摘要:
A method of measuring and/or controlling operating data, like soot content, engine speed, initiation of injection, and exhaust gas return of internal combustion engines, the method including the steps of ionizing gases at high temperatures in a combustion chamber of an internal combustion engine that experiences combustion operations, the ionized gases having components with the lowest ionization potentials, applying a current and a voltage to the ionized gases, obtaining electrical measuring signals of the current or voltage indicative of an electrical conductivity of the ionized gases, integrating the electrical measuring signals to define a curve plot of the electrical conductivity, detecting a quantity of components of the ionized gases that have the lowest ionization potentials based on the integrated electrical measuring signals, the detected quantity of components being associated with a portion of the electrical measuring signals and being indicatives of an amount of soot formed during each of the combustion operations, and controlling at least one of the operating data of the internal combustion engine based on the portion of the integrated electrical measuring signals associated with the detected quantity of components.