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Hydrogen is considered as one of the potential alternate fuel and when compared to other alternate fuels like CNG, LPG, Ethanol etc., it has unique properties due to absence of carbon. In the current work, Hydrogen engine of 2.5 L, four cylinder, spark ignited Turbocharged-Intercooled engine is developed for Mini Bus application. Multi-point fuel injection system is used for injecting the hydrogen in the intake manifold. Initially, boost simulation is performed to select the optimum compression ratio and turbocharger. The literature review has shown that in-order to get the minimum NOx emissions Hydrogen engines must be operated between equivalence ratios ranging from 0.5 to 0.6. In the present study, full throttle performance is conducted mainly with the above equivalence ratio range with minimum advance for Maximum Brake Torque (MBT) ignition timing. At each operating point, the performance, emissions and combustion parameters are recorded and analyzed in detail.

With the increase in the number of automobiles on road, there is a very strong emphasis on reducing the air pollution which led to evolution of stringent emission norms. To meet these stringent emission norms, the ideal solution is to optimize the engine hardware and the combustion system to reduce the emission at source thereby reducing the dependency on exhaust after treatment system. Gasoline Direct Injection (GDI) engines are gaining popularity worldwide as they provide a balance between fun to drive and fuel efficiency. Controlling the particle emissions especially Particle Number (PN) is a challenge in GDI engines due to the nature of its combustion system. In this study, experiments were performed on a 1.2Litre 3-cylinder 250bar GDI engine to capture the effect of injection strategies on PN.

There is a higher demand for quieter tractors in the agri-industry, as the continued exposure to noise levels have disastrous effects on operator’s health. To meet the world-wide regulatory norms and to be the global market leader, its mandatory to develop the comfortable tractor which meets homologation requirements and customer expectations. Typically, Operator Ear Level (OEL) noise has been evaluated in the test, after First Proto has been made. This approach increases cost associated with product development due to late changes of modifications and testing trails causing delay in time-to-market aspect. Hence, there is a need to develop the methodology for Predicting tractor OEL noise in virtual environment and propose changes at early stage of product development. At first, full vehicle comprising of skid, sheet metals and Intake-exhaust systems modelled has been built using Finite Element (FE) Preprocessor.

The present work is focussed on the real-world challenges of a dual mass flywheel (DMF) equipped vehicle in the Indian market. DMFs are widely used to isolate the drivetrain from the high torsional vibrations induced by the engine. While DMFs can significantly improve noise, vibration and harshness (NVH) characteristics of a vehicle, there are multiple challenges experienced in real-world operating conditions when compared with the single mass flywheel (SMF). The present work explains the challenges of using a DMF in a high power-density diesel powertrain for a multi-purpose vehicle (MPV) application in the Indian market. Measurements on the flat-road operating conditions revealed that the DMF vehicle is very sensitive for launch behaviour and requires a higher clutch modulation. Vibration measurements at the driver’s seat confirm that the SMF vehicle could be launched more comfortably at the engine idle speed of 850 RPM.

During the cold start conditions engine must overcome higher friction loss, at the cost of fuel penalty till the optimum temperatures are reached in coolant and lubrication circuits. The lower thermal capacity of the lubrication oil (with respect to the coolant) inverses the relation of viscosity with temperature, improves engine thermal efficiency benefit. Engine oil takes full NEDC test cycle duration to reach 90°C. This leads to higher friction loss throughout the test cycle, contributing a significant increase in fuel consumption. Increasing oil temperature reduces viscosity, thereby reducing the engine friction. This helps to identify the focus for thermal management in the direction of speeding up the temperature rise during a cold engine starting. This work aims at the study and experiment of an exhaust recovery mechanism to improve the NEDC fuel economy.

Till recently supercharging was the most accepted technique for boost solution in gasoline engines. Recent advents in turbochargers introduced turbocharging technology into gasoline engines. Turbocharging of gasoline engines has helped in powertrains with higher power density and less overall weight. Along with the advantages in performance, new challenges arise, both in terms of thermal management as well as overall acoustic performance of powertrains. The study focuses mainly on NVH aspects of turbocharging of gasoline engines. Compressor surge is a most common phenomenon in turbochargers. As the operating point on the compressor map moves closer to the surge line, the compressor starts to generate noise. The amplitude and frequency of the noise depends on the proximity of the operating point to the surge line. The severity of noise can be reduced by selecting a turbocharger with enough compressor surge margin.

Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs) are gaining momentum all around the world and India is not far behind in terms of EV sales. The principle difference between BEVs and Internal Combustion Engine based Vehicles (hereafter known as ICEs) is that BEVs run on electric motors and don’t have Internal Combustion based engines that generate significant noise while running. The engine noise contributes to noise pollution, but it is useful in alerting the pedestrians about the incoming vehicle and can function as a passive safety system. The lack of such noise can be a safety threat to pedestrians, cyclists, wildlife etc. Many countries around the world have mandated, or are in the process of mandating, a pass-by noise generating system to alert pedestrians about the incoming vehicle. This paper is an attempt to study various pass-by noise generating systems used worldwide in electric four-wheelers.

Engine radiated noise has complex behavior as engine assembly consist different components, varying dynamic forces with wide range of speed. For open station tractor, engine noise is major contributor and hence needs to be optimized for regulatory norms as well customer comfort. The awareness about NVH comfort in domestic market as well as export market is increasing as customer have become more demanding. This forces OEM’s to put serious efforts to ensure the OEL noise / Engine noise is at acceptable levels. Identifying the optimized countermeasures to reduce the engine noise during the early design phase has a greater impact in reducing product development time and cost. This paper describes about a process that has been established for evaluating engine radiated noise and to improve the overall NVH performance.

With the increasing need to have faster product development and yet achieve the optimum design, thrust on accurate FEA of components and system is felt. The connecting rod is an important component of the crank train and it has a significant mass contribution in multi-cylinder engine. Principal focus is directed to connecting rods having load ratio greater than or equal to 2. As the connecting rod operates in elastic range (i.e. high cycle fatigue life region) stress life approach is adopted for fatigue life evaluation. The three fold purpose of this paper is to establish an accurate FE modelling technique and analysis procedure that simulates the test conditions, aids in accurate fatigue life prediction and most importantly provides a simple procedure for virtual validation of connecting rod. To achieve this objective static strain measurement and fatigue test of connecting rod is carried out on a test bench.

High speed diesel engines are difficult to start in cold conditions (at subzero temperature) because the cylinder head and cylinder block absorbs heat of compression and thus preventing ignition due to the high surface to volume ratio. Also the coolant and the engine oil become viscous at subzero temperature and make the condition unfavorable for starting. Combustion optimization along with the help of a heating aid can make these engines to start quickly without any engine misbehavior. Cold startability is the ability of an engine to start within a specified time and continue to run without any malfunctioning. Combustion instability will lead to the misfiring of the engine unless it is calibrated properly. The European countries are subjected to a minimum temperature of -20°C to -25°C. So the intention of this work is to optimize the cold startability of Mahindra's Multi-Purpose Vehicle (MPV) up to -25°C which is to be sold in European countries.

Turbocharged common rail direct injection engines offer multiple benefits compared to their naturally aspirated counterparts by allowing for a significant increase in the power and torque output, while simultaneously improving the specific fuel consumption and smoke. They also make it possible for the engine to operate at a leaner air/fuel mixture ratio, thereby reducing particulate matter emission and permitting higher EGR flow rates. In the present work, a two cylinder, naturally aspirated common rail injected engine for use on a load carrier platform has been fitted with a turbocharger for improving the power and torque output, so that the engine can be used in a vehicle with a higher kerb weight. The basic architecture and hardware remain unchanged between the naturally aspirated and turbocharged versions. A fixed geometry, waste gated turbocharger with intercooling is used.

Technology is one of the key determinants of the outcome in today's wars. Many targeting systems today use infra-red imaging as a means of acquiring targets when ambient light is insufficient for optical systems. Reducing thermal signatures offers an obvious tactical advantage in such a scenario. One way to reduce thermal emission of combat vehicles is to adopt highly efficient electrical power trains instead of internal combustion engines that tend to reject a sizeable amount of the input energy as heat. The tractor is one of the most versatile vehicles that are used in the theatre of combat for various operations such as haulage, clearing terrain, deploying bridges, digging trenches etc due to its excellent abilities in handling difficult terrain. A tractor powered by an all-electric power train was developed for civilian applications. The traction characteristics are identical to that of a conventional diesel powered tractor of comparable size.

This report describes work performed jointly by Mahindra & Mahindra and IIT Delhi, including both simulations and single-cylinder engine development for three wheeler application, to quantify the effects of various parameters on the performance and NOx emission of an internal combustion engine fuelled by hydrogen. AVL Boost software was used to simulate the experimental conditions, by using Vibe 2-Zone combustion and Woschni heat models, together with kinetic equations for emission calculations. Developed AVL Boost Model was validated against the test result from a modified single cylinder CNG engine for three wheeler application fuelled with Hydrogen by comparing the performance and NOx emission at the same operating conditions. A good agreement was obtained between the results of the Boost Model and Experimental results.

The Micro-hybrid technology otherwise called as stop start system offers a significant improvement in fuel economy particularly in urban driving conditions, where more often the engine idles unnecessarily at traffic signals/jams. Micro-hybrid technology stops the engine at traffic signals/jams and starts the engine automatically on clearance of traffic signals/jams leading to reduced fuel consumption and emissions. This is achieved by monitoring several vehicle and engine parameters through appropriate sensing elements. In this study, the system architecture and functional definitions of start/stop system is defined. Equivalence class, boundary value and decision-table testing are used to generate test cases. On generation of test cases, their relevance on on-road robustness and scope for optimization towards time/efforts are analyzed. In the process, a matrix of different conditions and criteria are formulated. Under these conditions, the system behavior is evaluated.

With recent advancements to create light weight engines and therefore, to design stronger and lighter connecting rods, automobile manufacturers have looked upon vanadium micro-alloyed steels as the material of choice. These materials have been developed keeping in mind the strength and manufacturing requirements of a connecting rod. Since, 36MnVS4 has been the most popular of this category, the same has been discussed in this paper. The transition of manufacturers from the traditional C70S6 grade to the new 36MnVS4 must be dealt with in-depth study and modification of processes to adapt to new properties of the latter. C70S6 is a high carbon grade with superior fracture split whereas 36MnVS4 is a medium carbon grade with superior strength and ductility owing to the presence of vanadium.

In today’s scenario, internal combustion engines have conflicting requirements of high power density and best in class weight. High power density leads to higher loads on engine components and calls for a material addition to meet the durability targets. Lightweight design not only helps to improve fuel economy but also reduces the overall cost of the engine. Material change from cast iron to aluminium has a huge potential for weight reduction as aluminium has 62% lesser mass density. But this light-weighting impacts the stiffness of the parts as elastic modulus drops by around 50%. Hence, this calls for revisiting the design and usage of optimization tools for load-bearing members on the engine to arrive at optimized sections and ribbing profiles. This paper discusses the optimization approach for one of the engine components i.e., the FEAD (front end accessory drive) bracket.

Dual mass flywheel (DMF) is an excellent solution to improve the noise, vibration, and harshness (NVH) characteristic of any vehicle by isolating the driveline from the engine torsional vibrations. For the same reason, DMF’s are widely used in high power-density diesel and gasoline engines. However, the real-world usage conditions pose a lot of challenges to the robustness of the DMF. In the present work, by capturing the Real-World Usage Profile (RWUP) conditions, a new methodology is developed to evaluate the robustness of a DMF fitted in a Sports utility vehicle (SUV). Ventilation holes are provided on clutch housing to improve convective heat transfer. Improvement in convective heat transfer will increase the life and will reduce clutch burning concerns. Cities like Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, roads will have clogged waters during rainy season. When the vehicle was driven in such roads, water enters inside the clutch housing through ventilation holes.

The clutch pedal in manual transmission plays a significant role in defining the comfort of driver as the component is one of the end user’s direct interface in the vehicle. Whenever driver operates the clutch pedal, comfort and NVH refinement should be felt over the complete pedal travel. The expectations of customer on NVH refinements, such as pedal vibration felt on foot during actuation, becomes the part of perceived quality and hence addressing the concern is very crucial. Due to advancements of technology and down-sizing of engines, NVH becomes the challenging area where the clutch pedal vibrations need to be eliminated to improve the comfort. In this paper we are explaining the problem statement and NVH solution to eliminate the clutch pedal vibration observed during clutch pedal actuation. Pedal vibrations were very severe at 10% clutch pedal pressed condition, and the same tends to diminish till 50% clutch pedal pressed condition.

Power density (power/engine cubic capacity) of the latest passenger car Diesel and Gasoline engine keeps increasing with a focus to deliver best in class performance along with meeting CAFE and emission norms. This increase in power density increases the thermal load onto the coolant system. Coolant temperature sensor monitoring the coolant temperature, proper radiator sizing, optimum water pump flow capacity and thermostat tuned to the required coolant temperature range are the typical measures taken to ensure safe operation of the engine and avoid any over-heating. Typical cooling system failures are mostly due to low coolant level, a defective thermostat, non-operative water pump & fan and blockage in the coolant circuit, etc. Most of these failures can be detected with the help of a coolant temperature sensor and pre-emptive measures can be taken to avoid engine loss.

The introduction of CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) norms has put a lot of importance on improving the fuel economy of passenger car vehicles. One of the areas to improve the fuel economy is by reducing engine friction. Camshaft drive torque reduction is one such area that helps in engine friction reduction. This paper explains the camshaft drive torque optimization work done on a passenger car Diesel engine with DOHC (double overhead camshaft). The exhaust camshaft of the engine drives the high-pressure Fuel Injection Pump (FIP) in addition to valve actuation. Camshaft drive torque is reduced by reducing the chain load. This is done through optimum phasing of the FIP lobe that drives the fuel injection pump and the cam lobe actuating the exhaust valves. Additional boundary condition for the phasing is ensuring that the FIP lobe is in the fall region of its profile while the piston is at TDC. This helps in avoiding rail pressure fluctuation.