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The performance of three way and NOx catalysts was evaluated on vehicles utilizing non-feedback fuel control and electronic feedback fuel control. The vehicles accumulated 80,450 km (50,000 miles) using fuels representing the extremes in hydrogen-carbon ratio available for commercial use. Feedback carburetion compared to non-feedback carburetion improved highway fuel economy by about 0.4 km/l (1 mpg) and reduced deterioration of NOx with mileage accumulation. NOx emissions were higher with the low H/C fuel in the three way catalyst system; feedback reduced the fuel effect on NOx in these cars by improving conversion efficiency with the low H/C fuel. Feedback had no measureable effect on HC and CO catalyst efficiency. Hydrocarbon emissions were lower with the low H/C fuel in all cars. Unleaded gasoline octane improver, MMT, at 0.015g Mn/l (0.06 g/gal) increased tailpipe hydrocarbon emissions by 0.05 g/km (0.08 g/mile).

4 different engine concepts with Catalyst have been developed in regard to pollutant emission, fuel efficiency and performance. Despite the wide power range from 1,2 HP to 12 HP and the different applications of these engines to Mopeds, Chainsaws and Motorcycles, the problems to solve have been similar. Internal measures such as optimized carburetion, cooling, piston shape and clearance, scavenging and tuning of the exhaust must enable the engine to run on the lean side. This is imperative to supply sufficient oxygen for the exothermal reaction and to keep the energy to be converted in the Oxidation Catalyst at a minimum. Secondary measures have been taken to shorten the Catalyst's light-off and to keep the temperature range in limits.

There is a movement to apply emission control in a marine engine as well due to high public awareness of environmental concern in the United States. We started at the development of 3-seater Personal Watercraft (PWC) equipped with 4-stroke engines in taking environment conformity and potential into account. The PWC employed series 4-cylinder 1100cc displacement engine that has been used for mass production motorcycles. The engine was modified to satisfy requirements for PWC, as a marine engine, such as performance function and corrosion. In order to achieve greater or equal power/weight ratio as against two-stroke PWCs, a four-stroke engine for PWC with an exhaust turbo charger was developed. As a result, we succeeded in developing an engine that attained top-level running performance and durability superior to competitors' 2-stroke engines.

In Sports Motorcycles category, fuel injection systems have been employed more popularly in recent years, and we have been also developing motorcycles introducing fuel injection systems in the category of 600cc - 1400cc displacement. Sports Motorcycles need to be controlled in a wide range from idling to over 10000rpm. Better throttle response, high power and low fuel consumption are also required. Therefore, adding to optimizations of inlet system layout, fuel injection amount, injection timing and ignition timing, the authors have applied to some models electric control devices such as SDTV (Dual Throttle Valve System) that controls intake air amount with secondary throttle valve located upstream of primary throttle valve and SET (Exhaust Tuning System) that controls exhaust pressure by opening angle of an exhaust valve installed in an exhaust pipe to improve the torque characteristics.

In France, the current evolution in the number of road accident victims is less favourable for the moped rider category than for the majority of others. In addition, the proportion of scooters in the moped park is currently considerably increasing. The aim of the research work presented is to consider if an explanation for the bad results for this category of users, in terms of road safety, can be found through the study of the dynamic performances of this type of vehicle. We thus carried out an experiment aimed at comparing the dynamic capacities of a “Classic” moped with those of a “Scooter” model. Two mopeds, one of each type, were fitted with an embedded measurement system. They were driven for several tests on a track by a professional test pilot. The results of this study are more in favour of the “Scooter” moped, which seems to offer equivalent, or even better, dynamic capacities than the “Classic” one.

The first part of this paper describes air and gasoline heat-aging tests on various type 66 nylon resins. The results are pertinent for evaluating the suitability of these nylons for automotive applications such as the emission control canister and the gasoline vapor-liquid separator. In addition, data are presented to demonstrate that road salt caused no deterioration on test bars made from various 66, 610, and copolymer nylon resins which are in contact with galvanized zinc sheets in an acid environment. The second part of this paper discusses a survey which was made of a variety of automotive parts made of 66 nylon and acetal homopolymer to determine their quality after extended service. Parts, including body, chassis, engine, and transmission components, were removed from high mileage cars. Parts were evaluated for changes in dimension and strength. Their general condition was found to be excellent.

In regard to small utility engines used in lawn and garden equipment and other commercial or industrial equipment, exhaust emission regulations have been implemented since 1995 in USA. In the State of California, USA, California Air Resources Board (CARB) Tier 2 emission regulations became effective from 2000. At this stage, the handheld engines are almost two-stroke engines, but this Tier 2 emission regulations are very stringent for HC emissions. In addition, the handheld engines are small, and so they do not have enough muffler volume to be equipped with larger catalysts. This paper describes the newly developed catalyst for two-stroke small engines, which is compact and excellent in HC conversion, to meet above requirements.

Characteristics of mass emission of unburned Oil-Particulate Matter and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons from two-stroke scooter were investigated. The tests were carried out under with and without oxidation catalyst and various air-fuel ratio ranging from 12 to 16 at 50:1 of fuel-oil mixing ratio for easy sampling. Unburned Oil-Particulate Matter and 4- to 7-rings polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons were trapped on filter. These compounds were analyzed by high performance liquid chromatography with fluorescence detector. Mass emission of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and unburned Oil-Particulate Matter tends to decrease as air-fuel ratio which increased up to stoichiometric ratio. The highest conversion ratio of unburned Oil-Particulate Matter on the oxidation catalyst was 64%. Conversion ratio of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons increased as rings are smaller.

More and more stringent restrictions concerning the pollutant emissions of ICE (Internal Combustion Engines) constitute a major challenge for the automotive industry. New combustion strategies such as LTC (Low Temperature Combustion), PCCI (Premixed Controlled Compression Ignition) or HCCI (Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition) are promising solutions to achieve the imposed emission standards. They permit low NOx and soot emissions via a lean and highly diluted combustion regime, thus assuring low combustion temperatures. In next generation of ICE, new technologies allow the implementation of complex injection strategies in order to optimize the combustion process. This requires the creation of numerical tools adapted to these new challenges. This paper presents a 0D Diesel HCCI combustion model based on a physical 3D CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) approach.

In the last two decades, piston engine specifications have deeply evolved. Indeed, new challenges nowadays concern the reduction of pollutant emissions (EURO regulations) and CO2 emissions. To satisfy these new requirements, powertrains have become very complex systems including a large number of high technology components (high pressure injectors, turbocharger, Exhaust Gas Recirculation (EGR) loop, after-treatment devices...). In this context, the engine control plays a major role in the development and the optimization of powertrains. Few years ago, engine control strategies were mainly defined by experiments on engine test benches. This approach is not adapted to the complexity of future engines: on the one hand, tests are too expensive and on the other hand, they do not give much information to understand interactions between components. Today, a promising alternative to tests may be the use of 0D/1D simulation tools.

The thermal efficiency of spark-ignition engines can be enhanced by increasing the rate of exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) such that the low temperature combustion regime could be achieved. However, there is an upper limit on the amount of EGR rate, beyond which flame speed becomes slow and unstable, and local quenching starts to hurt the combustion stability, efficiency, and emission. To resolve this issue, the concept of dedicated EGR has been proposed previously to be an effective way to enhance flame propagation under lean burn condition with even higher levels of EGR with reformate hydrogen and carbon monoxide. In this study, the effects of thermochemical fuel reforming on the reformate composition under rich conditions (1.0 < ϕ < 2.0) have been studied using detailed chemistry for iso-octane, as the representative component for gasoline.

This paper describes the development of a new sled system that can address many safety-related issues pertaining to the racing industry. The system was designed to re-create acceleration and velocity levels similar to levels evident in race car crashes. The sled utilizes equipment typically used in passenger car crash research with the primary change to a specially designed lightweight carriage. This paper will overview the system and the types of crash events that can be simulated. Readers of this paper will gain a much broader understanding of accelerator sled testing and the issues related to the simulation of high speed crashes using physical testing.

A 3 way catalytic converter (3WCC) model based on a global kinetic model was developed and validated against laboratory scale and engine test bench experiments. Various equivalence ratios and temperatures were tested. A methodology was finalized and applied to calibrate the kinetic constants. Laboratory scale experiments were first used to characterize the reaction mechanism during light-off, including the way reduction and oxidation reactions begin and compete with each other when temperature increases. The numerical results are in good agreement with the laboratory scale light-off results. Also, when adapted to simulate the engine test bench experiments, the model is able to correctly reproduce both the light-off tests and the 3WCC conversion efficiency evolution versus equivalence ratio. A calibration method in two steps was thus established and successfully used. The combination of modeling with experimental work appeared to be a powerful tool to determine the reaction mechanism.

A catalyst system, consisting of two different catalyst technologies within a single canister, was developed for MDV2 (Medium-Duty Vehicles, Class 2) to meet ULEV targets. The catalyst volume versus engine displacement is less than 50%. Three approaches taken: substrate study, PM loading study and new catalyst technology development are illustrated here. The most promising system features new catalyst technologies coated on high cell density substrates.

Brake squeal signatures (2 kHz to 18 kHz) have tonal content highly dependent on the specific brake system structural architecture. The challenge in minimizing squeal involves correctly identifying the conditions (temperature, apply pressure, rotor speed as some basic parameters) of occurrence, defining the underlying structural dynamics of the system and applying appropriate suppression solutions. The quantitative metric of improvement is the cumulative event percentage of occurrence. Design variables of the brake system and performance attribute targets extend the challenge beyond the level of just reducing noise. Consideration of material costs, manufacturing/assembly factors, durability, thermal management as well as other factors narrow the solution space significantly. Compressed late stage development is not uncommon in reaching acceptable levels of performance and is a primary reason for following a well defined process flow with provision for alternative solutions.

In this work, a 5-zone model has been applied to replicate the in-cylinder conditions evolution of a Rapid Compression-Expansion Machine (RCEM) in order to improve the chemical kinetic analyses by obtaining more accurate simulation results. To do so, CFD simulations under motoring conditions have been performed in order to identify the proper number of zones and their relative volume, walls surface and temperature. Furthermore, experiments have been carried out in an RCEM with different Primary Reference Fuels (PRF) blends under homogeneous conditions to obtain a database of ignition delays and in-cylinder pressure and temperature evolution profiles. Such experiments have been replicated in CHEMKIN by imposing the heat losses and volume profiles of the experimental facility using a 0-D 1-zone model. Then, the 5-zone model has been analogously solved and both results have been compared to the experimental ones.

This paper provides an overview of a strategy for the prediction of noise from industrial gearboxes. A review of the history of predictive noise control in gearboxes is given. The historical lead is followed in developing the strategy, but significant changes in the approach to predictive noise control have been made. The heart of the approach is the dynamic modeling of the gearbox from inside out. Thus one must start this process with the prediction of the internal dynamic response of the gear train system. This paper then details the computational strategy for the determination of the dynamic response of the internal gearbox components. The approaches presented here are significant departures from those carried out in the past.

Wear of brake disc is normally faced with sophisticated experimental methods, a basic overview on the phenomena related to disc wear is presented in this paper. DTV consists in a heterogeneous wear of the disc surface and it is caused by two factors: run-out and the mechanism of disc wear. The importance of DTV is due to the vehicle vibrations that high DTV values can cause during braking. A model, that considers iron oxide layer evolution on disc surface, can evidence some of the principal characteristics of disc wear. In this model the wear rates of disc gray cast iron and iron oxide layer are considered as some of the principal factors in DTV evolution, as well as the kinetics of the chemical reactions involved.