Investigation on combustion instability of electronic fuel injected multi-cylinder radial piston engine through multifractal technique – A comparative analysis

The main objective of the present study was to investigate combustion instability in a multi-cylinder radial piston engine with electronic fuel injection to ensure safety and reliability, maintain fuel efficiency, reduce harmful emissions, which has a positive impact on the environment. Multi-fractal analysis showed that IMEP (mean effective pressure) fluctuations are an anti-persistent process, meaning that there is no correlation between successive events. The return plots showed significant cyclic variability and instability in neighboring cylinders. The wavelet method and multiscale entropy analysis confirmed the results of the multifractal analysis, showing changes in the characteristics of the combustion process after the introduction of perturbations. The research-based on the first return map has shown an impact on the non-uniform and complex nature of the operation of the neighboring cylinders. The statistical analysis has shown that more than 60 % is slightly negatively skewness in most of the cases, and about 67 % of the cases indicate a leptokurtic distribution of IMEP. Finally, it is concluded that, the combustion of failure of one cylinder in a nine-cylinder engine affects the operation of the other cylinders, as demonstrated through advanced multifractal analysis techniques, return plots, return maps and multiscale entropy analysis. • Electronic fuel injected multi-cylinder radial piston engine was analyzed. • Failure detection of a multi-cylinder radial piston engine has been analyzed. • Wavelets and multiscale entropy techniques were used for combustion instability analysis. • Non-repeatability of cylinders is impacted by a failure of a single cylinder. • Significant deviations for the dynamical responses in the disturbed cylinders were found.