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To meet stringent noise regulations by governing body and customer expectations for quieter machines, design of low noise-emitting vehicle is becoming increasingly critical. Noise from small capacity four-stroke motorcycle is ranked for its noise intensity emitted, by sound intensity technique. Generally, noise form exhaust ranks first among the sources. Theoretical predictions were made to determine the frequency band being attenuated by the exhaust system. Design of Experiments (L25 Fractional factorial -6 factors and 5 levels), a statistical technique, is used for determining critical parameters, which increase the transmission loss of the exhaust system for four-stroke engine. Best combination of design parameters for maximum transmission loss is selected using Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). Experimental exhaust systems were built based on the theoretical predictions, pass-by noise spectrum were captured and compared.

Engines are assigned big subjects such as low emission and low fuel consumption as well as higher output (higher efficiency) in the latest trend of environmental protection. In order to meet these requirements, Air/Fuel ratio of recent high performance engines is being arranged leaner than that of conventional engines. As a result exhaust valve seat inserts used in these engines have problems of their wear resistance because of high exhaust gas temperature. By analyzing wear mechanism under the lean burn conditions, authors developed material for exhaust valve seat inserts which show superior wear resistance under high operating temperature. For the purpose to enhance heat resistance, authors added alloy steel powder for matrix powder and used hard particles which have good diffusion with matrix. The developed material does not include Ni and Co powders for cost saving and has superior machinability.

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).

A 500 hours endurance test was performed with a heavy-duty engine (Euro IV); MAN type D 0836 LFL 51 equipped with a PM-Kat®. As fuel 100% biodiesel was used that met the European specification EN 14214. The 500 hours endurance test included both the European stationary and transient cycle (ESC and ETC) as well as longer stationary phases. During the test, regulated emissions (carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, hydrocarbons and particulate matter), the particle number distribution and the aldehydes emission were continuously measured. For comparison, tests with fossil diesel fuel were performed before and after the endurance test. During the endurance test, the engine was failure-free for 500 hours with the biogenic fuel. There were almost no differences in specific fuel consumption during the test, but the average exhaust gas temperature increased by about 15°C over the time. Emissions changed only slightly during the test.

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.

The new 5480 Reach Truck, designed at Dynamic Industries, introduces a movable frame between the main frame and the telescopic boom. The use of this movable frame allows the usually fixed boom pivot to be elevated for greater lifting heights with smaller boom sections. By combining the motions of the boom and the movable frame, horizontal motion at the boom tip is possible without moving the truck. With the movable frame, the total machine height and length can be reduced for a given lifting goal. Another advantage of the movable frame is the ability to reach further below grade than is now possible in the industry. The 5480 Reach Truck has a maximum lift of 54 feet (16.5 meters) and can reach 24 feet (7.3 meters) below-grade.

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.

The new small and lightweight 2-cylinder liquid-cooled OHC gasoline engines were developed. These new engines are featuring high output, low vibration and noise radiation and so able to improve the comfortableness and amenity of applied utility machines. In this paper, the features of the new engines and the process to realize development targets are introduced. The basic structure adopted on the new engines is a liquid-cooled, inline 2-cyilinder layout with 360-degree firing intervals, twin balancer shafts, and an overhead camshaft that is driven by a cogged belt. Also various parts made of aluminum alloy and plastics could make the engine lighter. By these measures, the new engines could satisfy their hardest development targets, and realize their easy installation, higher versatility, and have the excellent features such as compact size, lightweight, high output, low exhaust gas emission and low vibration and noise radiation.

As automotive technology has been developed, gear whine has become a prominent contributor for cabin noise as the masking has been decreased. Whine is not the loudest source, but it is of high tonal noise which is often highly unpleasant. The gear noise originates at gear mesh. Transmission Error acts as an excitation source and these vibrations pass through gears, shafts and bearings to the housing which vibrates to produce noise on surrounding air. As microgeometry optimization target to reduce the fundamental excitation source of the noise, it has been favored method to tackle gear whine noise, especially for manual transmission. However, practicality of microgeometry optimization for the planetary gear system has been still in question, because of complex system structure and interaction among multi mesh gear sets make it hard to predict and even harder to improve. In this paper, successful case of whine noise improvement by microgeometry is presented.

Weight reduction and high transmission efficiency demands are getting heavier to manual transmission (MT) for vehicle driving and fuel economy performance. Also comfortable shift feeling and low gear noise level are continuously required by customer because those sensitivity performances are directly recognized by driver which can determine the transmission's merchantability. Newly developed high torque capacity MT is based on serial transmission BG6 which is adopted into a lot of customer' vehicle. This new MT is weight reduced, shift feeling and gear noise performance are highly improved that keeps strong competitiveness in the future. Concerning shift feeling, its smoothness, force balance and cross shift performance are improved and optimized. Also for low gear noise performance, it was reduced to the level which can have advantage to competitor and highly comfortable for passenger vehicle. Those improvement technologies are reported as follows.

The quality of mixture formation and the combustion process is of significant importance for reducing the hydrocarbon emissions of small two stroke engines. The scope of this work was to investigate the mixture conditions after the exhaust closes and after the end of combustion depending on various engine operating points. For this experimental investigation a Gas Sampling Valve (GSV) was combined with a flame ionisation detector (FID) and a CO2-analyser. Using this technique, it was possible to measure the hydrocarbon concentration after end of combustion. Furthermore the local residual gas concentration after exhaust closes was determined. To allow for a comparison of the experimental results with calculations with CFD codes, in cylinder pressure measurement and exhaust gas measurements are done additionally.

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.

A sequentially stratified scavenged engine is characterised by the principle that the cylinder is first scavenged by pure air, followed by the air/fuel mixture. The air is introduced into the upper part of the scavenging ducts through a piston port or a reed valve. To take full advantage of the stratified scavenged principle, the scavenging ducts have to be designed in a way, so that they can accommodate all the air that is delivered into the scavenging ducts. When converting a conventional two-stroke engine into a stratified scavenging engine, it is also important that the tuning and basic scavenging characteristics of the standard engine are not deteriorated. In this paper it is shown how these two aspects can be combined. Together with a theoretical approach for dimensioning the volume and length of the scavenging ducts, it gives a guideline on how to design the basic engine layout, for a stratified scavenged two-stroke engine.

New approaches to problems such as noise, temperature control of accessories and equipment in the nacelle, as well as improved safety features, are necessary in a modern high by-pass engine installation. The means of supporting the engine, cowling design, and maintainability features combine to improve the state of the art that a more economic airplane will result.

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.

In the design or match process of vehicle powertrain system, gearbox rattle is a common NVH problem which directly affects passengers’ judgment on the quality and performance of vehicle. During the development process of a passenger car, prototype vehicles have serious gear rattle problem. In order to efficiently and fundamentally control this problem, this work first studied the characteristics and mechanisms of the gearbox rattle. The study results revealed that the torsional vibration of powertrain system was the root cause of gearbox rattle. Then a simulation model of the full vehicle was built with the aid of Simulink® toolbox, which is a graphical extension to MATLAB® for modeling and simulation of variety of systems. With this model, the sensitivity analysis and parametrical optimization were performed, and the simulation results indicated that the dual-mass flywheel (DMF) was the best measure to control the rattle.

A 2-D CFD model was developed to describe the heat transfer, and reaction kinetics in a honeycomb structured ceramic diesel particulate trap. This model describes the steady state as well as the transient behavior of the flow and heat transfer during the trap regeneration processes. The trap temperature profile was determined by numerically solving the 2-D unsteady energy equation including the convective, heat conduction and viscous dissipation terms. The convective terms were based on a 2-D analytical flow field solution derived from the conservation of mass and momentum equations (Opris, 1997). The reaction kinetics were described using a discretized first order Arrhenius function. The 2-D term describing the reaction kinetics and particulate matter conservation of mass was added to the energy equation as a source term in order to represent the particulate matter oxidation. The filtration model describes the particulate matter accumulation in the trap.

Metal fiber DPF system is cheaper and more endurable than ceramic filter; however, the regeneration near the wall (outer layer) is difficult because of the heat loss and the less gas flow rate near the wall. In this study, a 3D CFD simulation is performed to find the flow control method for the more uniform mass flux for all filter layer. The major control factors are filter porosity, distribution plate and swirler. By placing the distribution plate in front of the filter the flow near the wall can be increased. The optimum place and size was chosen. The swirler can increase the flow more near the wall.

Positive displacement pumps are key components in automotive and hydraulic fluid systems, often serving as the primary power source and a major source of noise in both on-highway and off-highway vehicles. Specifically, gerotor pumps are widely utilized in vehicle coolant, lubricating, and other fluid systems for both conventional and electric powertrains. This study introduces a novel method for predicting noise in gerotor pumps by combining a Computational Acoustics (CA) approach with a 3D Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) approach, both implemented in the Simerics–MP+ code. The CFD simulation includes the detailed transient motion of the rotors (including related mesh motion) and models the intricate cavitation/air release phenomena at varying pump speeds. The acoustic simulation employs a Ffowcs–Williams Hawkings (FW–H) integral formulation to predict sound generation and propagation based on the detailed flow field predictions from the CFD model.

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.