Putting a stop to surface ignition

Surface ignition in internal combustion engines – where hot sport in the combustion chamber can cause fuel to ignite either before or after the normal spark ignition – is both inefficient and harmful to the engine. Detection usually involves the engine being modified in some way, but a promising noninvasive technique is to use the spark plug to detect the passage of flame 'front'. This novel technique has been demonstrated recently in several research laboratories including that of M swain and colleagues at the University of Miami 1989 J. Phys. E: Sci. Instrum. 22 838).