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E-fuels are proven to be a major contributing factor to reduce CO2 emissions in internal combustion engines. In gasoline engines, C1 oxygenate are seen as critical to reach CO2 and emission reduction goals. Their properties affect the fuel injection characteristics and thus the fuel mixture formation and combustion emissions. To exploit the full potential of e-fuels, the detailed knowledge of their spray characteristic is necessary. The correlation between the fuel content of C1 oxygenates and particulate emissions do not appear to be linear. To understand this correlation, the spray characteristics have to be investigated in detail. The reduced stoichiometric air requirement leads to an increase of the injected fuel mass, which has to evaporate. This can lead to a changed fuel film interaction within the combustion chamber walls and therefore a change of particle formation.

The subject of this paper is the reduction of the particle number emissions of a gasoline DI engine at high engine load (1.4 MPa IMEP). To reduce the particle number emissions, several parameters are investigated: the large scale charge motion (baseline configuration, tumble and swirl) can be varied at the single cylinder engine by using inlays in the intake port. The amount of residual gas can be influenced by the exhaust backpressure. By using a throttle valve, the exhaust backpressure can be set equal to the intake pressure and hence simulate a turbocharger's turbine in the exhaust system or the throttle valve can be wide open and thus simulate an engine using a supercharger. Additionally, higher fuel injection pressure can help to enhance mixture formation and thus decrease particulate formation. Therefore, a solenoid injector with a maximum pressure of 30 MPa is used in this work.

The investigation of transient engine operation plays a key role of the future challenges for individual mobility in terms of real driving emissions (RDE). A fundamental investigation of the transient engine operation requires the simultaneous application of measurement technologies for an integrated study of mixture formation, combustion process and emission formation. The major prerequisite is the combustion cycle and crank angle resolved analysis of the process for at least several individual consecutive combustion cycles during transient operation. The investigations are performed with a multi cylinder DISI engine at an Engine-in-the-Loop test bench, able to operate the engine in driving cycles as well as within target profiles (e.g. speed and torque profiles). The research project describes the methodology of analyzing elementary transient operational phases, (e.g. different variants of load steps).

Despite the known benefits of direct injection (DI) spark ignition (SI) engines, port fuel injection (PFI) remains a highly relevant injection concept, especially for cost-sensitive market segments. Since particulate number (PN) emissions limits can be expected also for PFI SI engines in future emission legislations, it is necessary to understand the soot formation mechanisms and possible countermeasures. Several experimental studies demonstrated an advantage for PFI SI engines in terms of PN emissions compared to DI. In this paper an extended focus on higher engine loads for future test cycles or real driving emissions testing (RDE) is applied. The combination of operating parameter studies and optical analysis by high-speed video endoscopy on a four-cylinder turbocharged SI engine allows for a profound understanding of relevant soot formation mechanisms.

The proportion of nitrogen dioxide in the engine-out emissions of a Diesel engine is of great importance for the conversion of the total oxides of nitrogen (NOX) emissions in SCR catalysts. Particularly at lower engine loads and lower exhaust temperatures an increase of the already low NO2/NOX fraction will enhance the SCR operation significantly. For this purpose, the understanding of the NO2 formation during the Diesel combustion and expansion stroke is as substantial as being aware of the different thermodynamic impacts and engine operating parameters that affect the formation process. To determine the influences on the NO2 emission level several variation series were performed on a single-cylinder research engine. Especially the charge dilution parameters like the air-fuel ratio and the EGR rate as well as the injection parameters could be identified to be decisive for the NO2 formation.

Particle number measurements during different real world and legislative driving cycles show that catalyst heating, cold and transient engine operation cause increased particle number emissions. In this context the quality of mixture formation as a result of injector characteristics, in-cylinder flow, operation & engine parameters and fuel composition is a major factor. The goal of this paper is to evaluate the influence of different biogenic and alkylate fuels on the gaseous and particle number emission behavior during catalyst heating operation on a single-cylinder DISI engine. The engine is operated with a late ignition timing causing a high exhaust enthalpy flow to heat up the catalyst, a slightly lean global air fuel ratio to avoid high hydrocarbon emissions and a late injection right before the ignition to reduce the coefficient of variance of the indicated mean effective pressure.

The gradual global tightening of emission legislation for particulate matter emissions requires the development of new gasoline engine exhaust aftertreatment systems. For this reason, the development of gasoline direct injection engines aims at the reduction of particulate emissions by application of a Gasoline Particulate Filter (GPF). The regeneration temperature of GPF depend on soot reactivity towards oxidation and therefore on particle properties. In this study, the soot reactivity is correlated with nanostructural characteristics of primary gasoline particles as a function of specific engine injection parameters. The investigations on particle emissions were carried out on a turbocharged 4-cylinder GDI-engine that allows the variation of injection parameters. The emitted engine soot particles have been in-situ characterized towards their number and size distribution using an engine exhaust particle sizer (EEPS).

Throughout the world cost-efficient Naphtha streams are available in refineries. Owing to less processing, CO2 emissions emitted in the course of production of these fuels are significantly lower than with conventional fuels. In common CI/SI engines, however, the deployment of Naphtha is considerably restricted due to unfavourable fuel properties, e.g. low cetane/octane numbers. Former investigations illustrated high knocking tendency for SI applications and severe pressure rise for CI combustion. Moreover, the focus of past publications was on passenger vehicle applications. Hence, this paper centers on heavy-duty stationary engine applications. Consequently, measures to increase the technically feasible IMEP with regard to limitations in knocking behaviour and pressure rise were explored whilst maintaining efficient combustion and low emissions.

In this work a detailed soot model based on stationary flamelets is used to simulate soot emissions of a reactive Diesel spray. In order to represent soot formation and oxidation processes properly, a calibration of the soot reaction rates has to be performed. This model calibration is usually performed on basis of engine out soot measurements. Contrary to this, in this work the soot model is calibrated on local soot concentrations along the spray axis obtained from laser extinction chamber measurements. The measurements are performed with B7 certification Diesel and a series production multihole injector to obtain engine similar boundary conditions. In order to ensure that the flow and mixture field is captured well by the CFD-simulation, the simulated liquid penetration lengths and flame lift-off lengths are compared to chamber measurements.

In this paper experimental results of a medium duty single cylinder research engine with spark ignition are presented. The engine was operated with stoichiometric natural gas combustion and additional charge dilution by means of external and cooled exhaust gas recirculation (EGR). The first part of this work considers the benefits of cooled EGR on thermo-mechanical stress of the engine including exhaust gas temperature, cylinder head temperature, and knock behaviour. This is followed by the analysis of the influence of cooled EGR on the heat release rate. In this context the impact of fuel gas composition is also under investigation. The influence of increasing EGR on fuel efficiency, which is caused by a changed combustion process due to higher fractions of inert gases, is shown in this section. By application of different pistons a relationship between the piston bowl geometry and the flame propagation has been demonstrated.

The continuous pursuit of more efficient diesel engines and the stricter emission regulations with the introduction of the Real Driving Emissions test (RDE) necessitate further investigations of heating strategies and their suitability in terms of series production. Under these circumstances heating strategies of a variable valve train for a single-cylinder research diesel engine have been first simulated and then experimentally tested at the Institute of Internal Combustion Engines of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). By combining statistical experimental design (DoE) and 1-D gas exchange simulations, empirical DoE models for the design of suitable camshaft configurations have been established. After having performed a potential assessment, the most favorable configurations were manufactured and subsequently tested.

The particle size distribution (PSD) of submicron exhaust engine-out soot, is typically determined using a method based on the electrical mobility is used. This measurement procedure is subjected to uncertainty mainly due to inaccurate dilution of the sampled aerosol, unknown flow conditions at the probe inlet and the limited measurement accuracy of the device itself. In order to determine the measurement uncertainty, two different aerosol spectrometers, a TSI EEPS 3090 and a Cambustion DMS500 were installed and operated simultaneously at a single-cylinder heavy-duty diesel engine at the Institute of Internal Combustion Engines of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT).The engine was operated at various operating points to evaluate the ability of the spectrometers to correctly determine the PSD and the total particle number concentration (TPNC) at different boundary conditions.

A raise of efficiency is the strongest selling point concerning the total cost of ownership (TCO), especially for commercial vehicles (CV). Accompanied by legislations, with contradictive development demands, satisfying solutions have to be found. The analysis of energy losses in modern engines shows three influencing parameters. Wall heat transfer (WHT) losses are awarded with the highest optimization potential. Critical for the occurrence of these losses is the WHT, which can be described by representing coefficients. To reduce WHT accompanying losses a decrease of energy transfer between combustion gas and combustion chamber wall is necessary. A measurement of heat fluxes is necessary to determine the WHT relations of the combustion chamber in an engine. As this has not been done for a Heavy-Duty (HD) engine, with peak pressures up to 250 bar, an increased in-cylinder turbulence and high exhaust gas recirculation (EGR)-rates before, it is presented in the following.

As an important means of engine development and optimization, modelbuilding plays an increasingly important role in reducing carbon dioxide emissions of the internal combustion engines (ICEs). However, due to the non-linearity and high dimension of the engine system, a large amount of data is required to obtain high model accuracy. Therefore, a modelling approach combining the experimental data and prior knowledge was proposed in this study. With this method, an artificial neural network (ANN) model simulating the engine brake specific fuel consumption (BSFC) was established. With mean square error (MSE) and Kullback-Leibler divergence (KLD) serving as the fitness functions, the 86 experimental samples and constructed physical models were used to optimize the ANN weights through genetic algorithms.

Particulates and nitrogen oxides comprise the main emission components of the Diesel combustion and therefore are subject to exhaust emission legislation in respective applications. Yet, with ever more stringent emission standards and test-procedures, such as in passenger vehicle applications, resulting exhaust gas after-treatment systems are quite complex and costly. Hence, new technologies for emission control have to be explored. The application of non-thermal plasma (NTP) as a means to perform exhaust gas after-treatment is one such promising technology. In several publications dealing with NTP exhaust gas after-treatment the plasma state was generated via dielectric barrier discharges. Another way to generate a NTP is by a corona high-frequency discharge. Hence, in contrast to earlier publications, the experiments in this publication were conducted on an operated series-production Diesel engine with an industrial pilottype corona ignition system.

One promising alternative for meeting stringent NOx limits while attaining high engine efficiency in lean-burn operation are NOx storage catalysts (NSC), an established technology in passenger car aftertreatment systems. For this reason, a NSC system for a stationary single-cylinder CHP gas engine with a rated electric power of 5.5 kW comprising series automotive parts was developed. Main aim of the work presented in this paper was maximising NOx conversion performance and determining the overall potential of NSC aftertreatment with regard to min-NOx operation. The experiments showed that both NOx storage and reduction are highly sensitive to exhaust gas temperature and purge time. While NOx adsorption rate peaks at a NSC inlet temperature of around 290 °C, higher temperatures are beneficial for a fast desorption during the regeneration phase. Combining a relatively large catalyst (1.9 l) with a small exhaust gas mass flow leads to a low space velocity inside the NSC.

Fossil fuels such as natural gas used in engines still play the most important role worldwide despite such measures as the German energy transition which however is also exacerbating climate change as a result of carbon dioxide emissions. One way of reducing carbon dioxide emissions is the choice of energy sources and with it a more favourable chemical composition. Natural gas, for instance, which consist mainly of methane, has the highest hydrogen to carbon ratio of all hydrocarbons, which means that carbon dioxide emissions can be reduced by up to 35% when replacing diesel with natural gas. Although natural gas engines show an overall low CO2 and pollutant emissions level, methane slip due to incomplete combustion occurs, causing methane emissions with a more than 20 higher global warming potential than CO2.