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There is increasing interest in the use of alternative fuels for transportation, due to the increasing cost of petroleum based fuels. One possible alternative to the use of petroleum for transportation is to use electric grid power. This paper explores a possible design solution based on a plug-in fuel cell hybrid. A scaled down version of FC-HEV that is applicable to this concept, has been implemented as a proof of concept with fast prototyping toolkits, including a 32 bit micro processor, Matlab/Simulink software and an embedded system development kit. The resulting prototype vehicle demonstrated a high gasoline equivalent MPG as well as a successful functionality of micro grid power generation.

With the introduction of common rail fuel injection system enabling multiple injections per stroke and stringent pollutant emission standards, the optimization and calibration of modern compression ignition direct injection (CIDI) engines become more complex. Thus, a simple and efficient tool for CIDI combustion simulation with arbitrary fuel injection profile is required today. A crank-angle resolved combustion model was developed and validated by using a fuel injection rig and an engine dynamometer for the parameterization. With the calibrated models, accurate prediction of the in-cylinder pressure and NOx and also a virtual dynamometer mapping are possible. The results from these virtual mappings can be used to calibrate the black-box combustion models in control-oriented, dynamic Mean Value Models (MVM).

Typically, the combustion analysis for S.I. engines is limited to the determination of the apparent heat release from in-cylinder pressure measurements, effectively using a single zone approach with constant properties determined at some average temperature. In this paper, we follow an approach consistent with the engine modeling approach (i.e., reverse modeling) to extract heat release rate from combustion pressure data. The experimental data used here solely consists of quantities measured in a typical engine dynamometer tests, namely the crank-angle resolved cylinder pressure, as well as global measurements of the A/F ratio, engine speed, load, EGR, air mass flow rate and temperature and exhaust emissions. We then perform a two-zone, crank-angle resolved analysis of the pressure data using variable composition and properties.

Variable valve lift strategies were evaluated using a Water Analog Engine Simulation Rig with 3-D Particle Tracking Velocimetry (3-D PTV) to measure the 3-D flow field at the end of the intake stroke. The measurements were carried out with a 4-valve, pent-roof type head. The intake valves were actuated by independently controlled servo systems to allow various valve lift profiles to be implemented in software. For each configuration, a minimum of 100 cycles were acquired and processed. Ensemble averaged 3-D mean and fluctuating flow fields were extracted. In addition, a number of integrated parameters (total and fluctuating kinetic energy; swirl, tumble and cross-tumble ratios) were calculated for each case.