Summary: An investigation has been made of the effectiveness of water injection into the combustion end zone of a spark-ignition engine cylinder for the suppression of knock. Pressure-time recoreds obtained show that injection of water at 60° B.T.C. on the compression stroke at a water-fuel ratio of 0.3 rendered M-3 fuel as good as S-3 fuel from an antiknock consideration. The optimum crank angle for injection of water into the end zone was found to be critical. As the injection angle was increased beyond the optimum, the quantity of water required to suppress knock increased to 3.6 water-fuel ratio at 132° B.T.C. The water quantity could not be increased beyond 3.6 water-fuel ration because of injection-pump limitations; however, a further increase in the injection angle up to the earliest angle obtainable, which was 20° A.T.C. on the intake stroke, continuously increased the knock intensity. The engine operating conditions of the tests did not simulate those encountered in flight, especially with regard to the operating speed of 570 rpm. For this reason the results should only be regarded as of theoretical importance until further investigation has been made.

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Reproductions of reports, some declassified, of research done at Aircraft Engine Research Laboratory during World War II. The order of reports does not represent when they were chronologically issued. Reference to the original version of each report is included.

A critical review of literature bearing on the autoignition and detonation-wave theories of spark-ignition engine knock and on the nature of gas vibrations associated with combustion and knock results in the conclusion that neither the autoignition theory nor the detonation-wave theory is an adequate explanation of spark-ignition engine knock. A knock theory is proposed, combining the autoignition and detonation-wave theories, introducing the idea that the detonation wave develops in autoignited or afterburning gases, and ascribing comparatively low-pitched heavy knocks to autoignition but high-pitched pinging knocks to detonation waves with the possibility of combinations of the two types of knock.