Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition
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Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (or, HCCI) is an experimental internal combustion engine design project of engineers at MIT that is said to improve fuel-efficiency by up to 25% by achieving combustion through compression of the air-fuel mixture rather than by employing a spark plug, making the vehicle as efficient as a Diesel engine. The system developed by the technicians at MIT is said to run on regular gasoline.
By no means is HCCI new technology, however. It has been stuck in R&D labratories of major car companies in Europe and Japan for 20 years. The system has had major difficulties in solving issues with timing control, combustion noise (higher than conventional diesel), mechanical stresses/life expectancy and transparent transitions between HCCI and conventional combustion modes. In the past 5 years, solutions have been developed, the final hurdle for manufacturers and their engineers is in making these systems cheap and robust enough for mass-scale production.
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