How Innovation Springs from Decades-Old Engineering Research
Technical Benchmarks Offer Important Insights
Posted: November 29, 2022
By Marc Leduc
Engineering thrives on scientific discovery and technical benchmarking is a well-established tool for measuring progress and focusing research. How well has a given design stood the test of time? Does it answer the consumer’s needs? What’s the next priority for development? As mobility engineers seek to optimize designs wherever they can, benchmarking technical knowledge can give them insights into ways others have approached the problem. At SAE, engineers search our Technical Paper databases for research topics and testing results that can speed this process. Along the way, we’re observing interesting clusters of activity that show just how powerful this level of access to information can be when it comes to making those incremental improvements — including in quite unexpected areas.
Fuel injection technology has been around for decades. But that doesn’t mean it’s a closed book. Companies are racing to hit emissions targets and boost fuel efficiency. In the process, their engineers have focused on transformative tech: electric drivetrains, fuel cells, and other solutions. My colleagues and I noticed a spike in activity around fuel injection in the SAE Technical Papers database. Now that we can "see" atoms and put a computer in our pockets, this decades-old tech was suddenly a hot topic, with a flurry of search queries, paper downloads 100+ new research publications on topics like fuel injection, fuel economy, and fuel consumption from WCX 2022.
Here's a list of our most referenced Technical Papers from WCX 2022:
- H2-ICE Technology Options of the Present and the Near Future
- Development of Vehicle Thermal Management Model for Improving the Energy Efficiency of Electric Vehicle
- High Efficiency HD Hydrogen Combustion Engines: Improvement Potentials for Future Regulations
I think fuel systems engineers were on to something. In the quest for more efficient engines, electrification was not the only pathway. Revisiting seminal research was leading to incremental gains in fuel efficiency. These small gains add up — with even small percentages enabling fuel savings. That’s why at SAE, we are serious about building an extensive library of research and datasets, dating back to the initial development of this technology. This data doesn’t have a shelf-life! By making it searchable and discoverable, it proves to be an incredibly useful benchmark for engineers identifying opportunities for optimization and helping them solve their most pressing challenges more quickly and efficiently.
Why does engineering research matter?
When engineering research accumulates around a specific topic, it enables incremental efficiency in the years and decades to come. Today’s digital databases accelerate the impact of research. Engineers seeking new solutions or optimizations to existing technology often piece together data from past experiments.
Technical Databases Provide Avenues for Discovery
Automotive and aerospace engineering, like any other scientific discipline, works in cycles of theory, prototyping, testing, and verification. We’ve built searchable, authoritative, peer-reviewed libraries of research content to provide avenues for engineering innovation. Listening to our members, we know that innovation can coalesce in unexpected places as changing requirements push the industry in new directions. For the mobility space, our library of Technical Papers has been a go-to source for over 100 years.
Trending Areas of Research
Seeing long-unfolding developments continue to bear fruit is nothing new for SAE International. We’re seeing a flurry of activity as we build new capacity and information clusters to serve engineers working in new and emerging tech like battery research, hydrogen fuel cells, AI, biomimicry, and blockchain security. At the same time, we’re as cognizant as ever that maintaining core groups of expertise in traditional technology like ICEs, functional safety, hybrid vehicles, and NVH remains critical to the success of even the most cutting-edge applications.
Searching for technical solutions?
Engineers trust SAE Technical Papers to help solve their technical challenges. Find the latest research and data or survey where the industry is headed. To get started, search our database of over 100,000 technical papers for your topic or technology.