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Injection pressure oscillations are proven to determine considerable deviations from the expected mass flow rate, leading to the jet velocities non-uniformity, which in turn implies the uneven spatial distribution of A/F ratio. Furthermore, once the injector is triggered, these oscillations might lead the rail pressure to experience a decreasing stage, to the detriment of spray penetration length, radial propagation and jet break-up timing. This has urged the research community to develop models predicting injection-induced pressure fluctuations within the rail. Additionally, several devices have been designed to minimize and eliminate such fluctuations. However, despite the wide literature dealing with the injection-induced pressure oscillations, many aspects remain still unclear. Moreover, the compulsory compliance with environmental regulations has shifted focus onto alternative fuels, which represent a promising pathway for sustainable vehicle mobility.

Gasoline Direct Injection (GDI) vehicles now make up the majority of European new car sales and a significant share of the existing car parc. Despite delivering measurable engine efficiency benefits, GDI fuel systems are not without issues. Fuel injectors are susceptible to the formation of deposits in and around the injector nozzles holes. It is widely reported that these deposits can affect engine performance and that different fuels can alleviate the buildup of those deposits. This project aims to understand the underlying mechanisms of how deposit formation ultimately leads to a reduction in vehicle performance. Ten GDI fuel injectors, with differing levels of coking were taken from engine testing and consumer vehicles and compared using a range of imaging and engine tests. At the time of writing, a new GDI engine test is being developed by the Co-ordinating European Council (CEC) to be used by the fuel and fuel additive industry.

Nowadays, rolling resistance sits at the core of tyre development goals because of its considerable effect on the car’s fuel economy. In contrast to the experimental method, the finite element (FE) method offers an inexpensive and efficient estimation technique. However, the FE technique is yet to be a fully developed product particularly for rolling-resistance estimation. An assessment is conducted to study the role of material viscoelasticity representation in FE, in linear and non-linear forms, through the use of Prony series and parallel rheological framework (PRF) models, respectively, on the tyre’s rolling-resistance calculation and its accuracy. A unique approach was introduced to estimate the rolling resistance according to the tyre’s hysteresis energy coefficient.

Ambient temperature has significant impact on engine start ability and cold start emissions from diesel engines. These cold start emissions are accounted for substantial amount of the overall regulatory driving cycle emissions like NEDC or FTP. It is likely to implement the low temperature emissions tests for diesel vehicles, which is currently applicable only for gasoline vehicles. This paper investigates the potential of the intake heating strategy on reducing the driving cycle emissions from the latest generation of turbocharged common rail direct injection diesel engines at low ambient temperature conditions. For this investigation an air heater was installed upstream of the intake manifold and New European Driving Cycle (NEDC) tests were conducted at -7°C ambient temperature conditions for the different intake air temperatures. Intake air heating reduced the cranking time and improved the fuel economy at low ambient temperatures.

This paper presents a statistical characterisation of the effects of variations in vehicle parameters on vehicle road load data using a quarter vehicle as a case study. A model of a quarter vehicle test rig constructed from a commercial SUV is created in a multi-body dynamics (MBD) simulation environment to reproduce the real-life behaviour of the SUV. The model is thereafter validated by correlating the response data collected from both the model and laboratory test rig to the same road input. In order to ensure that only the effects of the variation of the vehicle parameters are captured, a time domain drive signal for a kerb strike road event on the physical vehicle is generated from the proving ground data collected during durability testing of the vehicle.

This research proposes the use of Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) to predict the road input for road load data generation for variants of a vehicle as vehicle parameters are modified. This is important to the design engineers while the vehicle variant is still in the initial stages of development, hence no prototypes are available and accurate proving ground data acquisition is not possible. ANNs are, with adequate training, capable of representing the complex relationships between inputs and outputs. This research explores the implementation of the ANN to predict road input for vehicle variants using a quarter vehicle test rig. The training and testing data for this research are collected from a validated quarter vehicle model.

Combustion behaviour and emissions characteristics of different blending ratios of diesel and gasoline fuels (Dieseline) were investigated in a light-duty 4-cylinder compression-ignition (CI) engine operating on partially premixed compression ignition (PPCI) mode. Experiments show that increasing volatility and reducing cetane number of fuels can help promote PPCI and consequently reduce particulate matter (PM) emissions while oxides of nitrogen (NOx) emissions reduction depends on the engine load. Three different blends, 0% (G0), 20% (G20) and 50% (G50) of gasoline mixed with diesel by volume, were studied and results were compared to the diesel-baseline with the same combustion phasing for all experiments. Engine speed was fixed at 1800rpm, while the engine load was varied from 1.38 to 7.85 bar BMEP with the exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) application.

This study investigates the potential of using a partial flow filter (PFF) to assist a wall flow diesel particulate filter (DPF) and reduce the need for active regeneration phases that increase engine fuel consumption. First, the filtration efficiency of the PFF was studied at several engine operating conditions, varying the filter space velocity (SV), through modification of the exhaust gas flow rate, and engine-out particulate matter (PM) concentration. The effects of these parameters were studied for the filtration of different particle size ranges (10-30 nm, 30-200 nm and 200-400 nm). For the various engine operating conditions, the PFF showed filtration efficiency over 25% in terms of PM number and mass. The PFF filtration behaviour was also investigated at idle engine operation producing a high concentration of nuclei particulates for which the filter was able to maintain 60% filtration efficiency.

There is an increasing recognition of injector deposit (ID) formation in fuel injection equipment as direct injection spark ignition (DISI) engine technologies advance to meet increasingly stringent emission legislation and fuel economy requirements. While it is known that the phenomena of ID in DISI engines can be influenced by changes in fuel composition, including increasing usage of aliphatic alcohols and additive chemistries to enhance fuel performance, there is however still a great deal of uncertainty regarding the physical and chemical structure of these deposits, and the mechanisms of deposit formation. In this study, a mechanical cracking sample preparation technique was developed to assess the deposits across DISI injectors fuelled with gasoline and blends of 85% ethanol (E85).

Due to the emission benefits of the oxygen in the fuel molecule, the interest for the use of ethanol as fuel blend components in compression ignition engines has been increased. However the use of fuel blends with high percentage of ethanol can lead to poor fuel blend quality (e.g. fuel miscibility, cetane number, viscosity and lubricity). An approach which can be used to improve these properties is the addition of biodiesel forming ternary blends (ethanol-biodiesel-diesel). The addition of castor oil-derived biodiesel (COME) containing a high proportion of methyl ricinoleate (C18:1 OH) is an attractive approach in order to i) reduce the use of first generation biodiesel derived from edible sources, ii) balance the reduction in viscosity and lubricity of ethanol-diesel blends due to the high viscosity and excellent lubricity of methyl ricinoleate.

Recent developments in diesel engines lead to increased fuel efficiency and reduced exhaust gas temperature. Therefore more energy efficient aftertreatment systems are required to comply with tight emission regulations. In this study, a computational fluid dynamics package was used to investigate the thermal behaviour of a diesel aftertreatment system. A parametric study was carried out to identify the most influential pipework material and insulation characteristics in terms of thermal performance. In the case of the aftertreatment pipework and canning material effect, an array of different potential materials was selected and their effects on the emission conversion efficiency of a Diesel Oxidation Catalyst (DOC) were numerically investigated over a driving cycle. Results indicate that although the pipework material's volumetric heat capacity was decreased by a factor of four, the total emission reduction was only considerable during the cold start.

The cold start performance of a diesel engine has been receiving more attention as the European Commission emission regulations directed to include cold start emissions in the legislative emission driving cycles. The cold start performance of diesel engines is influenced by the ambient temperature conditions, engine design, fuel, lubricant and engine operating conditions. The present research work investigates the effect of cold ambient conditions on the diesel engine's performance and the exhaust emission (gaseous and particulate emissions) characteristics during the cold start and followed by idle. The engine startability and idling tests were carried out on the latest generation of diesel engine in a cold cell at various ambient temperatures ranging between +20°C and −20°C. Higher fuel consumption and peak speed were observed at very cold ambient compared to those at normal ambient during the cold start.

Dieseline combustion as a concept combines the advantages of gasoline and diesel by offline or online blending the two fuels. Dieseline has become an attractive new compression ignition combustion concept in recent years and furthermore an approach to a full-boiling-range fuel. High speed imaging with near-parallel backlit light was used to investigate the spray characteristics of dieseline and pure fuels with a common rail diesel injection system in a constant volume vessel. The results were acquired at different blend ratios, and at different temperatures and back pressures at an injection pressure of 100MPa. The penetrations and the evaporation states were compared with those of gasoline and diesel. The spray profile was analyzed in both area and shape with statistical methods. The effect of gasoline percentage on the evaporation in the fuel spray was evaluated.

In the development of a more accurate laboratory scale method, the ability to replicate the thermal oxidative degradation mechanisms seen in gas turbine lubricants, is an essential requirement. This work describes an investigation into the influence of key reaction parameters and the equipment set up upon extent and mechanism of oil degradation. The air flow rate through the equipment was found to be critical to both degradation rate and extent of volatilization loss from the system. As these volatile species can participate in further reactions, it is important that the extent to which they are allowed to leave the test system is matched, where possible, to the conditions in the gas turbine. The presence of metal specimens was shown to have a small influence on the rate of degradation of the lubricant. Loss of metal from the copper and silver specimens due to the mild corrosive effect of the lubricant was seen.

Research studies show that 2-methylfuran (MF) is a promising gasoline alternative regarding its positive effect on engine performance and emissions. Before using pure MF in spark ignition engines, it is more likely to be used in a low-level blended form in gasoline. An experimental research study was carried out to investigate the impacts of low-level MF content in gasoline (volumetric 10% MF in blend) on direct-injection spark-ignition (DISI) engine combustion behavior and emissions. The tests were conducted on a single-cylinder spray-guided DISI research engine at an engine speed of 1500 rpm under stoichiometric conditions. The engine loads of 3.5 ~ 8.5 bar IMEP were tested and gasoline-optimized spark timing was used. Furthermore, the effects of spark timing, exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) and valve overlap on NOx emissions were tested.

For spark ignition (SI) engines, the optimum spark timing is crucial for maximum efficiency. However, as the spark timing is advanced, so the propensity to knock increases, thus compromising efficiency. One method to suppress knock is to use high octane fuel additives. However, the blend ratio of these additives cannot be varied on demand. Therefore, with the advent of aggressive downsizing, new knock mitigation techniques are required. Fortuitously, there are two well-known lower alcohols which exhibit attractive knock mitigation properties: ethanol and methanol. Both not only have high octane ratings, but also result in greater charge-cooling than with gasoline. In the current work, the authors have exploited these attractive properties with the dual-injection, or the dual-fuel concept (gasoline in PFI and fuel additive in DI) using pure ethanol and methanol.

Ethanol has long been regarded as the optimal gasoline-alternative biofuel for spark-ignition (SI) engines. It is used widely in Latin and North America and is increasingly accepted as an attractive option across Europe. Nevertheless, its low energy density requires a high rate of manufacture; in areas which are deficient of arable land, such rates might prove problematic. Therefore, fuels with higher calorific values, such as butanol or 2,5-dimethylfuran (DMF) deserve consideration; a similar yield to ethanol, in theory, would require much less land. This report addresses the suitability of DMF, to meet the needs as a biofuel substitute for gasoline in SI engines, using ethanol as the biofuel benchmark. Specific attention is given to the sensitivity of DMF to various engine control parameters: combustion phasing (ignition timing), injection timing, relative air-fuel ratio and valve timing (intake and exhaust).

The new fuel, 2, 5-dimenthylfuran, known as DMF, captured worldwide attention since the discovery of its new production method. As a potential bio-fuel, DMF is competitive to gasoline in many areas, such as energy density, combustion efficiency and emissions. However, little work has been performed on its unconventional combustion mode. In this work, high speed imaging and thermal investigation are carried out to study DMF and gasoline dual-injection on a single cylinder, direct injection spark ignition optical engine. This dual-injection strategy combines direct injection (DI) and port fuel injection (PFI) simultaneously which means two different fuels can blend in the cylinder with any ratio. It provides a flexible way to use bio-fuels with gasoline. DMF DI with gasoline PFI and ethanol DI with gasoline PFI are studied under different injection proportions (by volume) and IMEPs.

In the automotive industry, engine downsizing has been widely accepted as an enabler to improving the fuel economy and reducing the CO₂ emissions. The Atkinson cycle is one of the key technologies. In this paper, the Atkinson cycle with different expansion ratios are compared and analyzed. The investigation is compared with the benchmark whose expansion and compression ratio are identical. The aim is to understand the inherent characteristics of the over-expansion and its effect on the engine performance and emissions. The simulation results show that, the Atkinson cycle produces higher efficiency due to over-expansion. The Atkinson cycle has higher internal EGR compared with the benchmark at equivalent conditions, which contributes to lower the NOx and CO emissions.

It is well known that direct injection (DI) is a technology enabler for stratified combustion in spark-ignition (SI) engines. At full load or wide-open throttle (WOT), partial charge stratification can suppress knock, enabling greater spark advance and increased torque. Such split-injection or double-pulse injection strategies are employed when using gasoline in DI (GDI). However, as the use of biofuels is set to increase, is this mode still beneficial? In the current study, the authors attempt to answer this question using two gasoline-alternative biofuels: firstly, ethanol; the widely used gasoline-alternative biofuel and secondly, 2,5-dimethylfuran (DMF); the new biofuel candidate. These results have been benchmarked against gasoline in a single-cylinder, spray-guided DISI research engine at WOT (λ = 1 and 1500 rpm). Firstly, single-pulse start of injection (SOI) timing sweeps were conducted with each fuel to find the highest volumetric efficiency and IMEP.