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The performance and emissions of a medium duty, turbocharged and aftercooled diesel engine fitted with both standard pistons and experimental pistons have been compared. The experimental pistons incorporated micro-chambers equi-spaced around the periphery of the bowl, connected to the bowl by drilled passages. The tests were run using an “A-B-A” design at three engine speeds over the load range. The paper will report that the experimental pistons have a potential for significant soot reduction without an increase in NOx emissions and with similar fuel consumption. Based on an analysis of the jet flow into and out of the micro-chambers, a possible mechanism for the soot reduction is proposed. The mechanism has been investigated further using VECTIS computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis.

Within Europe, agreed EEC Directives now exist to control exhaust emissions from heavy duty truck engines. An agreed EEC directive requires that emissions are reduced in two stages, Euro I and Euro II in accordance with current state-of-the-art developments in technology. Euro I standards were implemented in 1992/93 and Euro II standards will be in place for 1995/96. A third step, Euro III is now envisaged for introduction around the 1999 model year. In this paper, results from research work are presented showing how, with an advanced, heavy duty diesel engine, featuring 4 valves per cylinder and a very high pressure, electronic unit injector, effective control of NOx is possible using exhaust gas recirculation (EGR). After optimising the combustion system and air-fuel ratio with EGR, the test data obtained allow the limits for achievable emissions to be explored.