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The motivation of the present work was to understand the mechanism by which alcohols produce less aromatic species in their combustion process than an equal amount of hydrocarbon with similar molecular structure does. Due to its numerous advantages over short-chain alcohols, butanol has been considered very promising in soot reduction. Excluding the influence of spray, vaporization and mixing process in engine cases, an adiabatic constant-pressure reactor model was applied to investigate the effect of butanol additives on aromatic species, which are known to be soot precursors, in fuel-rich butane flames. To keep the carbon flux constant, 5% and 10% oxygen by mass of the fuel were added to butane using butanol additive, respectively. Based on the soot reduction effects proposed in literature, effects on temperature, key radical concentrations and the carbon removal from the pathway to aromatic species were considered to identify the major mechanism of reduction in aromatic species.

Butanol, which is a renewable biofuel, has been regarded as a promising alternative fuel for internal combustion engines. When blended with diesel and applied to pilot ignited natural gas engines, butanol has the capability to achieve lower emissions without sacrifice on thermal efficiency. However, high blend ratio of butanol is limited by its longer ignition delay caused by the higher latent heat and higher octane number, which restricts the improvement of emission characteristics. In this paper, the potential of increasing butanol blend ratio by adding hot exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) is investigated. 3D CFD model based on a detailed kinetic mechanism was built and validated by experimental results of natural gas engine ignited by diesel/butanol blends. The effects of hot EGR is then revealed by the simulation results of the combustion process, heat release traces and also the emissions under different diesel/butanol blend ratios.

A flow divider valve is a device which allows a single stream of fluid to be split into two paths according to a predetermined ratio and independent of variations or differences in the load pressures. A flow combiner valve combines two paths of fluid into one stream such that the ratio of the flow rates coming into the valve remains independent of any variation or difference between the inlet pressures. This paper describes the design, operation and performance of an integrated flow divider/combiner valve. This design maintains the small flow dividing/combining error of high precision valves (less than 1.5% at rated flow) but incorporates the shuttle valve into the main spool system. This new design reduces the weight of the valve by 20% reducing the cost by approximately 10%. The new structure simplifies the construction of high precision valves and reduces a source of flow dividing/combining error (leakage).

The articulated steering system is widely used in engineering vehicles due to its high mobility and low steering radius. The design parameters have a vital impact on the selection of the steering system assemblies, such as the operation stroke, pressure, and force of the hydraulic cylinders during the steering process, which will affect the system weight. The system energy consumption is also relevant to the geometry parameters. According to the kinetic analysis of the steering system and dynamic analysis of the steering process, the kinetic model of an engineering vehicle steering system is built, and the length and pressure variation of the cylinder is calculated and validated by the field test. The influence of the factors is analyzed based on the established model. To lower the system weight, needed pressure, and force, the multi-objective particle swarm optimization method is initiated to optimize the geometry parameter of the articulated steering system.

Preventing skidding is essential for studying the safety of driving in curves. However, the adhesion of the vehicle during the driving process on the wet and slippery road will be significantly reduced, resulting in lateral slippage due to the low adhesion coefficient of the road surface, the speed exceeding the turning critical, and the turning radius being too small when passing through the corner. Therefore, to reduce the incidence of traffic accidents of passenger cars driving in curves on rainy and snowy days and achieve the purpose of planning safe driving speed, this paper proposes a curve active safety system based on a deep learning algorithm and vehicle dynamics model. First,we a convolutional neural network (CNN) model is constructed to extract and judge the characteristics of snow and ice adhesion on roads.

In these years, the advantages of using phase change material (PCM) in the thermal management of electric power battery has been wide spread. Because of the thermal conductivity of most phase change material (eg.wax) is low, many researchers choose to add high conductivity materials (such as black lead). However, the solid-liquid change material has large mass, poor flow-ability and corrosively. Therefore, it still stays on experiential stage. In this paper, the Thermal characteristics of power battery firstly be invested and the requirements of thermal management system also be discussed. Then a new PCM thermal management has been designed which uses pure water as liquid phase change material, adopts PCM with a reflux device for thermal management.

Recent research has shown that butanol, instead of ethanol, has the potential of introducing a more suitable blend in diesel engines. This is because butanol has properties similar to current transportation fuels in comparison to ethanol. However, the main downside is the high cost of the butanol production process. Acetone-butanol-ethanol (ABE) is an intermediate product of the fermentation process of butanol production. By eliminating the separation and purification processes, using ABE directly in diesel blends has the potential of greatly decreasing the overall cost for fuel production. This could lead to a vast commercial use of ABE-diesel blends on the market. Much research has been done in the past five years concerning spray and combustion processes of both neat ABE and ABE-diesel mixtures. Additionally, different compositions of ABE mixtures had been characterized with a similar experimental approach.

For fracture cracks that occurred in the tight coupling exhaust manifold durability test of a four-cylinder gasoline engine with EGR channel, causes and solutions for fracture failure were found with the help of CFD and FEA numerical simulations. Wall temperature and heat transfer coefficient of the exhaust manifold inside wall were first accurately obtained through the thermal-fluid coupling analysis, then thermal modal and thermoplastic analysis were acquired by using the finite element method, on account of the bolt pretightening force and the contact relationship between flange face and cylinder head. Results showed that the first-order natural frequency did not meet the design requirements, which was the main reason of fatigue fracture. However, when the first-order natural frequency was rising, the delta equivalent plastic strain was increasing quickly as well.

This paper introduces two new types of basic components (an Electro-Hydraulic Tube and a Hydraulic Tube) which when connected in an appropriate manner can control flow and pressure for many applications; in addition, one of the devices is readily interfacable to a microprocessor for external control. Some background information about the basic concept and the operation of the two components is introduced. Some of the experimental characteristics will be illustrated and several basic circuit examples will be presented to show how the concept can be implemented. The Electro-Hydraulic Integrated Block (EHIB) and Circuit (EHIC) will be introduced followed by a discussion of the advantages and potential of the EHIC concept.

In summer, the relatively low temperature water condenses in the evaporator when the vehicle air-conditioning (AC) is running. At present, the vehicle AC condensate water without well utilization is directly wasted. The condenser’s thermal transfer performance has a great influence on the AC performance, and to increase the convective heat transfer coefficient (CHTC) is the key to its design. In this paper, a method of using atomized condensate water (CW) to enhance the condenser’s thermal transfer performance is proposed, which can make the most of the CW's cold energy. It achieves the reuse of CW and increases the condenser’s CHTC. First, the CW flow calculation model in the evaporator and the calculation model of the condenser enhanced thermal transfer using atomized CW are both set up. The influence of the evaporation degree of atomized CW particles in the air on the enhancement effect is comprehensively considered.

To face the challenges of fossil fuel shortage and air pollution problems, there is growing interest in the potential usage of alternative fuels such as bio-ethanol and bio-butanol in internal combustion engines. The literature shows that the acetone in the Acetone-Butanol-Ethanol (ABE) blends plays an important part in improving the combustion performance and emissions, owing to its higher volatility. In order to study the effects of acetone addition into commercial gasoline, this study focuses on the differences in combustion, performance and emission characteristics of a port-injection spark-ignition engine fueled with pure gasoline (G100), ethanol-containing gasoline (E30) and acetone-ethanol-gasoline blends (AE30 at A:E volumetric ratio of 3:1). The tests were conducted at 1200RPM with the default calibration (for gasoline), at 3 bar and 5 bar BMEP under various equivalence ratios.

A multi-step acetone-butanol-ethanol (ABE) phenomenological soot model was proposed and implemented into KIVA-3V Release 2 code. Experiments were conducted in an optical constant volume combustion chamber to investigate the combustion and soot emission characteristics under the conditions of 1000 K initial temperature with various oxygen concentrations (21%, 16%, 11%). Multi-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations were conducted in conjunction under the same operation conditions. The predicted soot mass traces showed good agreement with experimental data. As ambient oxygen decreased from 21% to 11%, ignition delay retarded and the distribution of temperature became more homogenous. Compared to 21% ambient oxygen, the peak value of total soot mass at 16% oxygen concentration was higher due to the suppressed soot oxidation mechanism.

In this research, the Mg2Si1-xSnx thermoelectric material is used in the exhaust temperature difference power-generating system, and the material's heat transfer characteristic and power-generating characteristic were analyzed. Firstly, steady heat transfer model from vehicle exhaust to cooling water was established. Then the impact of Sn/Si ratio to the thermoelectric characteristic parameter was analyzed. Finally, considering the influence of varying thermal conductivity to the heat transfer process along the material's heat transfer direction, when the cold end temperature of thermoelectric materials was controlled by cooling water respectively boiling at 343K and 373K, the thermoelectric conversion efficiency and power output of Mg2Si1-xSnx thermoelectric materials with different x value were evaluated based on simulation calculation.

With the rapidly developing automotive industry and stricter environmental protection laws and regulations, lightweight materials, advanced manufacturing processes and structural optimization methods are widely used in body design. Therefore, in order to evaluate and improve the pedestrian protection during a collision, this paper presents an impact simulation modeling and structural optimization method for a sport utility vehicle engine hood made of carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP). Head injury criterion (HIC) was used to evaluate the performance of the hood in this regard. The inner panel and the outer panel of CFRP hood were discretized by shell elements in LS_DYNA. The Mat54-55 card was used to define the mechanical properties of the CFRP hood. In order to reduce the computational costs, just the parts contacted with the hood were modeled. The simulations were done in the prescribed 30 impact points.

Operating level of a metal-belt CVT mainly rest with the ECU. Conventional control strategies which were obtained from tests or PID controller can not correspond to the driver’s intention or provide various driving environments. It is considered that control targets of metal-belt CVT could be distinguished by a speed ratio, line pressure and starting element till now. Running performance of automobile with a CVT mainly depends on the speed ratio control. An adapted fuzzy logic ratio control algorithm is suggested and optimized. A throttle position and its changing rate will be inputs of the FLC to meet the driver’s intention and make the intelligent control come true. A fuzzy logic line pressure control algorithm is also suggested and optimized corresponding to the complicated high line pressure control.

For the thin ice on the road in winter, the traditional road deicing vehicle relies on mechanical and chemical methods for melting ice, which is inclined to damage the pavement and has insidious influence on environment. The thermal deicing vehicle has been adopted in recent years. Although the deicing method is available, the deicing efficiency is unacceptable while the energy consumption is huge. The study adopts the new idea of “bottom-to-top” for melting the intersection area between the road surface and the bottom ice layer by the microwave heating firstly and then cleaning them out using high pres. vapor cutting so as to save the cost of energy and enhance the traffic safety. First of all, the mathematical model of the melting process of the intersection of the pavement and the ice layer was established according to the microwave heating characteristics.

In this paper a new pressure control method of a modified accumulator-type Electro-hydraulic Braking System (EHB) is proposed. The system is composed of a hydraulic motor pump, an accumulator, an integrated master cylinder, a pedal feel simulator, valves and pipelines. Two pressurizing modes are switched between by-motor and by-accumulator to adapt different pressure boost demands. A differentiator filtering raw sensor signal and calculating pedal speed is designed. By using the pedal feel simulator, the relationship between wheel pressures and brake force is decoupled. The relationships among pedal displacement, pedal force and wheel pressure are calibrated by experiments. A model-based PI controller with predictor is designed to lower the influences caused by delay. Moreover, a self-tuning regulator is introduced to deal with the parameter’s time-varying caused by temperature, brake pads wearing and delay variation.

Blade Electric Vehicle (BEV) with a light body plays an important role in saving the energy and reducing the exhaust emission. However, reducing the body weight need to meet the heterogeneous attributes such as structural, safety and NVH (Noise, Vibration and Harshness) performance. With the rapid development of finite element (FE) analysis technology, simulation analysis is widely used for researching the complex engineering design problem. Multidisciplinary Design Optimization (MDO) of a BEV body is a challenging but meaningful task in the automotive lightweight. In present research, the MDO is introduced to optimize a BEV Body-in-White (BIW).

In order to study the influence of low-viscosity oil on automobile pollutant emissions reduction, three different 0W20 oil samples were prepared with oil 5W30 as the base oil. Parameters such as the oil viscosity, ash, and element content were tested at different stages, speeds, and accelerations of the Worldwide Harmonized Light Vehicles Test Cycle (WLTC). The results showed the effects of low-viscosity oil on exhaust emissions reduction were mainly concentrated in the low-speed and extra high-speed segment. At the low-speed segment, especially in the starting stage, carbon monoxide (CO), total hydrocarbon (THC), and non-methane hydrocarbon (NMHC) emissions can be reduced. The use of low ash oil can reduce nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions; the methane (CH4) emissions can be reduced by increasing the Zinc (Zn) content in engine oil moderately.

The plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) gradually moves into the mainstream market with its excellent power and energy consumption control, and has become the research target of many researchers. The energy management strategy of plug-in hybrid vehicles is more complicated than conventional gasoline vehicles. Therefore, there are still many problems to be solved in terms of power source distribution and energy saving and emission reduction. This research proposes a new solution and realizes it through simulation optimization, which improves the energy consumption and emission problems of PHEV to a certain extent. First, on the basis that MATLAB software has completed the modeling of the key components of the vehicle, the fuzzy controller of the vehicle is established considering the principle of the joint control of the engine and the electric motor.