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Scarce resources of fossil fuels and increasingly stringent exhaust emission legislation push towards a stronger focus to alternative fuels. Natural gas is considered a promising solution for small engines and passenger cars due to its high availability and low carbon dioxide emissions. Furthermore, natural gas indicates great potential of increased engine efficiency at lean-burn operation. However, the ignition of these lean air/fuel mixtures leads to new challenges, which can be met by fuel scavenged prechambers. At the Institute of Internal Combustion Engines of the Technische Universitaet Muenchen an air cooled natural gas engine with a single cylinder displacement volume of 0.5 L is equipped with a methane scavenged prechamber for investigations of the combustion process under real engine conditions. The main combustion chamber is supplied with a lean premixed air/fuel mixture.

Improving efficiency and reducing emissions are the principal challenges in developing new generations of internal combustion engines. Different strategies such as downsizing or sophisticated after-treatment of exhaust gases are pursued. Another approach aims at optimizing the parameterization of the engine. Correct adjustments of ignition timings, waste gate position and other factors have significant influence on the combustion process. A multitude of application data is generated during the development process to predefine appropriate settings for most situations. Improvements in regards to the application effort and the quality of the settings can be achieved by measuring the combustion process and optimizing the parametrization in a closed loop. However, cylinder pressure sensors that are used during the development process are too expensive for series applications.

This SAE Technical Paper will give a summary of the detailed results of crank-angle-resolved friction measurements which were carried out in motored and pressureless operation on a floating liner single cylinder test engine with a displacement of 0.5 liters. Friction forces that occur during running-in are introduced and discussed with regard to mixed friction and hydrodynamic friction for different oil control rings. Three different ring pre-loads are examined using constant geometries. In a second test series, the outer contour and coating is varied while the pre-load stays constant.

Presented within the framework of this SAE Technical Paper are the highly accurate results of friction experiments, performed upon a floating-liner, single-cylinder test engine with a capacity 0.5 liters and crank angle resolution during motored and fired operation. This allows for the measurement of mixed friction zones at the dead centers. These mixed friction zones can result in friction losses and lead to wear in the components in-volved. The strength of the friction forces in any given mixed friction zone is largely dependent on the operating point. This is why the influence of each of the most important operating parameters - speed (rpm), load, oil and coolant temperature - is individually analysed, before the interactions, which are depicted in the resultant engine map, are discussed.

The development of today's powertrains focuses on the reduction of CO₂ emissions. Therefore several new technologies for internal combustion engines have been established. A further tendency is the successive electrification of powertrains in hybrid vehicles. However, these trends lead to increasing system costs which are a very important aspect at the market segment of compact cars. At the Institute of Internal Combustion Engines of the Technical University of Munich a drivetrain concept for urban and commuter traffic is under development. It is based on a lean-burn air-cooled two-cylinder natural gas engine which is combined with a hydraulic hybrid system. The paper contains detailed information about the engine as well as the hybrid vehicle powertrain in parallel structure. Particular characteristics and innovations of the hydraulic hybrid system compared to systems known so far are shown.

Modern methods of engine development use complex mathematical models. Adding advanced components such as variable valve trains or direct injection systems to the model increases the degrees of freedom resulting in a high number of measurements for validation. Steadily rising costs for development, time and staff make it crucial for industry to improve the quality of measurements with advanced analysis techniques. Often, such models consider the simulated system as stationary, implying that system variables no longer change with time. This paper presents an internal combustion engine measurement system utilizing algorithms for the real-time evaluation of the state of the engine or its components. Several approaches have been reviewed and tested regarding their applicability. The most straightforward algorithms compare the gradient of a sensor signal to a pre-defined threshold.

At the Institute of Internal Combustion Engines of the Technische Universitaet Muenchen a drivetrain for urban and commuter traffic is under development. The concept is based on a lean-burn air-cooled two-cylinder natural gas engine which is combined with a hydraulic hybrid system. The engine is initially mechanically charged which results in an engine speed dependent torque. Turbocharging the natural gas fuelled engine derives increased engine torque especially at low engine speeds and exploits the potential of better knock resistance of natural gas compared to gasoline fuel. The paper presents a turbocharging concept for the two-cylinder engine at first. The firing order of 180/540°CA due to the crank shaft design and the lean-burn combustion are challenging restrictions to cope with. The consequences of the uneven firing order are investigated using 1D-simulation and the matching of the exhaust gas turbocharger is shown.

The development of today's drivetrains focusses on the reduction of vehicles' CO2-emissions. Therefore, a drivetrain for urban and commuter traffic is under development at the Institute of Internal Combustion Engines. The concept is based on a lean-burn air cooled two-cylinder natural gas engine, which is combined with a hydraulic hybrid system. On the one hand, lean-burn combustion leads to low nitrogen oxides emissions and high thermal efficiency. On the other hand, there are several challenges concerning inflammability, combustion stability and combustion duration. An approach to optimize the combustion process is the design of the piston bowl. The paper presents the engine concept at first. Afterwards, a description of design parameters for pistons of natural gas engines and a technical overview of piston bowls is given. Subsequent to the analysis of the different piston bowls, a new design approach is presented.

Developing piston assemblies for internal combustion engines faces the conflicting priorities of blow-by, friction, oil consumption and wear. Solving this conflict consists in finding a minimum for all these parameters. This optimization can only be successful if all the effects involved are understood properly. In this paper only blow-by and its associated flow paths for a diesel engine in part load operating mode are part of a detailed numerical investigation. A comparison of the possibilities to do a CFD analysis of this problem should show why the way of modeling described here has been picked. Further, the determination of the complex geometry, which results in a challenging set of calculations, is described. Besides the constraints for temperature and pressure, a meshing method for the creation of a dynamic mesh that is capable of describing the movement of all three rings of the piston ring pack simultaneously is also explained.

Hybridization is a promising way to further reduce the CO2 emissions of passenger vehicles. However, high engine efficiencies and the reduction of engine load, due to torque assists by an electric motor, cause a decrease of exhaust gas temperature levels. This leads to an increased time to catalyst light-off, resulting in an overall lower efficiency of the exhaust aftertreatment system (ATS). Especially in low load driving conditions, at cold ambient temperatures and on short distance drives, the tailpipe pollutant emissions are severely impacted by these low ATS efficiency levels. To ensure lowest emissions under all driving conditions, catalyst heating methods must be used. In conventional vehicles, internal combustion engine measures (e.g. usage of a dedicated combustion mode for late combustion) can be applied. A hybrid system with an electrically heated catalyst (EHC) enables further methods such as the increase of engine load by the electric motor or electric catalyst heating.