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This paper forms the third of a series and presents results obtained during the testing and development phase of a dedicated range extender engine designed for use in a compact class vehicle. The first paper in this series used real world drive logs to identify usage patterns of such vehicles and a driveline model was used to determine the power output requirements of a range extender engine for this application. The second paper presented the results of a design study. Key attributes for the engine were identified, these being minimum package volume, low weight, low cost, and good NVH. A description of the selection process for identifying the appropriate engine technology to satisfy these attributes was given and the resulting design highlights were described. The paper concluded with a presentation of the resulting specification and design highlights of the engine. This paper will present the resulting engine performance characteristics.

Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) catalysts are used to reduce NOx emissions from internal combustion engines in a variety of applications. Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) performed an Internal Research & Development project to study SCR catalyst thermal deactivation. The study included a V/W/TiO₂ formulation, a Cu-zeolite formulation and a Fe-zeolite formulation. This work describes NH₃ storage capacity measurement data as a function of aging time and temperature. Addressing one objective of the work, these data can be used in model-based control algorithms to calculate the current NH₃ storage capacity of an SCR catalyst operating in the field, based on time and temperature history. The model-based control then uses the calculated value for effective DEF control and prevention of excessive NH₃ slip. Addressing a second objective of the work, accelerated thermal aging of SCR catalysts may be achieved by elevating temperatures above normal operating temperatures.

The U.S. Army's National Automotive Center has contracted with Illinois Institute of Technology Research Institute (IITRI), Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), and Advanced Propulsion, LLC, to evaluate the effects on fuel consumption and logistics that would result from hybridizing the powertrains of the Army's tactical wheeled vehicle fleet. This paper will outline the approach taken to perform that evaluation and present a synopsis of results achieved to date.

Progress on the development of active suspension for improving mobility of rough terrain vehicles is being hindered by the potentially high energy requirements. A unique regenerative active suspension system has been conceived and is being developed to provide active suspension with very low energy requirements. Regenerative active suspension consists of multiple variable displacement pumps, each controlling flow to and from hydro-pneumatic struts to control a vehicle's low frequency body motions. When fluid is returned from a strut to a pump, energy is recovered or “regenerated” so that the total energy requirement is very low. This paper presents the results of a study showing the potential of the regenerative active suspension system to improve vehicle control and ride comfort of rough terrain vehicles enhancing mobility while requiring very little additional energy.

An emissions reduction strategy was developed and demonstrated to significantly reduce cold-start hydrocarbon (HC) and CO emissions from a spark ignition (SI), gasoline-fueled engine. This strategy involved cold-starting the engine with an ultra-fuel rich calibration, while metering near-stoichiometric fractions of air directly into the exhaust ports. Using this approach, exhaust constituents spontaneously ignited at the exhaust ports and burned into the exhaust manifold and exhaust pipe leading to the catalytic converter. The resulting exotherm accelerated catalyst heating and significantly decreased light-off time following a cold-start on the FTP-75 with a Ford Escort equipped with a 1.9L engine. Mass emissions measurements acquired during the first 70 seconds of the FTP-75 revealed total-HC and CO reductions of 68 and 50 percent, respectively, when compared to baseline measurements.

REDSOD, an acronym for Repetitive Explosive Device for Soil Displacement, utilizes the energy generated within a combustion chamber by the combustion of compressed air and a hydrocarbon fuel to displace and move soil or material. An integral wedge-shaped base shoe with a large exhaust opening in its top surface is pushed into a soil overburden at depths up to 5 ft or more by a transporting vehicle. When the combustion chamber pressure has reached a maximum value, the hot, high pressure gases are released through the exhaust opening under the soil overburden. The soil is disaggregated and displaced up and out of the excavation. Deflectors can turn the direction of the soil's trajectory to deliver it to one side of the excavation. A greatly increased productivity per unit of equipment is possible over conventional earthmoving means.

Road tests of class 8 tractor trailers were conducted by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on a new and retreaded tires of varying rolling resistance in order to provide estimates of the quantitative relation between rolling resistance and fuel consumption. Reductions in fuel consumption were measured using the SAE J1231 (reaffirmation of 1986) test method. Vehicle rolling resistance was calculated as a load-weighted average of the rolling resistance (as measured by ISO28580) of the tires in each axle position. Both new and retreaded tires were tested in different combinations to obtain a range of vehicle coefficient of rolling resistance from a baseline of 7.7 kg/ton to 5.3 kg/ton. Reductions in fuel consumption displayed a strong linear relationship with coefficient of rolling resistance, with a maximum reduction of fuel consumption of 10 percent relative to the baseline.

An Automatic Tire Inflation System (ATIS), specifically designed for use on commercial long haul trailers, requires modification of the axles to direct air to the tires. The ATIS requires a drilled hole through the axle tube for the installation of a pneumatic fitting. The trucking industry expressed concern about the modification and its impact upon the axle structure, and the general durability of the system over a long period. A three-phase test program was developed and conducted to satisfy the concerns of the industry.

This paper describes the results of a public opinion survey on testing of diesel exhaust odors conducted during 1969 and 1970. Major goals of the research were to relate public opinion of the odors and the objectionability associated with them to odor intensity, and to obtain a dose-response curve as the primary result. The dose-response curve was needed to assess odor-control technology by providing a criterion for deciding whether or not the effect of a given control item would be noticed by the general public, reduce complaints, or be worth the cost and effort required for its implementation. The engine used as the live odor source for the subject research was a two-stroke cycle type similar to those used in many buses. This engine type was chosen because its exposure to the public in urban bus applications is very widespread, and because a large portion of the Environmental Protection Agency's odor research had been performed with similar engines.

Increased concern for improving fuel mileage in today's vehicles has focused attention on powertrain component efficiencies. Currently, no efficiency standards exist for automatic transmissions but, uniform testing procedures do exist. Consequently, vehicle and transmission manufacturers have no basis for comparing transmission-to-transmission performance. In addition, manufacturers have no design targets from which to critique their product. This paper addresses this issue by developing an overall transmission efficiency rating. This rating is based upon average transmission operational torques and speeds, the percent time of operation in each gear for a representative duty cycle, and representative efficiencies at these conditions based on test data obtained from a cross section of current production transmissions.

A Dodge Omni electric car was prepared for competition in an electric “stock car” 2-hour endurance event: the inaugural Solar and Electric 500 Race, April 7, 1991. This entry utilized a series-wound, direct-current 21-hp electric motor controlled by an SCR frequency and pulse width modulator. Two types of lead-acid batteries were evaluated and the final configuration was a set of 16 (6-volt each) deep-cycle units. Preparation involved weight and friction reduction; suspension modification; load, charge and temperature instrumentaltion; and electrical interlock and collision safety systems. Vehicle testing totalled 15 hours of operation. Ranges observed in testing with the final configuration were from 30 to 52 miles for loads of 175 to 90 amperes. These were nearly constant, continuous discharge cycles. The track qualifying speed (64mph) was near the 68 mph record set by the DEMI Honda at the event on the one-mile track.

Engine tests are widely used to measure the ability of lubricating oils to reduce fuel consumption through improved mechanical efficiency. Previous publications have correlated laboratory-scale tests with the well-established Sequence VI and VIA engine methods. The present paper uses a matrix of 66 oils to produce an empirical model for the recently developed Sequence VIB engine test. A smaller matrix of oils was available for correlation with Sequence VI and VIA results. The models combine a purposely-designed friction test with conventional measures of kinematic and high-temperature high-shear viscosity. Good correlation was obtained with the Sequence VI, VIA and VIB results, as well as each of the five stages in the Sequence VIB test. The effects of lubricant oxidation in the 96-hour FEI-2 portion of the Sequence VIB test were similar for each of the oils. As a result, good correlation was observed between FEI-1 and FEI-2 results from the VIB test.

Upcoming regulations from CARB and EPA will require diesel engine manufacturers to validate aftertreatment durability with full useful life aged components. To this end, the Diesel Aftertreatment Accelerated Aging Cycle (DAAAC) protocol was developed to accelerate aftertreatment aging by accounting for hydrothermal aging, sulfur, and oil poisoning deterioration mechanisms. Two aftertreatment systems aged with the DAAAC protocol, one on an engine and the other on a burner system, were directly compared to a reference system that was aged to full useful life using conventional service accumulation. After on-engine emission testing of the fully aged components, DOC and SCR catalyst samples were extracted from the aftertreatment systems to compare the elemental distribution of contaminants between systems. In addition, benchtop reactor testing was conducted to measure differences in catalyst performance.

In 2005, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) embarked on a mission to help the city of Beijing, China, clean its air. Working with the Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau (BEPB), the effort was a pilot diesel retrofit demonstration program involving three basic retrofit technologies to reduce particulate matter (PM). The three basic technologies were the diesel oxidation catalyst (DOC), the flowthrough diesel particulate filter (FT-DPF), and the wallflow diesel particulate filter (WF-DPF). The specific retrofit systems selected for the project were verified through the California Air Resources Board (CARB) or the EPA verification protocol [1]. These technologies are generally verified for PM reductions of 20-40 percent for DOCs, 40-50 percent for the FT-DPF, and 85 percent or more for the high efficiency WF-DPF.

The engine intake process governs many aspects of the flow within the cylinder. The inlet valve is the minimum area, so gas velocities at the valve are the highest velocities seen. Geometric configuration of the inlet ports and valves, and the opening schedule create organized large scale motions in the cylinder known as swirl and tumble. Good charge motion within the cylinder will produce high turbulence levels at the end of the compression stroke. As the turbulence resulting from the conversion energy of the inlet jet decays fast, the strategy is to encapsulate some of the inlet jet in the organized motions. In this work the baseline port of a 2.0 L gasoline engine was modified by inserting a tumble plate. The work was done in support of an experimental study for which a new single-cylinder research engine was set up to allow combustion system parameters to be varied in steps over an extensive range. Tumble flow was one such parameter.

Since the conception of the internal combustion engine, smoky and ill-smelling exhaust was prevalent. Over the last century, significant improvements have been made in improving combustion and in treating the exhaust to reduce these effects. One group of compounds typically found in exhaust, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), usually occurs at very low concentrations in diesel engine exhaust. Some of these compounds are considered carcinogenic, and most are considered hazardous air pollutants (HAP). Many methods have been developed for sampling, handling, and analyzing PAH. For this study, an improved method for dilute exhaust sampling was selected for sampling the PAH in diesel engine exhaust. This sampling method was used during transient engine operation both with and without aftertreatment to show the effect of aftertreatment.

Exhaust heat utilization for internal combustion engines has centered around turbosupercharging in recent years, neglecting the promising field of compounding a piston engine with a gas turbine in which, unlike turbocharging, turbine power is fed back to the engine crankshaft. The piston engine can cope with high gas pressure and temperature, whereas the gas turbine can efficiently utilize the energy at relatively low pressure and temperature and large volume flows. By compounding, this-piston engine will handle the high pressure, high temperature phase of the combustion cycle and extend the expansion ratio of the gases to atmospheric pressure by completing the low pressure, low temperature phase in the gas turbine. The marriage of the two engines will result in an outstanding power package with the highest thermal efficiency possible.

The use of a partial flow sampling system (PFSS) to measure nonroad steady-state diesel engine particulate matter (PM) emissions is a technique for certification approved by a number of regulatory agencies around the world including the US EPA. Recently, there have been proposals to change future nonroad tests to include testing over a nonroad transient cycle. PFSS units that can quantify PM over the transient cycle have also been discussed. The full flow constant volume sampling (CVS) technique has been the standard method for collecting PM under transient engine operation. It is expensive and requires large facilities as compared to a typical PFSS. Despite the need for a cheaper alternative to the CVS, there has been a concern regarding how well the PM measured using a PFSS compared to that measured by the CVS. In this study, three PFSS units, including AVL SPC, Horiba MDLT, and Sierra BG-2 were investigated in parallel with a full flow CVS.

Fumigation, inline mixing, chemically stabilized emulsions and cetane improvers were evaluated as a means of using ethanol in diesel engines. Two turbocharged six-cylinder engines of identical bore and stroke were used, differing in combustion chamber type. Three alcohol proofs were evaluated: 200, 190, and 160. Alcohol was added at the following concentrations: 10, 25, and 50% except in the case of the cetane-improved alcohol. In the latter case a commercial ignition improver for diesel fuel, DII-3, was added to neat alcohol in the proportions of 10, 15, and 20%. Generally, the emissions of CO, total hydrocarbons, and oxides of nitrogen reflected the trends observed in the thermal efficiencies. At light loads, CO and HC emissions were higher than baseline, decreasing to near baseline levels at heavy loads accompanied with higher NOx.

To evaluate the performance of a variety of commercially available exhaust emission control technologies, the Manufacturers of Emission Controls Association (MECA) sponsored a test program at Southwest Research Institute (SwRI). The test engine was a current design heavy-duty diesel engine operated on standard No. 2 diesel (368 ppm) and lower sulfur (54 ppm) diesel fuel. Technologies evaluated included: diesel oxidation catalysts (DOCs), diesel particulate filters (DPFs), selective catalytic reduction (SCR), fuel-borne catalysts (FBCs) in combination with filters and oxidation catalysts, and combinations of the above technologies. The program was structured to demonstrate that a variety of exhaust emission control technologies, including exhaust gas recirculation, could be used to substantially reduce emissions from a modern MY 1998 heavy-duty diesel engine.