Search Results

Early Direct Injection Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition is one of the clean combustion technologies which reduces the oxides of nitrogen and soot emissions significantly. However, this strategy suffered from drawbacks of fuel spray impingement on cylinder walls, excessive carbon monoxide, and unburnt hydrocarbon emissions, and lower thermal efficiency than conventional diesel combustion in CI engines. A novel attempt has been made in this experimental research work to address the above-said issues by injection of oxy hydrogen gas as a fuel additive to diesel in stationary Compression Ignition engine. This gas was injected into the intake manifold where it premixes with the incoming air. Experiments were conducted at a constant rpm of 1500 and load was varied from 0 to 75%. The diesel was injected by common rail direct injector 45 Before Top Dead Center which ensured an almost homogenous mixture of air, oxy hydrogen gas, and diesel.

Because of ever increasing demand for more fuel efficient engines with lower manufacturing cost, compact design and lower maintenance cost, OEM’s prefer three cylinder internal combustion engine over four cylinder engine for same capacity, though customer demands NVH characteristics of a three cylinder engines to be in line with four cylinder engine. Crank-train balancing plays most vital role in NVH aspects of three cylinder engines. A three cylinder engine crankshaft with phase angle of 120 degrees poses a challenge in balancing the crank train. In three-cylinder engines, total sum of unbalanced inertia forces occurring in each cylinder will be counterbalanced among each other. However, parts of inertia forces generated at No.1 and No. 3 cylinders will cause primary and secondary resultant moments about No. 2 cylinder. Conventional method of designing a dynamically balanced crank train is time consuming and leads to rework during manufacturing.

Short development cycles, less packaging space and stringent noise emission rules have increased the need of CAE usage and first time right design approach. Engine exhaust noise is the main contributor of automotive noise when vehicle speed is low to moderate. Exhaust noise contains tailpipe noise and shell radiation noise. As vehicle speed increases, contribution of flow noise and tire noise is comparatively at higher side. The cold end development engineer is responsible to design a muffler to meet tailpipe and shell radiation noise targets. Muffler shell stiffness is a key characteristic for deciding shell radiation noise. High intensity pulses of exhaust gas passes through the exhaust pipe and hits cold end from inside which causes shell vibration and respectively shell noise. There are several conventional methods available to improve shell stiffness, but all of them are not applicable for ‘double layered critically shaped mufflers’ and all of them are not cost-effective.

In a Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC) uniform reaction rate is very crucial to obtain maximum performance and to maintain the life of the cells. In PEMFC stack manifold plays an important role in maintaining uniform flow distribution of reactants (hydrogen, air and coolant) to the cells. Many studies have been carried out for examining the effect of manifold on flow distribution and pressure drop. Most studies are limited to small scale level (5 to 10 kW stack). This paper describes large scale fuel cell stack manifold design, flow distribution and pressured contours which is suitable for automotive vehicles (30 to 50 kW). The design consists of simplified scaled up fuel cell stack with cells connected in the series. Modelled the effect of internal manifold geometry of the fuel cell stack on pressure and flow distribution to the cells.

The importance of clutch in a vehicle’s performance is not new to the automotive, commercial or agricultural sectors, so is the importance of the clutch life when it comes to the durability of a vehicle. In process of making the machines more and more efficient, one can observe a steady reduction in the overall mass of the vehicle and the parts in it. While the parts were heavier, and the friction lining surfaces were more than adequate, the life of clutch has been the best. But with reduction of the overall mass’, the energy has lesser amount of reservoir to dissipate and is being liberated in the form of heat, rising the overall temperatures. This leads to an early wear or even a burn in the clutch. In such scenario, it is necessary to estimate accurately the energy dissipation through a defined cycle to understand the clutch performance. Although different methods exist to evaluate energy, most cases include obtaining a high amount of sophisticated data.

In the modern automotive sector, durability and reliability are two terms of utmost importance and relevance. The ever improving standards and cut throat competition has led to customers expecting highly reliable products at low costs. Any product that fails within its useful life leads to customer dissatisfaction and affects the OEM’s reputation. To eradicate this, all automotive components undergo stringent validation protocol, either in proving ground or in lab. Multipurpose bracket is one of the most important and critical aggregate in the vehicle assembly. It encompasses various mounting components such as FUPD bracket, steering mounting bracket, front spring front bracket, cab mount bracket, cab tilt cylinder mounting bracket, front cross member, footstep bracket and bumper. All these components experience various degrees of vibration and fatigue during its running period.

This paper will communicate an in-depth investigation uncovering contributing factors defining the desired and undesired acoustic signature of a V6 Vehicle. A transfer path analysis tool is exercised to rank improvement opportunities. These results are used to drive design improvements with the goal of achieving best-in-class sound quality when executed as a system. A cohesive powertrain-vehicle-level acoustic improvement package is executed, improving air induction, intake manifold, both structure and air-core, exhaust-radiated and under-hood-acoustic encapsulation. The acoustic package was validated by jury testing to provide significant refinement enhancement improving predicted 3rd party scores.

Fuel consumption in internal combustion engines and their associated CO2 emissions have become one of the major issues facing car manufacturers everyday for various reasons: the Kyoto protocol, the upcoming European regulation concerning CO2 emissions requiring emissions of less than 130g CO2/km before 2012, and customer demand. One of the most efficient solutions to reduce fuel consumption is to downsize the engine and increase its specific power and torque by using turbochargers. The engine and the turbocharger have to be chosen carefully and be finely tuned. It is essential to understand and characterise the turbocharger's behaviour precisely and on its whole operating range, especially at low engine speeds. The characteristics at low speed are not provided by manufacturers of turbochargers because compressor maps cannot be achieve on usual test bench.

Simulation-based engineering is very effective and efficient approach, as it has got shorter development time and corresponding cost associated in program delivery. It also helps in limiting the experimental-based operations and prototype numbers necessary to design a powertrain. Use of finite element method (FEM) enables to assure the structural integrity of the engine head block and also to contribute to better understanding of the system behavior under assembly loads and various operating conditions. Engine block liner plays an important role in the design of the combustion chamber and defining the size of internal combustion engines. In the service life of the engine, cylinder internal surface will wear out due to the friction and wear pattern is nonuniform. Engine life could be extended with re-boring and using higher size pistons.

Numerous studies considering interaction between refrigerant and reed valve motion in positive displacement compressors have been cited in literature. CFD and FEA simulation tools have allowed modeling of fully coupled interaction of fluids and moving parts [1]. The present paper describes a simplified model of a multi-cylinder reciprocating piston compressor and estimation of pressure surge at high compressor speeds. The results show that the delayed discharge valve opening and closing causes surge in pressures due to formation of pressure waves. For the chosen geometry and operating conditions in the present paper, the characteristic travel time of such waves is much shorter (~ 0.2ms) as compared to longer response time of reed valves (> 1ms) owing to stiffness and exhibit delayed opening due to others factors too like stiction effect. These pressure surges may exceed the fatigue limit of reed valves and cause failures.

One of the challenges with conventional diesel engines is the emission of soot. To reduce soot emission whilst maintaining fuel efficiency, an important pathway is to improve the fuel-air mixing process. This can be achieved by creating small droplets in order to enhance evaporation. Furthermore, the distribution of the droplets in the combustion chamber should be optimized, making optimal use of in-cylinder air. To deal with these requirements a new type of injector is proposed, which has a porous nozzle tip with pore diameters between 1 and 50 μm. First, because of the small pore diameters the droplets will also be small. From literature it is known that (almost) no soot is formed when orifice diameters are smaller than 50 μm. Second, the configuration of the nozzle can be chosen such that the whole cylinder can be filled with fine droplets (i.e., spray angle nearly 180°).

High resolution planar laser-induced fluorescence (PLIF) measurements were performed in an optically accessible internal combustion (IC) engine to investigate the behavior of scalar dissipation and the fine-scale structures of the turbulent scalar field. The fluorescent tracer fluorobenzene was doped into one of the two intake streams and nitrogen was used as the carrier gas to permit high signal-to-noise ratio fluorescence measurements without oxygen quenching effects. The resulting two-dimensional images allowed for an analysis of the structural detail of the scalar and scalar dissipation fields defined by the mixing of the two adjacent intake streams. High levels of scalar dissipation were found to be located within convoluted, sheet-like structures in accordance with previous studies. The fluorescence data, which were acquired during the intake stroke, were also used to examine the scalar energy and dissipation spectra.

To evaluate the influence of FAME, which has poor oxidation stability, on engine oil performance, an engine test was conducted under large volumes of fuel dilution by post-injection. The test showed that detergent consumption and polymerization of FAME were accelerated in engine oil, causing a severe deterioration in piston cleanliness and sludge protection performance of engine oil.

Thermal fatigue of austenitic and ferritic stainless steel grades has been experimentally and numerically investigated. A special test has been developed to determine the thermal fatigue resistance of clamped V-shaped specimens. This test permits to impose thermal cycle by alternating resistance heating and air cooling. The thermal fatigue life of a specimen is expressed as the number of cycles to failure. For a given grade, the fatigue life depends on the maximal and minimal temperature of the cycle, holding time at the maximal temperature and specimen thickness. The advantage of this V-shape test is that it is a simple procedure quite representative of the thermal fatigue process occurring in an exhaust manifold. This test is well suited to perform a study of damage mechanisms and to compare stainless steel grades. Examination of the failed specimens indicated that cracks could be mainly attributed to out-of-phase (OP) thermal fatigue process especially in case of ferritic grades.

The acoustic performance of mufflers with single-inlet and single-outlet are well described using Insertion Loss (IL) and Transmission Loss (TL). These parameters represent the acoustic damping on the engine emission and on the incident pressure wave respectively. However, for mufflers with multi-inlet these parameters depend also on the sources characteristics, as consequence their use is quite difficult. In the present work the acoustic performance of a double-inlet and single-outlet muffler are experimentally evaluated in terms of reflection and transmission coefficients of each port of the muffler itself. These coefficients are used to evaluate the Insertion Loss of the manifold muffler taking into account specific sources on the inlets. The characteristic coefficients are also used to predict the acoustic emission of the manifold muffler using a known engine source on the two inlets.

Phenolic brake pistons show excellent performance for weight saving, protection against vapor lock, noise reduction, no rust, and less seal scratch. Phenolic brake pistons have been successfully used since 1974. However there has been a complex system phenomenon related with the brake pedal feel. Our recent study focused on the tribology of phenolic brake piston and its correlation to brake pedal feel. Several surface designs of phenolic brake pistons were created and evaluated using modified JASO C448 bench test station. Our testing found the friction force between a phenolic brake piston and the piston seal differs from that of a steel brake piston. Furthermore, we discovered the friction forces on a phenolic piston could be favorably altered by the surface design of the piston. In this paper, we will propose how to improve brake pedal feel using a phenolic brake piston through designing the surface condition of the brake piston.

Drag reducing agents (DRAs) are extensively used to increase the capacity of pipelines to transport crude oils and finished products. The amount of DRA that can be used in gasoline is limited by the tendency of the high molecular weight DRAs to form engine deposits. The use of deposit control additives (DCAs) could help to mitigate this effect, enabling increased DRA treatment rates and improved pipeline capacity. A study has been undertaken to investigate the engine test response of these additives, and has suggested that higher DRA treat rates may be possible when accompanied by a deposit control additive to address increased intake valve deposits. Conversely, the effect on combustion chamber deposits is not clear and further studies would be required. Other engine related aspects such as intake valve deposit stick have also been investigated and under the conditions tested do not appear to be adversely affected by either the DRA or the deposit control additive.

To ensure reliable starting under cold weather conditions (< 0 oC ambient), gasoline engines use fuel enrichment, leading to higher soot formation and greater tailpipe particle number (PN) emissions. In gasoline direct injection (GDI) engines, PN emissions are higher due to liquid fuel impingement on cold surfaces of the combustion chamber and piston. This study characterizes solid (mostly elemental carbon) and semi-volatile (organic) particle number, mass, and size distributions during cold-cold engine start-up from light duty vehicles. Particle emissions were sampled from vehicles upon engine start-up after an overnight soak, with an average ambient temperature of -8 ± 7 oC. The average PN emitted during 180 seconds by GDI and PFI vehicles were 3.09E+13 and 2.12E+13 particles respectively.

Precise control over mixture formation withhigh fuel pressure and multiple injections allows Gasoline Direct Injection (GDI) engines to be operated satisfactorily at extreme conditions wherePort Fuel Injection (PFI) engines wouldnormally struggle due to combustion instability issues. Catalyst heating phase is one such important condition which is initiated after a cold engine start to improve the effectiveness of the three-way catalyst (TWC). For a given TWC specification, fast light-offof TWC is achieved in the catalyst heating phase by increasing the exhaust gas temperature with higher exhaust mass flow. The duration of this phase must be as short as possible, as it is a trade-off between achieving sufficient TWC light off performance and fuel efficiency.

Till recently supercharging was the most accepted technique for boost solution in gasoline engines. Recent advents in turbochargers introduced turbocharging technology into gasoline engines. Turbocharging of gasoline engines has helped in powertrains with higher power density and less overall weight. Along with the advantages in performance, new challenges arise, both in terms of thermal management as well as overall acoustic performance of powertrains. The study focuses mainly on NVH aspects of turbocharging of gasoline engines. Compressor surge is a most common phenomenon in turbochargers. As the operating point on the compressor map moves closer to the surge line, the compressor starts to generate noise. The amplitude and frequency of the noise depends on the proximity of the operating point to the surge line. The severity of noise can be reduced by selecting a turbocharger with enough compressor surge margin.