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Diesel-fueled heavy-duty vehicles (HDVs) can be retrofitted with conversion kits to operate as dual-fuel vehicles in which partial diesel usage is offset by a gaseous fuel such as compressed natural gas (CNG). The main purpose of installing such a conversion kit is to reduce the operating cost of HDVs. Additionally, replacing diesel partially with a low-carbon fuel such as CNG can potentially lead to lower carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in the tail-pipe. The main issue of CNG-diesel dual-fuel vehicles is the methane (CH4, the primary component of CNG) slip. CH4 is difficult to oxidize in the exhaust after-treatment (EAT) system and its slip may offset the advantage of lower CO2 emissions of natural gas combustion as CH4 is a strong greenhouse gas (GHG). The objective of this study is to compare the emissions of an HDV with a CNG conversion kit operating in diesel and dual-fuel mode during highway operation.

Internal combustion (IC) engines still power most of the vehicles on road and will likely to remain so in the near future, especially for heavy duty applications in which electrification is typically more challenging. Therefore, continued improvements on IC engines in terms of efficiency and longevity are necessary for a more sustainable transportation sector. Two important design objectives for heavy duty engines with wet liners are to reduce friction loss and to lower the risks of cavitation damages, both of which can be greatly influenced by the piston-liner clearance and the design of the piston skirt. However, engine design optimization is difficult due to the nonlinear interactions between the key design variables and the design objectives, as well as the multi-physics and multi-scale nature of the mechanisms that are relevant to the design objectives.

Methanol is one of the most promising fuels for the decarbonization of the off-road and transportation sectors. Although methanol is typically seen as an alternative fuel for spark ignition engines, mixing-controlled compression ignition (MCCI) combustion is typically preferred in most off-road and medium-and heavy-duty applications due to its high reliability, durability and high-efficiency. In this paper, the potential of using ignition enhancers to enable methanol MCCI combustion was investigated. Methanol was blended with 2-ethylhexyl nitrate (EHN) and experiments were performed in a single-cylinder production-like diesel research engine, which has a displacement volume of 0.83 L and compression ratio of 16:1. The effect of EHN has been evaluated with three different levels (3%vol, 5%vol, and 7%vol) under low- and part-load conditions. The injection timing has been swept to find the stable injection window for each EHN level and load.

Despite the widespread adoption of lithium-ion batteries in various applications such as energy storage, concerns related to thermal management have been persisting, primarily due to the heat generated during their operation and the associated adverse effects on its efficiency, safety, and lifetime. Hence, the thermal characterization of lithium-ion batteries is essential for optimizing the layout of the battery cells for a pack design and the corresponding thermal management system. This study focuses on an experimental investigation of heat generation of Li-ion batteries under different operating conditions, including charge-discharge rates, ambient temperatures, states of charge, and compressive pressure. The experiments were conducted using a custom-designed multifunctional calorimeter, enabling precise measurement of the heat generation rate of the battery and the entropy coefficient. The measured results have shown a good match with the calculated heat generation rate.

Ethanol blending is one method that can be used to reduce knock in spark ignition engines by decreasing the autoignition reactivity of the fuel and modifying its laminar flame speed. In this paper, the effects of ethanol blending on knock propensity and flame speed of petroleum and low-carbon gasoline fuels is analyzed. To do so, surrogate fuels were formulated for methanol-to-gasoline (MTG) and ethanol-to-gasoline (ETG) based on the fuels’ composition, octane number, and select physical properties; and 0-D and 1-D chemical kinetics simulations were performed to investigate reactivity and laminar flame speed, respectively. Results of MTG and ETG were compared against those of PACE-20, a well-characterized surrogate for regular E10 gasoline. Similarly to PACE-20, blending MTG and ETG with ethanol increases the fuel’s research octane number (RON) and sensitivity.

Low-temperature gasoline combustion (LTGC) engines can provide high efficiencies with very low NOx and soot emissions, but rapid control of the combustion timing remains a challenge. Partial Fuel Stratification (PFS) was demonstrated to be an effective approach to control combustion in LTGC engines. PFS is produced by a double-direct injection (DI) strategy with most of the fuel injected early in the cycle and the remainder of the fuel supplied by a second injection at a variable time during the compression stroke to vary the amount of stratification. Adjusting the stratification changes the combustion phasing, and this can be done on cycle-to-cycle basis by adjusting the injection timing. In this paper, the ability of PFS to control the combustion during wide engine load sweeps is assessed for regular gasoline and gasoline doped with 2-ethylhexyl nitrate (EHN). For PFS, the load control range is limited by combustion instability and poor combustion efficiency at low loads.

Methanol emerges as a compelling renewable fuel for decarbonizing engine applications due to a mature industry with high production capacity, existing distribution infrastructure, low carbon intensity and favorable cost. Methanol’s high flame speed and high autoignition resistance render it particularly well-suited for spark-ignition (SI) engines. Previous research showed a distinct phenomenon, known deflagration-based knock in methanol combustion, whereby knocking combustion was observed albeit without end-gas autoignition. This work studies the implications of deflagration-based knock on noise emissions by investigating the knock intensity and combustion noise at knock-limited operation of methanol in a single-cylinder direct-injection SI engine operated at both stoichiometric and lean (λ = 2.0) conditions. Results are compared against observations from a premium-grade gasoline.

Road-vehicle platooning is known to reduced aerodynamic drag. Recent aerodynamic-platooning investigations have suggested that follower-vehicle drag-reduction benefits persist to large, safe inter-vehicle driving distances experienced in everyday traffic. To investigate these traffic-wake effects, a wind-tunnel wake-generator system was designed and used for aerodynamic-performance testing with light-duty-vehicle (LDV) and heavy-duty-vehicle (HDV) models. This paper summarizes the development of this Road Traffic and Turbulence System (RT2S), including the identification of typical traffic-spacing conditions, and documents initial results from its use with road-vehicle models. Analysis of highway-traffic-volume data revealed that, in an uncongested urban-highway environment, the most-likely condition is a speed of 105 km/h with an inter-vehicle spacing of about 50 m.

In a campaign to quantify the aerodynamic drag changes associated with drag reduction technologies recently introduced for light-duty vehicles, a 3-year, 24-vehicle study was commissioned by Transport Canada. The intent was to evaluate the level of drag reduction associated with each technology as a function of vehicle size class. Drag reduction technologies were evaluated through direct measurements of their aerodynamic performance on full-scale vehicles in the National Research Council Canada (NRC) 9 m Wind Tunnel, which is equipped with a the Ground Effect Simulation System (GESS) composed of a moving belt, wheel rollers and a boundary layer suction system. A total of 24 vehicles equipped with drag reduction technologies were evaluated over three wind tunnel entries, beginning in early 2014 to summer 2015. Testing included 12 sedans, 8 sport utility vehicles, 2 minivans and 2 pick-up trucks.

Despite recent advances towards powertrain electrification as a solution to mitigate pollutant emissions from road transport, synthetic fuels (especially e- fuels) still have a major role to play in applications where electrification will not be viable in short-medium term. Among e-fuels, oxymethylene ethers are getting serious interest within the scientific community and industry. Dimethoxy methane (OME1) is the smaller molecule among this group, which is of special interest due to its low soot formation. However, its application is still limited mainly due to its low lower heating value. In contrast, other fuel alternatives like hydrogenated vegetable oil (HVO) are considered as drop-in solutions thanks to their very similar properties and molecular composition to that of fossil diesel. However, their pollutant emission improvement is limited.

To cope with regulatory standards, minimizing tailpipe emissions with rapid catalyst light-off during cold-start is critical. This requires catalyst-heating operation with increased exhaust enthalpy, typically by using late post injections for retarded combustion and, therefore, increased exhaust temperature. However, retardability of post injection(s) is constrained by acceptable pollutant emissions such as unburned hydrocarbon (UHC). This study provides further insight into the mechanisms that control the formation of UHC under catalyst-heating operation in a medium-duty diesel engine, and based on the understanding, develops combustion strategies to simultaneously improve exhaust enthalpy and reduce harmful emissions. Experiments were performed with a full boiling-range diesel fuel (cetane number of 45) using an optimized five-injections strategy (2 pilots, 1 main, and 2 posts) as baseline condition.

Truck platooning is an emerging technology that exploits the drag reduction experienced by bluff bodies moving together in close longitudinal proximity. The drag-reduction phenomenon is produced via two mechanisms: wake-effect drag reduction from leading vehicles, whereby a following vehicle operates in a region of lower apparent wind speed, thus reducing its drag; and base-drag reduction from following vehicles, whereby the high-pressure field forward of a closely-following vehicle will increase the base pressure of a leading vehicle, thus reducing its drag. This paper presents a physics-guided empirical model for calculating the drag-reduction benefits from truck platooning. The model provides a general framework from which the drag reduction of any vehicle in a heterogeneous truck platoon can be calculated, based on its isolated-vehicle drag-coefficient performance and limited geometric considerations.

Recent studies have shown that for a given RON, fuels with a higher sensitivity (RON-MON) tend to have better antiknock performance at most knock-limited conditions in modern engines. The underlying chemistry behind fuel sensitivity was therefore investigated to understand why this trend occurs. Chemical kinetic models were used to study fuels of varying sensitivities; in particular their autoignition delay times and chemical intermediates were compared. As is well known, non-sensitive fuels tend to be paraffins, while the higher sensitivity fuels tend to be olefins, aromatics, diolefins, napthenes, and alcohols. A more exact relationship between sensitivity and the fuel's chemical structure was not found to be apparent. High sensitivity fuels can have vastly different chemical structures. The results showed that the autoignition delay time (τ) behaved differently at different temperatures. At temperatures below 775 K and above 900 K, τ has a strong temperature dependence.

Ducted Fuel Injection (DFI) engines have emerged as a promising technology in the pursuit of a clean and efficient combustion process. This article aims at elucidating the effect of piston geometry on the engine performance and emissions of a metal DFI engine. Three different types of pistons were investigated and the main piston design features including the piston bowl diameter, piston bowl slope angle, duct angle and the injection nozzle position were examined. To achieve the target, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations were conducted coupled to a reduced chemical kinetics mechanism. Extensive validations were performed against the measured data from a conventional diesel engine. To calibrate the soot model, genetic algorithm and machine learning methods were utilized. The simulation results highlight the pivotal role played by piston bowl diameter and fuel injection angle in controlling soot emissions of a DFI engine.

The mutual aerodynamic influence of road vehicles in close proximity is known to alter significantly the drag performance of the vehicles. This paper presents an extended analysis from a study of two open-access road-vehicle shapes (a DrivAer Notchback model and an AeroSUV Estateback model) in close lateral proximity with each other, or with other vehicle shapes. Wind-tunnel measurements were conducted for a yaw-angle range of ±10°, for lateral distances representing 75%, 100%, and 125% of a typical highway lane spacing, and for longitudinal distances up to 2 vehicle lengths forward and back. The results of a previous analysis of the data, which examined aerodynamic force measurements only, showed changes in drag coefficient of ±20% or more depending on the relative locations and wind conditions. In this paper, the force-coefficient results reexamined, and surface-pressure measurements are introduced to investigate the sources of the performance changes.

Mixture formation in a hydrogen-fueled heavy-duty engine with direct injection and a nearly-quiescent top-hat combustion chamber was investigated using laser-induced fluorescence imaging, with 1,4-difluorobenzene serving as a fluorescent tracer seeded into hydrogen. The engine was motored at 1200 rpm, 1.0 bar intake pressure, and 335 K intake temperature. An outward opening medium-pressure hollow-cone injector was operated at two different injection pressures and five different injection timings from early injection during the intake stroke to late injection towards the end of compression stroke. Fuel fumigation upstream of the intake provided a well-mixed reference case for image calibration. This paper presents the evolution of in-cylinder equivalence ratio distribution evaluated during the injection event itself for the cylinder-axis plane and during the compression stroke at different positions of the light sheet within the swirl plane.

Ensuring spray robustness of gasoline direct injection (GDI) is essential to comply with stringent future emission regulations for hybrid and internal combustion engine vehicles. This study presents experimental and numerical assessments of spray for lateral-mounted GDI sprays with two different plume arrangements to analyze spray collapse characteristics, which can significantly deteriorate the atomization performance of fuel sprays. Novel spray characterization methods are applied to analyze complex spray collapse behaviors using diffusive back-illuminated extinction imaging (DBIEI) and 3D computed tomographic (CT) image reconstruction. A series of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations are performed to analyze the detailed spray characteristics besides experimental characterization. Spatio-temporal plume dynamics of conventional triangle-pattern spray are evaluated and compared to a plume pattern with an inversed T pattern that has more open space between plumes.

Road vehicles in the real world experience aerodynamic conditions that might be unappreciated and omitted in wind-tunnel experiments or in numerical simulations. Precipitation can potentially have an impact on the aerodynamics of road vehicles. An experimental study was devised to measure, in a wind tunnel, the impact of rain on the aerodynamic forces of the DrivAer research model. In this study, a rain system was commissioned to simulate natural rain in a wind-tunnel environment for full-scale rain rates between about 8 and 250 mm/hr. A 30%-scale DrivAer model was tested with and without precipitation for two primary configurations: the notch-back and estate-back variants. In addition, mirror-removal and covered-wheel-well configurations were investigated. The results demonstrate a distinct relationship between increasing rain intensities and increased drag of the model, providing evidence that road vehicles experience higher drag when travelling in precipitation conditions.