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The Rotating Liner Engine (RLE) is an engine design concept where the cylinder liner rotates in order to reduce piston assembly friction and liner/ring wear. The reduction is achieved by the elimination of the mixed and boundary lubrication regimes that occur near TDC. Prior engines for aircraft developed during WW2 with partly rotating liners (Sleeve Valve Engines or SVE) have exhibited reduction of bore wear by factor of 10 for high BMEP operation, which supports the elimination of mixed lubrication near the TDC area via liner rotation. Our prior research on rotating liner engines experimentally proved that the boundary/mixed components near TDC are indeed eliminated, and a high friction reduction was quantified compared to a baseline engine. The added friction required to rotate the liner is hydrodynamic via a modest sliding speed, and is thus much smaller than the mixed and boundary friction that is eliminated.

Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEVs) can be designed and operated to satisfy many different operational missions. The three most common HEV types differ with respect to component sizing and operational capabilities. However, HEV technology offers design opportunities beyond these three types. This paper presents a detailed HEV categorization process that can be used to describe unique HEV prototype designs entered in college and university-level HEV design competitions. We explored possible energy management strategies associated with designs that control the utilization of the two on-board energy sources and use the competition vehicles to illustrate various configurations and designs that affect the vehicle's capabilities. Experimental data is used to help describe the details of the power control strategies which determine how the engine and electric motor of HEV designs work together to provide motive power to the wheels.

The Dedicated EGR (D-EGR®) engine has shown improved efficiency and emissions while minimizing the challenges of traditional cooled EGR. The concept combines the benefits of cooled EGR with additional improvements resulting from in-cylinder fuel reformation. The fuel reformation takes place in the dedicated cylinder, which is also responsible for producing the diluents for the engine (EGR). The D-EGR system does present its own set of challenges. Because only one out of four cylinders is providing all of the dilution and reformate for the engine, there are three “missing” EGR pulses and problems with EGR distribution to all 4 cylinders exist. In testing, distribution problems were realized which led to poor engine operation. To address these spatial and temporal mixing challenges, a distribution mixer was developed and tested which improved cylinder-to-cylinder and cycle-to-cycle variation of EGR rate through improved EGR distribution.

As new advanced-technology vehicles are becoming more mainstream, analysts are studying their potential impact on petroleum use, carbon emissions, and smog emissions. Determining the potential impacts of widespread adoption requires testing and careful analysis. PHEVs possess unique operational characteristics that require evaluation in terms of actual in-use driving habits. SAE J2841, “Utility Factor Definitions for Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicles Using 2001 U.S. DOT National Household Travel Survey Data,” published by SAE in 2009 with a revision in 2010, is a guide to using DOT's National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) data to estimate the relative split between driving in charge-depleting (CD) mode and charge-sustaining (CS) mode for a particular PHEV with a given CD range. Without this method, direct comparisons of the merits of various vehicle designs (e.g., efficiency and battery size) cannot be made among PHEVs, or between PHEVs and other technologies.

Because only the unburned gases in the crevices can contribute to hydrocarbon emissions, a model was developed that can be used to determine the temporal and spatial histories of both burned gas and unburned gas flow into and out of the piston-liner crevices. The burned fraction in the top-land is primarily a function of engine design. Burned gases continue to get packed into the inter-ring volume until well after the end of combustion and the unburned fuel returned to the chamber from this source depends upon both the position of the top ring end gap relative to the spark plug and of the relative positions of the end gaps of the compression rings with respect to each other. Because the rings rotate, and because the fuel that returns to the chamber from the inter-ring crevice dominates the sources between BDC and IVO when conditions are unfavorable to in-cylinder oxidation, these represent two sources of variability in the HC emissions.

A set of algebraic equations has been developed to replace the iterative thermochemical equilibrium subroutine in zero-dimensional and quasidimensional engine modeling codes. These equations allow calculation of the equilibrium composition given only the equivalence ratio and the fuel characteristics, thereby allowing the composition calculations to be performed external to the iterative main loop. This technique results in a decrease of the required computational time by up to a factor of 13, dependent upon the equivalence ratio and the fuel. The predictions of the equilibrium-equivalent code agree with those of a traditional equilibrium code within 2.5% for the four fuels examined (CH4, C3H8, C2H5OH, and i-C8H18) for compression ratios between 5 and 12:1, intake manifold pressures between 50 and 100 kPa, and equivalence ratios from 0.5 to 1.5. A technique for including constrained equilibrium to account for freezing of CO oxidation during the expansion stroke is also presented.

A reduced autoignition mechanism for iso-octane has been developed by identifying paths to formation of the stable species measured during motoring knock experiments and eliminating paths to formation of species that were not measured. The resulting mechanism includes low-, intermediate-, and high-temperature reactions and consists of 103 species and 131 reactions. This mechanism differs from detailed models not only in the number of reactions and species, but most importantly, in the nature and rates of the degenerate chain branching reactions. To implement this mechanism, a knock subroutine has been added to a quasidimensional spark ignition engine model that accounts for heat losses, blowby, etc. Thus, errors in the reactivity predictions can be assigned almost exclusively to the kinetics. Numerical predictions of the exhaust composition during motoring knock are compared with experimental measurements as a function of compression ratio for several operating conditions.

Lean mixture combustion might be an important feature in the next generation of SI engines, while diluents (internal and external EGR) have already played a key role in the reductions of emissions and fuel consumption. Lean burn modeling is even more important for engine modeling tools which are sometimes used for new engine development. The effect of flame strain on flame speed is believed to be significant, especially under lean mixture conditions. Current quasi-dimensional engine models usually do not include flame strain effects and tend to predict burn rate which is too high under lean burn conditions. An attempt was made to model flame strain effects in quasi-dimensional SI engine models. The Ford model GESIM (stands for General Engine SIMulation) was used as the platform. A new strain rate model was developed with the Lewis number effect included.

In order to determine the factors that affect fuel economy quantitatively, the power flows through the major powertrain components were measured during operation over transient cycles. The fuel consumption rate and torque and speed of the engine output and axle shafts were measured to assess the power flows in a vehicle with a CVT. The measured power flows were converted to energy loss for each component to get the efficiency. Tests were done at Phase 1 and Phase 3 of the FTP and for two different CVT shift modes. The measured energy distributions were compared with those from the ADVISOR simulation and to results from the PNGV study. For both the Hot 505 and the Cold 505, and for both shift modes, the major powertrain loss occurs in the engine, including or excluding standby losses. However, the efficiency of the drivetrain/transmission is important because it influences the efficiency of the engine.

Previous studies and on-road driving by consumers have shown that Hybrid Electric Vehicle fuel economy is very dependent on driver demand in both vehicle speed and vehicle acceleration [1]. The emerging technology of Plug-In Hybrid Vehicles (PHEV) may prove to also be more sensitivity to aggressive driver demand as compared to conventional internal combustion engine vehicles. This is due to the exceptional ability of the PHEV to minimize fuel consumption at mid to low power levels by the significant use of electric propulsion which enables engine downsizing. As vehicle speed and acceleration increase so does the power demand on the powertrain. The fuel consumption is directly affected by this increase in power demand level. To examine the fuel consumption impact of changing driver characteristics on PHEV’s, testing is conducted on two vehicles (parallel PHEV and power-split PHEV) on a four wheel chassis dynamometer at Argonne’s Advanced Powertrain Research Facility.

A 1998 Toyota Corona passenger car with a direct injection spark ignition (DISI) engine was tested at constant engine speed (2000 rpm) over a range of loads. Engine-out and tailpipe emissions of gas phase species were measured each second. This allowed examination of the engine-out emissions for late and early injection. Seven fuels were used for these tests: five blended fuels and two pure hydrocarbon fuels. These seven fuels can be divided into groups for examination of the effects of volatility, MTBE, and structure (an aromatic versus an i-alkane). Correlations between the fuel properties and their effects on emissions are presented. Use of steady state tests rather than driving cycles to examine fuel effects on emissions eliminates the complications resulting from accelerations, decelerations, and changes of injection timing but care had to be taken to account for the periodic regenerations of the lean NOx trap/catalyst.

The addition of exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) has demonstrated the potential to significantly improve engine efficiency by allowing high CR operation due to a reduction in knock tendency, heat transfer, and pumping losses. In addition, EGR also reduces the engine-out emission of nitrogen oxides, particulates, and carbon monoxide while further improving efficiency at stoichiometric air/fuel ratios. However, improvements in efficiency through enhanced combustion phasing at high compression ratios can result in a significant increase in cylinder pressure. As cylinder pressure and temperature are both important parameters for estimating the durability requirements of the engine - in effect specifying the material and engineering required for the head and block - the impact of EGR on surface temperatures, when combined with the cylinder pressure data, will provide an important understanding of the design requirements for future cylinder heads.

Predictions of the Fractal Engine Simulation code were compared with SI engine data in a previous paper. These comparisons were extremely good except for the single data set available at a low engine speed. Because of uncertainty regarding whether the lack of agreement for this case resulted from some difficulty with the experimental data or was due to lack of proper speed dependence in the model, additional comparisons are made for a range of speeds from 300-1500 rpm. The fractal burning model is a turbulence driven model (i.e., driven primarily by the turbulence intensity) that divides the combustion process into four sequential phases: 1) kernel formation, 2) early flame growth, 3) fully developed turbulent flame propagation, and 4) end of combustion. The kernel formation process was not included in the previous version of this model, but was found to be required to predict engine speed effects.

The effects of fuel properties on the emissions of a production vehicle with a gasoline direct injection engine operating over the Federal Test Procedure (FTP) cycle were investigated. The vehicle used was a 1998 Toyota Corona passenger car with a direct injection spark ignition (DISI) engine. Engine-out and tailpipe FTP emissions for six fuels and a California Phase 2 RFG reference fuel are presented. Four of the test fuels were blended from refinery components to meet specified distillation profiles. The remaining test fuels were iso-octane and toluene, an iso-alkane and an aromatic with essentially the same boiling point (at atmospheric pressure) that is near the T50 point for the blended fuels. Statistically significant effects, at the 95% confidence level, of the fuels on tailpipe emissions were found. Correlations were sought between the properties of the five blends and the Emissions Indices for engine-out hydrocarbons and NOx and for tailpipe particulates.

Piston wetting can be isolated from the other sources of HC emissions from DISI engines by operating the engine predominantly on a gaseous fuel and using an injector probe to impact a small amount of liquid fuel on the piston top. This results in a marked increase in HC emissions. In a previous study, we used a variety of pure liquid hydrocarbon fuels to examine the influence of fuel volatility and structure on the HC emissions due to piston wetting. It was shown that the HC emissions correspond to the Leidenfrost effect: fuels with very low boiling points yield high HCs and those with a boiling point near or above the piston temperature produce much lower HCs. All of these prior tests of fuel effects were performed at a single operating condition: the Ford World Wide Mapping Point (WWMP). In the present study, the effects of load and engine speed are examined.

A fiber optic instrumented spark plug was used to make time-resolved measurements of the fuel vapor concentration history near the spark gap in a four-valve DISI engine. Four different bulk flow were investigated. Several early and late injection timings were examined. The fuel concentration at the spark gap was correlated with IMEP. Emissions of CO, HCs, and NOx were related to the type of bulk flow. For both early and late injection the CoVs of fuel concentration were generally lowest for the weakest bulk flow which resulted in a stable stratification. Strong bulk flows convected the inhomogeneities through the measurement area near the spark plug resulting in both large intracycle and cycle-to-cycle variation in equivalence ratio at the time of ignition.

A 1998 Toyota Corona passenger car with a direct injection spark ignition (DISI) engine was tested at constant engine speed (2000 rpm) over a range of loads. Engine-out and tailpipe emissions of gas phase species were measured each second. This allowed examination of the engine-out emissions for late and early injection. Regeneration of the lean NOx trap/catalyst was also examined, as was the efficiency of NOx reduction. NOx stored in the trap/catalyst is released at the leading edge of regenerations, such that the tailpipe NOx is higher than the engine-out NOx for a brief period. The efficiency of NOx reduction was <50% for the lowest loads examined. As the load increased, the efficiency of NOx reduction decreased to near 0% due to excessive catalyst temperatures. Loads sufficiently high to require a rich mixture produce high NOx reduction efficiencies, but in this case the NOx reduction occurs via the three-way catalysts on this vehicle.

We have examined the influence of piston wetting on the size distribution and mass of particulate matter (PM) emissions in a SI engine using several different fuels. Piston wetting was isolated as a source of PM emissions by injecting known amounts of liquid fuel onto the piston top using an injector probe. The engine was run predominantly on propane with approximately 10% of the fuel injected as liquid onto the piston. The liquid fuels were chosen to examine the effects of fuel volatility and molecular structure on the PM emissions. A nephelometer was used to characterize the PM emissions. Mass measurements from the nephelometer were compared with gravimetric filter measurements, and particulate size measurements were compared with scanning electron microscope (SEM) photos of particulates captured on filters. The engine was run at 1500 rpm at the Ford world-wide mapping point with an overall equivalence ratio of 0.9.

The results of continuing investigations of a new type of ignitor, the railplugs are reported. Previous studies have shown that railplugs can produce a high velocity jet of plasma. Additionally, railplugs have the potential of assuring ignition under adverse conditions, such as for very dilute mixtures, because the railplug plasma is both hotter and has a larger mass than the plasma generated by a spark plug. In this paper, engine data are presented to demonstrate the improved dilution tolerance obtainable with railplugs. Data acquired using a railplug are compared to results obtained using a conventional spark plug and a spark plug with a wide spark gap, both using an inductive ignition system. The present results affirm earlier, preliminary findings that railplugs can extend the dilution limit and produce faster combustion.

The effect of the in-cylinder bulk flow on fuel distributions in the cylinder of a motored direct-injection S.I. engine was measured. Five different bulk flows were induced through combinations of shrouded and unshrouded valves, and port deactivation: stock, high tumble, reverse tumble, swirl, and swirl/tumble. Planar Mie scattering was used to observe the fuel spray movement in the centerline plane of a transparent cylinder engine. A fiber optic instrumented spark plug was used to measure the resulting cycle-resolved equivalence ratio in the vicinity of the spark plug. The four-valve engine had the injector located on the cylinder axis; the fiber optic probe was located between the intake valves. Injection timings of 90, 180, and 270 degrees after TDC were examined. Measurements were made at 750 and 1500 rpm with certification gasoline at open throttle conditions. From the images it was found that the type and strength of the bulk flow greatly affected the spray behavior.