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The objective is to investigate models of the specific heat ratio for the single-zone heat release model, and find a model accurate enough to introduce a modeling error less than or in the order of the cylinder pressure measurement noise, while keeping the computational complexity at a minimum. Based on assumptions of frozen mixture for the unburned mixture and chemical equilibrium for the burned mixture, the specific heat ratio is calculated using a full equilibrium program for an unburned and a burned air-fuel mixture, and compared to already existing and newly proposed approximative models of γ. A two-zone mean temperature model, Matekunas pressure ratio management and the Vibe function are used to parameterize the mass fraction burned. The mass fraction burned is used to interpolate the specific heats for the unburned and burned mixture, and then form the specific heat ratio, which renders a small enough modeling error in γ.

Observers for air mass flow to the cylinder is studied on a turbocharged SI-engine with wastegate. A position change of the wastegate influences the residual gas mass and causes the volumetric efficiency to change, which produces a transient in the air mass flow to the cylinder. Two standard methods of estimating air-to-cylinder are investigated. A new nonlinear air-to-cylinder observer is suggested with two states: one for intake manifold pressure and one for the offset in in-cylinder air mass compared to expected through the volumetric efficiency. The observers are validated on intake manifold pressure data from a turbocharged spark ignited production engine with wastegate.

Throttles and wastegates are devices used in modern engines for accurate control of the gas flows. It is beneficial, for the control implementation, to have compact and accurate models that describe the flow behavior. The compressible isentropic restriction is a frequently used model, it is simple and reasonable accurate but it has some issues. One special issue is that it predicts that the choking occurs at too high pressure ratios, for example the isentropic model predicts choking at a pressure ratio of 0.52, while experimental data can have choking at 0.4 or even lower. In this work, experimental data is acquired from throttles tested both in a flow bench and mounted as main throttle on a turbocharged gasoline engine. To analyze the flow behavior several flow characterizations are performed at different throttle openings.

Three methods for estimating the compression from measured cylinder pressure traces are described and evaluated for both motored and fired cycles against simulated and measured cylinder pressure. The first two rely upon a model of polytropic compression, and it is shown that they give a good estimate of the compression ratio for simulated cycles for low compression ratios. For high compression ratios, these simple models lack the information about heat transfer. The third method includes a standard heat transfer and crevice effect model, together with a heat release model and is able to estimate the compression ratio more accurately.

Variable cam timing engines pose new questions for engine control system designers. The cam timing directly influences cylinder air charge and residual mass fraction. Three models that predict residual mass fraction are investigated for a turbocharged dual independent Variable Cam Timing (VCT) engine. The three models (Fox et. al. 1993, Ponti et. al. 2002, and Mladek et. al. 2000) that all have real time capabilities are evaluated and validated against data from a crank angle based reference model. None of these models have previously been validated to cover this engine type. It is shown that all three models can be extended to dual independent VCT engines and that they also give a good description of the residual gas fraction. However, it is shown that the two most advanced models, based on a thermodynamic energy balance, are very sensitive to the model inputs and proper care must therefore be taken when these models are used.

Mean value cylinder air charge (CAC) estimation models for control and diagnosis are investigated on turbocharged SI-engines. Two topics are studied; Firstly CAC changes due to fuel enrichment and secondly CAC sensitivity to exhaust manifold pressure changes. The objective is to find a CAC model suitable for control and diagnosis. Measurements show that CAC models based on volumetric efficiency gives up to 10% error during fuel enrichment. The error is caused by the cooling effect that the fuel has as it evaporates and thus increases the charge density. To better describe the CAC during fuel enrichment a simple one parameter model is proposed which reduces the CAC estimation error on experimental data from 10% to 3%. With active wastegate control, the pressure changes in the exhaust manifold influences the CAC. The magnitude of this influence is investigated using sensitivity analysis on an exhaust manifold pressure dependent CAC-model.

It is important to determine the phasing of a measured cylinder pressure trace and crank angle with high accuracy. The reason is that erroneous determination of the position of TDC is a major error source when calculating properties such as heat release etc. A common way to determine the TDC position is to study motored cycles. Heat transfer makes the task more complicated, since it shifts the position of the maximum pressure away from TDC. In this paper a new method for determining the TDC position is proposed that does not require any additional sensors other than a cylinder pressure sensor and an incremental encoder. The idea is to find a point that the cylinder pressure from a motored cycle is symmetric around, since the volume is close to symmetric on either side of TDC. The new method and four published methods are tested and evaluated. Cylinder pressure data used for comparison are from simulations of a SAAB Variable Compression engine.

Today’s need for fuel efficient vehicles, together with increasing engine component complexity, makes optimal control a valuable tool in the process of finding the most fuel efficient control strategies. To efficiently calculate the solution to optimal control problems a gradient based optimization technique is desirable, making continuously differentiable models preferable. Many existing control-oriented Diesel engine models do not fully posses this property, often due to signal saturations or discrete conditions. This paper offers a continuously differentiable, mean value engine model, of a heavy-duty diesel engine equipped with VGT and EGR, suitable for optimal control purposes. The model is developed from an existing, validated, engine model, but adapted to be continuously differentiable and therefore tailored for usage in an optimal control environment. The changes due to the conversion are quantified and presented.

Cylinder air-charge is one of the most important parts of the torque control in a gasoline engine, due to the necessity to keep a stoichiometric air-fuel ratio, for the three-way catalyst to work efficiently. Throttle and phasing of the camshafts are actuators that have a big effect on the cylinder air-charge, this results in a cross-coupling between the actuators. One approach to handle the cross-coupling that occurs with multiple actuators is to use model predictive control (MPC), that handles the cross-coupling through the use of models and optimization. Models that support computation of gradients and hessians are desirable for use in MPC. To support the model design experimental data of cylinder pressure, from an inline four-cylinder engine with dual independent cam phasing, supported by gas exchange simulation, the effects from variable valve timing on the cylinder air-charge are investigated during the valve overlap period.

A method for determining turbocharger performance on installations in an engine test bench is developed and investigated. The focus is on the mapping of compressor performance but some attention is also given to the turbine mapping. An analysis of the limits that an engine installation imposes on the reachable points in the compressor map is performed, in particular it shows what corrected flows and pressure ratios can be reached and what these limitations depend on. To be able to span over a larger region of the corrected flow a throttle before the compressor is suggested and this is also verified in the test bench. Turbocharger mapping is a time consuming process and there is a need for a systematic process that can be executed automatically. An engine and test cell control structure that can be used to automate and monitor the measurements by controlling the system to the desired operating points is also proposed.

Exhaust temperatures are important for turbine and catalyst performance. A set of exhaust temperature models suitable for turbo matching as well as design and analysis of engine control systems are developed and investigated. The models are lumped parameter heat transfer models, that fall within the category of mean value engine models. The model is developed for describing exit temperatures from the exhaust manifold and temperature drops in pipe sections in the exhaust system. The components used to model the exhaust temperature are: engine out temperature, temperature drop in a straight pipe, and a set of heat transfer modes. The model is validated using data from three different engines. It is shown that, for a spark ignited engine operating at MBT and stoichiometric conditions, it is sufficient to model the engine out temperature as a linear function of mass flow. Recommendations for tuning the model are also given.

Three methods for compression ratio estimation based on cylinder pressure traces are developed and evaluated for both motored and fired cycles. Two methods rely upon models of polytropic compression and expansion for the cylinder pressure. It is shown that they give a good estimate of the compression ratio, although the estimates are biased. A method based on a variable projection algorithm with a logarithmic norm of the cylinder pressure, which uses interpolation of polytropic models of the expansion and compression asymptotes, is recommended when computational time is an important issue. For motored cycles it yields the smallest bias and confidence intervals for these two methods. For firing cycles a user-specified weighting factor is needed during the combustion phase, which pays off in a smaller estimation bias but also a higher variance. The third method includes heat transfer, crevice effects, and a commonly used heat release model for firing cycles.

Exhaust aftertreatment systems are essential components in modern powertrains, needed to reach the low legislated levels of NOx and soot emissions. A well designed diesel engine exhaust aftertreatment system can have NOx conversion rates above 95%. However, to achieve high conversion the aftertreatment system must be warm. Because of this, large parts of the total NOx emissions come from cold starts where the engine has been turned off long enough for the aftertreatment system to cool down and loose its capacity to reduce NOx. It is therefore important to understand how the aftertreatment cools down when the engine in turned off. Experimental data for a catalyst cool-down process is presented and analyzed. The analysis shows that it is important to capture the spatial distribution of temperatures both in axial and radial directions. The data and analysis are used to design a catalyst thermal model that can be used for model based catalyst temperature monitoring and control.

Spark ignited engines require accurate control of both air and fuel, and one important component in this system is the throttle servo. A non-linear throttle model is built and used for control design. It is shown that the non-linear model-based controller improves the performance compared to a conventional gain scheduled PI controller. Furthermore a method for estimating the load torque that the air flow produces on the throttle shaft is presented.

Heat release analysis by using a pressure sensor signal is a well recognized technique for evaluation of the combustion event, and also for combustion diagnostics. The analysis includes tuning of several parameters in order to accurately explain measured data. This work presents and investigates a systematic method for estimating parameters in heat release models and minimizing the arbitrary choices. In order for the procedure to be systematic there are also the requirements on the model, that it includes no inherent ambiguities, like over-parameterization with respect to the parameters and to the information contained in the measurements. The fundamental question is which parameters, in the heat release model, that can be identified by using only cylinder pressure data. The parameter estimation is based on established techniques, that constructs a predictor for the model and then minimizes a least-squares objective function of the prediction error.

Downsizing and turbocharging is a proven technology for fuel consumption reduction in vehicles. To further improve the performance, electrified components in the turbocharger arrangements have been proposed, and investigations have shown acceleration improvements, emission reductions, and further fuel conversion efficiency benefits. Simulation tools play an important role in the design process as the interplay between component selection, control strategy, system properties and constraints is very complex. Evaluations are performed with respect to BSFC map, fuel consumption in a drive cycle, acceleration performance, as well as many other aspects. A component-based engine and vehicle model is developed and evaluated to facilitate the process of assessing and optimizing the performance of e.g. engine, charging system, and electrical machine components. Considerations of the execution time and model fidelity have resulted in a choice of models in the mean value engine model family.

Most of todays spark-advance controllers operate in open loop but there are several benefits of using feed-back or adaptive schemes based on variables deduced from the cylinder pressure. A systematic study of how different engine conditions change the deduced variables, at optimal ignition timing, is performed. The analysis is performed using a one-zone heat-release model and varying the model parameters. The deduced variables that are studied are: position of the pressure peak, mass fraction burned levels of 30%, 45%, 50%, and 90%, and the pressure ratio. For MBT timing the position for 45% mass fraction burned changed least under a large variety of changes in burn rate. Cycle-to-cycle variations do not have a significant effect and it suffices to evaluate the mean values for the burn rate parameters. The pressure ratio produces values similar to the mass fraction burned and requires no separate treatment.

Turbocharger testing is a time consuming process, and as rapid-prototyping technology advances, so must other areas in the development chain. As an example, in one study a compressor map took over 34 hours to measure. In this paper, an effort to combat the main bottleneck of turbocharger testing, namely the thermal inertia, is made. When changing operating point during the measurement process, several minutes can be required before the turbocharger components reach temperature steady state. In an earlier paper, a method based on non-linear trajectory optimization was developed that significantly reduced the testing time required to produce compressor performance maps. The time was reduced by a factor of over 60, compared to waiting for the system to reach steady state with constant inputs. However, the method required a model of the turbocharger. This paper extends the method with system identification and model predictive control (MPC).

1 In modern turbocharged engines the power output is strongly connected to the turbocharger speed, through the flow characteristics of the turbocharger. Turbo speed is therefore an important state for the engine operation, but it is usually not measured or controlled directly. Still the control system must ensure that the turbo speed does not exceed its maximum allowed value to prevent damaging the turbocharger. Having access to a turbo speed signal, preferably by a cheap and reliable estimation instead of a sensor, could be beneficial for over speed protection and supervision of the turbocharger. This paper proposes a turbo speed observer that only utilizes the conditions around the compressor and a model for the compressor map. These conditions are either measured or can be more easily estimated from available sensors compared the conditions on the turbine side.

The importance of including turbocharger dynamics in diesel engine models are studied, especially when optimization techniques are to be used to derive the optimal controls. This is done for two applications of diesel engines where in the first application, a diesel engine in wheel loader powertrain interacts with other subsystems to perform a loading operation and engine speed is dictated by the wheel speed, while in the second application, the engine operates in a diesel-electric powertrain as a separate system and the engine speed remains a free variable. In both applications, mean value engine models of different complexities are used while the rest of system components are modeled with the aim of control study. Optimal control problems are formulated, solved, and results are analyzed for various engine loading scenarios in the two applications with and without turbocharger dynamics.