Natural gas possesses several characteristics that make it desirable as an engine fuel ; 1)lower production cost, 2)abundant commodity and 3)cleaner energy source than gasoline.
Due to the physics characteristics of natural gas, the volumetric efficiency and flame speed of a natural gas engine are lower than those of a gasoline engine, which results in a power loss of 10-20% when compared to a normal gasoline engine.
This paper describes the results of a research to improve the performance of a natural gas engine through the modification and controls of compression ratio, air/fuel ratio, spark advance and supercharging and method of measuring flame propagation velocity. It emphasizes how to improve the power characteristics of a natural gas engine. Combustion characteristics are also studied using an ion probe. The ion probe is applied to measure flame speed of gasoline and methane fuels to confirm the performance improvement of natural gas engine combustion characteristics.

• Jin Do Chung(Dept. of Environmental Eng. Hoseo University) Corresponding Author
• Dong Soo Jeong(Korea Institute of Machinery & Materials)