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The objective of this study was to investigate the change of relative local velocity in each pulley groove at sliding between the belt and pulleys for a metal-pushing V-belt type CVT where micro elastic slips were inevitably accompanied to transmit power, while the transmissions were widely adopted to provide comfortable driving by continuously automatically adjusting the speed ratio. Local changes of wrapping radial position and velocity of the belt in each pulley groove of the CVT were simultaneously measured by a potentiometer with a spinning roller in the experiments. The mechanical power generated by the AC motor was transmitted through the CVT unit from the driving axis to the driven axis as usual under practical conditions while the speed ratio was set to 1.0. Pulley clamping force was applied by oil pressure.

Research on alternative fuels is necessary to reduce CO2 emissions. Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil (HVO) of light fuel physically improves spray and combustion characteristics. Fatty Acid Methyl Ester (FAME) is an oxygenated fuel and its combustion characteristics are chemically improved, although its spray characteristics such as penetration and atomization are deteriorated. The purpose of this study is to understand the effects of blending HVO, which has carbon neutral (CN) characteristics, with FAME, which also has CN characteristics, on spray and combustion characteristics, and to further improve emission such as THC and Smoke. This report presents the effect of the combination of improved spray characteristics and oxygenated fuel on emissions. Spray characteristics such as penetration, spray angle and spray volume were investigated by shadowgraph photography.

We have proposed the application of Exhaust Gas Recirculation (EGR) gas dissolved fuel which might improve spray atomization through effervescent atomization instead of high injection pressure. Since EGR gas is included in the spray of EGR gas dissolved fuel, it directly contributes to combustion, and the further reduction of NOx emissions is expected rather than the conventional external EGR. In our research, since highly contained in the exhaust gas and highly soluble in the fuel, CO2 was selected as the dissolved gas to simulate EGR gas dissolved. In this paper, the purpose is to evaluate the influence of the application of CO2 gas dissolved fuel on the combustion characteristics and emission characteristics inside the single cylinder, direct injection diesel engine. As a result, by use of the fuel, smoke was reduced by about 50 to 70%, but NOx reduction does not have enough effect.

Bio-hydro fined diesel (BHD) oil is known as a second generation oil made from bio hydro finning process. Biodiesel in the first generation is made from transesterification process and it has several disadvantages such as high density and increased the viscosity that can cause operational problems because can make some deposits in the engine. To overcome this, the second generation process of biodiesel has been modified from the first generation oil. BHD is made from the waste cooking oil by using the hydro finning process without the trans-esterification process. The results of BHD oil has nearly the same with diesel oil. BHD oil has low viscosity and high oxidation stability. Therefore, BHD oil can be used in the diesel engine without making any modifications in the engine. In this study, the comparison of performance and emissions characteristics from BHD oil, waste cooking oil, and diesel oil are investigated.

In previous study, the model for flash-boiling spray of multicomponent fuel was constructed and was implemented into KIVA code. This model considered the detailed physical properties and evaporation process of multicomponent fuel and the bubble nucleation, growth and disruption in a nozzle orifice and injected fuel droplets. These numerical results using this model were compared with experimental data which were obtained in the previous study using a constant volume vessel. The spray characteristics from numerical simulation qualitatively showed good agreement with the experimental results. Especially, it was confirmed from both the numerical and experimental data that flash-boiling effectively accelerated the atomization and vaporization of fuel droplets. However, in this previous study, injection pressure was very low (up to 15 MPa), and the spray characteristics of high pressure injection could not be analyzed.

The purpose of this study is to achieve thermal efficiency improvement and cooling loss reduction of a diesel engine with a combustion concept of earlier evaporation, higher entrainment, and compact spray flame. In order to realize this concept, the paper focused on two-component fuel (nC5H12/nC10H22) with high evaporation. In this paper, the effects of two-component fuel on thermal efficiency and exhaust characteristics are examined by using single cylinder diesel engine. In addition, spray characteristics are revealed in an optically accessible chamber and combustion characteristics are revealed by using RCEM.

We have proposed the application of EGR gas dissolved fuel which might improve spray atomization through effervescent atomization instead of high injection pressure. In this paper, the purpose is to evaluate the influence of the application of CO2 gas dissolved fuel on the combustion characteristics and emissions inside the single cylinder, direct injection diesel engine. As a result, by use of the fuel, smoke was reduced by about 50 to 70%. The amount of NOx was reduced at IMEP=0.3 MPa, but it was increased at IMEP=0.9 MPa.

The CO2 gas dissolved fuel for the diesel combustion is effective to reduce the NOx emissions to achieve the internal EGR (Exhaust Gas Recirculation) effect by fuel. This method has supplied EGR gas to the fuel side instead of supply EGR gas to the intake gas side. The fuel has followed specific characteristics for the diesel combustion. When the fuel is injected into the chamber in low pressure, this CO2 gas is separated from the fuel spray. The distribution characteristics of the spray are improved and the improvement of the thermal efficiency by reduction heat loss in the combustion chamber wall, and reduce soot emissions by the lean combustion is expected. Furthermore, this CO2 gas decreases the flame temperature. Further, it is anticipated to reduce NOx emissions by the spray internal EGR effect.

Diesel Particulate filter (DPF) is installed as after treatment device of exhaust gas in diesel engine, and collects the Particulate Matter (PM). However, as the operation time of engine increases, PM is accumulated in the DPF, resulting in deterioration of PM collection efficiency and increasing in pressure loss. Therefore, Post injection has been attracted attention as DPF regeneration method for burning and removing PM in DPF. However, Post injection causes oil dilution when fuel is injected at the middle to late stage of expansion stroke. Oil dilution are concerned to deteriorate the sliding property of piston and the thermal efficiency. For this reason, it is necessary to elucidate the mechanism and the behavior that spray impinges lubricating oil film. Therefore, in this study, we aimed to construct model of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) that predicts amount of oil dilution which is concern for post injection in diesel engine, with high accuracy.

This paper describes new method for selecting optimal field points in Inverse-Numerical Acoustic analysis (INA), and its application to construction of a sound source model for diesel engines. INA identifies the surface vibration of a sound source by using acoustic transfer functions and actual sound pressures measured at field points located near the sound source. When measuring sound pressures with INA, it is necessary to determine the field point arrangement. Increased field points leads to longer test and analysis time. Therefore, guidelines for selecting the field point arrangement are needed to conduct INA efficiently. The authors focused on the standard deviations of distance between sound source elements and field points and proposed a new guideline for optimal field point selection in our past study. In that study, we verified the effectiveness of this guideline using a simple plate model.

The tire is one of the most important parts, which influence the noise, vibration, and harshness of the passenger cars. It is well known that effect of rotation influences tire vibration characteristics, and earlier studies presented formulas of tire vibration behavior. However, there are no studies of tire vibration including lateral vibration on effect of rotation. In this paper, we present new formulas of tire vibration on effect of rotation using a three-dimensional flexible ring model. The model consists of the cylindrical ring represents the tread and the springs represent the sidewall stiffness. The equation of motion of lateral, longitudinal, and radial vibration on the tread are derived based on the assumption of inextensional deformation. Many of the associated numerical parameters are identified from experimental tests.

Fuel design approach has been proposed as the control technique of spray and combustion processes in diesel engine to improve thermal efficiency and reduce exhaust emissions. In order to kwow if this approach is capable of controlling spray flame structure and interaction between the flame and a combustion chamber wall, the present study investigated ignition and flame characteristics of dual-component fuels, while varying mixing fraction, fuel temperature and ambient conditions. Those characteristics were evaluated through chemiluminescence photography and luminous flame photography. OH radical images and visible luminous flame images were analyzed to reveal flame shape aspect ratio and its fractal dimension.

In direct injection spark ignition (DISI), spray characteristics such as the penetration, spatial dispersion, droplet size distribution and the spray wall interaction process are extremely important to control the combustion process through the mixture formation process. Furthermore, the spray basic feature including the spatial and temporal changes is the key issue to reduce the Particulate Matter (PM) & HC emissions. In this study, we reveal both of the macroscopic and microscopic structures of the spray dynamics by Super High Spatial Resolution Photography (SHSRP). Furthermore, it is found that the simulated spray structure such as the penetration and droplet size distribution using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) code is well consistent with the experimental results.

This paper describes the identification of a sound source model for diesel engines installed on agricultural machines by using Inverse-Numerical Acoustic (INA) analysis, and noise predictions using the sound source model identified by INA. INA is a method of identifying surface vibrations from surrounding sound pressures. This method can be applied to sound sources with complicated shapes like those in engines. Although many studies on INA have been conducted, these past studies have focused on improvements to the identified accuracy and prediction of noise in free sound field or hemi-free sound field. The authors accurately predicted the sound pressure levels of engine enclosures using a sound source model identified by INA and a boundary element method (BEM). However, we had not yet verified the effectiveness of this sound source model against enclosures that had sound absorbing materials and openings.

Ignition, combustion and emissions characteristics of dual-component fuel spray were examined for ranges of injection timing and intake-air oxygen concentration. Fuels used were binary mixtures of gasoline-like component i-octane (cetane number 12, boiling point 372 K) and diesel fuel-like component n-tridecane (cetane number 88, boiling point 510 K). Mass fraction of i-octane was also changed as the experimental variable. The experimental study was carried out in a single cylinder compression ignition engine equipped with a common-rail injection system and an exhaust gas recirculation system. The results demonstrated that the increase of the i-octane mass fraction with optimizations of injection timing and intake oxygen concentration reduced pressure rise rate and soot and NOx emissions without deterioration of indicated thermal efficiency.

Auto-ignition and combustion processes of dual-component fuel spray were numerically studied. A source code of SUPERTRAPP (developed by NIST), which is capable of predicting thermodynamic and transportation properties of pure fluids and fluid mixtures containing up to 20 components, was incorporated into KIVA3V to provide physical fuel properties and vapor-liquid equilibrium calculations. Low temperature oxidation reaction, which is of importance in ignition process of hydrocarbon fuels, as well as negative temperature coefficient behavior was taken into account using the multistep kinetics ignition prediction based on Shell model, while a global single-step mechanism was employed to account for high temperature oxidation reaction. Computational results with the present multi-component fuel model were validated by comparing with experimental data of spray combustion obtained in a constant volume vessel.

A high performance digging algorithm for a hydraulic excavator has not been established because the relationship between digging parameters and digging performance is complex. An examination process for a high-performance digging algorithm is proposed. In this paper, the digging efficiency is defined as the soil volume derived by the applied energy to drive the bucket in order to evaluate digging performance. The digging algorithm, which we study for high digging efficiency, decreases the reaction force to the bucket from the soil by moving the bucket upward when the reaction force exceeds a threshold during digging. Digging tests are performed with a miniature test device and a simulation model by two-dimensional distinct element methods (2D-DEM). The device and the simulation assess the effectiveness of the digging algorithm. It is quantitatively shown that the digging performance obtained by the feedback digging system is improved to prevent growing of reaction force.

In this research, we aim at the construction of a steering cooperation-type front-wheel steering control system to reduce the rider's steering load by stabilizing the behavior of the motorcycle when turbulence in the direction of a roll occurs during low-speed driving. Finally, a front-wheel steering control system that considers cooperation with a rider's steering based on the experimental result is constructed, and the utility is verified by simulation.

The particulate matters (PM) containing in the exhaust gas through a CI engine affects strongly the human health. Thus, it is very significant to measure the mechanism of PM itself generation for actualization of a clean CI engine. On the standpoint mentioned above, the authors carried out the experiments of the characteristics of PM generated from a small high speed DI CI engine with a single cylinder. The variables were the equivalence ratio, the injection timing, the EGR rate and the sort of fuel. As a result, the effect of experimental condition on the distribution of PM is clear through experiments.

A hydraulic excavator cab is mounted on a viscous mount. When the weight of the cab is heavy, the neutral position is depressed. Besides, at a large load, the cab receives compressive repulsion power of oil thereby restricting its damping ability. In addition, it is difficult to obtain an arbitrary damping performance separately. To overcome these problems, which combines the shear force due to viscous fluid with elastic force due to air-spring a mount, was invented. The neutral position of composite mount is adjustable by air-spring according to the weight. And viscous oil is not sealed up. So, viscous oil can flow at a large load. Therefore, it may not experience the repulsion force of oil in spite of a large load. Moreover, the generated elastic force is adjustable according to change of pressure in the air spring, and the generated damping force is adjustable according to change of viscous fluid's viscosity or volume.