an operational trouble of the internal combustion engine. Depending on a position where the movable vanes are locked, there is also a possibility that surging occurs at a compressor when air intake quantity is decreased to restrict the output power of the internal combustion engine.
In view of the foregoing, one object of the present invention is to provide a control apparatus for an internal combustion engine capable of suppressing occurrence of surging at a compressor while restricting output power of the internal combustion engine even when a movable vane is locked.
A control apparatus for an internal combustion engine of the present invention is applied to an internal combustion engine including a supercharger provided with a turbine which is disposed at an exhaust passage and a compressor which is disposed at an intake passage, an EGR passage to connect the exhaust passage and a section of the intake passage at the upstream side from the compressor, and an EGR valve to open and close the EGR passage, the compressor has a movable vane mechanism capable of varying throttled quantity of a passage of intake air discharged from a compressor wheel by varying a position of a movable vane, and the control apparatus includes a abnormality determination device to determine whether or not the movable vane is locked; and a control device to control the EGR valve toward an opened side so as to increase exhaust gas quantity to be recirculated to the intake passage via the EGR passage while switching an operating state of the internal combustion engine to an emergency operating state in which output power of the internal combustion engine is restricted when the abnormality determination device determines that the movable vane is locked.
With the control apparatus for an internal combustion engine of the present invention, since exhaust gas quantity to be recirculated to the upstream side from the compressor is increased when the movable vanes are locked, the gas quantity flowing into the compressor can be increased. Surging is apt to occur at the compressor when the gas quantity flowing into the compressor is small. Therefore, it is possible to suppress occurrence of surging by increasing the gas quantity as described above. Furthermore, in this case, since the gas quantity flowing into the compressor can be increased without increasing the air quantity sucked to the internal combustion engine, it is possible to suppress the output power of the internal combustion engine at low. In this manner, according to the control apparatus of the present invention, it is possible to suppress occurrence of surging at a compressor while suppressing output power of an internal combustion engine even when the movable vane is locked.
In one embodiment of the control apparatus according to the present invention, the control apparatus may further include surge determination device to determine whether or not an operating point of the compressor to be specified by a pressure ratio between pressure at an inlet port and pressure at an outlet port of the compressor and gas flow quantity flowing into the compressor transfers into a surge zone in which surging occurs at the compressor having the movable vane locked when the operating state of the internal combustion engine is switched to the emergency operating state; wherein the control device may control the EGR valve toward the opened side so as to increase exhaust gas quantity to be recirculated to the intake passage via the EGR passage while switching the operating state of the internal combustion engine to the emergency operating state when the abnormality determination device determines that the movable vane is locked and the serge determination device determines that the operating point of the compressor transfers into the serge zone. In this embodiment, the EGR valve is controlled toward the opened side only when the movable vane is locked and the operating point of the compressor transfers into the surge zone. Accordingly, it is possible to prevent exhaust gas from being recirculated in vain to the intake passage when the internal combustion engine is operated in the emergency operating state.
In one embodiment of the control apparatus according to the present invention, the control device may control the EGR valve toward the opened side so that the exhaust gas quantity to be recirculated to the intake passage is suppressed within a flow quantity range capable of avoiding misfire of the internal combustion engine. In this case, it is possible to prevent misfire occurrence of the internal combustion engine caused by excessive recirculation of exhaust gas to the intake passage.
In one embodiment of the control apparatus according to the present invention, the movable vane mechanism may include an actuator with an output member to output power to the movable vane and a vane control device to control operation of the actuator based on the operating state of the internal combustion engine and the abnormality determination device may determine whether or not the movable vane is locked based on at least either displacement of the output member or displacement of the movable vane when the vane control device instructs the actuator to operate to vary a position of the movable vane. When the movable vane is locked, the output member and the movable vane are almost incapable of being moved even if an instruction is output to the actuator from the vane control device. Therefore, it is possible to determine whether or not the movable vane is locked based on displacement of these parts when the instruction to the actuator is output.
In one embodiment of the control apparatus according to the present invention, the compressor may be provided with a detecting device to detect a predetermined phenomenon which occurs when surging occurs at the compressor and the abnormality determination device may determine that the movable vane is locked when the predetermined phenomenon is detected by the detecting device. When the movable vane is locked, the movable vanes cannot be moved even if gas flow quantity flowing into the compressor is varied. Therefore, there is a possibility that surging occurs at the compressor. Accordingly, it is possible to determine that the movable vanes are locked when a predetermined phenomenon occurring as being accompanied by surging of the compressor is detected. The predetermined phenomenon may be at least anyone of vibration of the compressor, pressure pulsation of an inlet port of the compressor, and temperature pulsation of the inlet port of the compressor.
The compressor 6a of the turbocharger 6 will be described with reference to
The compressor 6a is provided with a movable vane mechanism 17. The movable vane mechanism 17 includes plural diffuser vanes (hereinafter, sometimes referred to as vanes in brief) 18 which are arranged at the diffuser portion 14, a base plate 20 to which the plural vanes 18 are attached as being rotatable about a pin 19 as a shaft portion, and a vane operating mechanism 21 which is arranged at the back face side of the base plate 20. The vanes 18 are components respectively having a well-known airfoil-shape to direct intake air flow. Intake air discharged from the compressor wheel 12 flows in between the respective vanes 18. Thus, space between the vanes 18 is to be a flow passage of intake air. Each vane 18 is attached to one end of the pin 19 rotatably in an integrated manner. As shown in
The vane operating mechanism 21 includes an actuator 22 having an output shaft 22a as an output member and a power transmission mechanism 23 to transmit power output from the output shaft 22a to the respective vanes 18. The power transmission mechanism 23 is a well-known mechanism to include a drive ring (not shown) to be rotated about an axial line Ax by the actuator 22, thereby converting rotational motion of the drive ring into rotational motion of each vane 18 having the pin 19 therefor as its axis. Here, detailed description thereof will be omitted. The actuator 22 drives each vane 18 via the power transmission mechanism 23 between a closed position Pc indicated by a solid line and an opened position Po indicated by a dotted line in
The operation of the low-pressure EGR valve 8 is controlled by an engine control unit (hereinafter, referred to as an ECU) 30. The ECU 30 is a computer unit which includes a microprocessor and peripheral devices such as a RAM and a ROM as being necessary for the operation thereof. The ECU 30 controls the engine 1 to be in a targeted operating state by controlling the throttle valve 5, the actuator 22 and the like in accordance with a predetermined control program. The ECU 30 controls the operation of the actuator 22 so that the position of each vane 18 is varied toward the opened position Po side in accordance with increase of intake air quantity, for example. In this manner, by controlling the operation of the actuator 22, the ECU 30 functions as a vane control device of the present invention. Furthermore, in a case of occurrence of a malfunction to cause an operational trouble of the engine 1, the ECU 30 controls the throttle valve 5 toward the closed side so that the operating state of the engine 1 is switched to an emergency operating state in which output power of engine 1 is restricted. Although not shown, various sensors for determining the operating state of the engine 1 are connected to the ECU 30. Furthermore, the abovementioned displacement sensor 22b is connected to the ECU 30.
In next step S12, the ECU 30 determines whether or not the vanes 18 are locked. When the vanes 18 are locked, the output shaft 22a connected to the vanes 18 via the power transmission mechanism 23 becomes almost incapable of being operated as well. Accordingly, the determination of whether or not the vanes 18 are locked may be performed based on displacement of the output shaft 22a at the time when the ECU 30 provides an instruction of operation to the actuator 22 so as to vary the position of each vane 18, for example. Then, it may be determined that the vanes 18 are locked when the displacement of the output shaft 22a at that time is equal to or smaller than a specific value which is previously set. When the ECU 30 determined that the vanes 18 are not locked, the ECU 30 ends the present control routine.
On the other hand, when the ECU 30 determined that the vanes 18 are locked, the ECU 30 goes to step S13 and determines whether or not an operating point of the compressor 6a transfers into a surge zone in the case of switching the operating state of the engine 1 to the emergency operating state.
When the ECU 30 determined that the operating point of the compressor 6a does not transfer into the surge zone, the ECU 30 goes to step S14 and executes a normal emergency operation control to switch the operating state of the engine 1 to the emergency operating state. In the normal emergency operation control, the output power of the engine 1 is restricted by controlling the throttle valve 5 toward the closed side while closing the low-pressure EGR valve 8. Thereafter, the ECU 30 ends the present control routine.
On the other hand, when the ECU 30 determined that the operating point of the compressor 6a transfers into the surge zone, the ECU 30 goes to step S15 and executes an EGR emergency operation control. In the EGR emergency operation control, the output power of the engine 1 is restricted by controlling the throttle valve 5 toward the closed side while increasing EGR gas quantity as controlling the low-pressure EGR valve 8 toward the opened side. At that time, as indicated by point P2 in
As described above, according to the control apparatus of the present invention, in the case that the operating point of the compressor 6a transfers into the surge zone when the vanes 18 are locked and the operating state of the engine 1 is switched to the emergency operating state, occurrence of surging at the compressor 6a can be prevented by increasing the EGR gas quantity as opening the low-pressure EGR valve 8. Furthermore, the gas flow quantity to be sucked to the compressor 6a can be increased without increasing air quantity sucked to the engine 1 by increasing the EGR gas quantity as described above. Accordingly, the output power of the engine 1 can be suppressed at low. Thus, according to the control apparatus, occurrence of surging at the compressor 6a can be suppressed while restricting the output power of the engine 1 even when the vanes are locked. The ECU 30 functions as an abnormality determination device of the present invention by executing step S12 of the control routine in
In the above embodiment, the low-pressure EGR valve 8 is controlled toward the opened side when the vanes 18 are locked and the operating point of the compressor 6a transfers into the surge zone. Here, it is also possible to control the EGR valve 8 toward the opened side regardless of whether or not the operating point of the compressor 6a transfers into the surge zone. In this case as well, surging of the compressor 6a can be suppressed by increasing the gas quantity flowing into the compressor 6a. Furthermore, since increase of air quantity sucked to the engine 1 can be prevented, the output power of the engine 1 can be suppressed at low.
The present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiment, and may be embodied in various forms. For example, the engine to which the control apparatus of the present invention is applied is not limited to the engine shown in
Furthermore, it is also possible that a movable vane mechanism being different from that described in the above embodiment is disposed to the compressor 6a of the turbocharger 6 of the engine 1 to which the present invention is applied. For example, a movable vane mechanism 50 shown in
The compressor housing 11 of the compressor 6a shown in
In the present invention, the method to determine whether or not the vanes are locked is not limited to the method to perform determination based on the displacement of the output shaft or the rod of the actuator. For example, it is also possible to arrange a sensor which outputs a signal corresponding to a vane position at a compressor and to determine whether or not the vanes are locked based on an output value of the sensor when the ECU provides an instruction of operation to the actuator. Furthermore, it is also possible to determine that vanes are locked when a predetermined phenomenon occurring as being accompanied by surging is detected. For example, the predetermined phenomenon may be vibration of the compressor 6a, pressure pulsation at the inlet port of the compressor 6a, temperature pulsation at the inlet port of the compressor 6a and the like. Here, it is also possible to arrange a vibration sensor at the compressor 6a and to determine whether or not the vanes are locked based on an output signal of the vibration sensor. Additionally, it is also possible to arrange a pressure sensor at the inlet port of the compressor 6a and to determine whether or not the vanes are locked based on an output signal of the pressure sensor. Furthermore, it is also possible to arrange a temperature sensor at the inlet port of the compressor 6a and to determine whether or not the vanes are locked based on an output signal of the temperature sensor. The vibration sensor, the pressure sensor or the temperature sensor corresponds to detecting device of the present invention as detecting the predetermined phenomenon as described above.
Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind | 371c Date |
---|---|---|---|---|
PCT/JP2010/053468 | 3/3/2010 | WO | 00 | 8/5/2011 |