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On-board diagnosis of engine and transmission systems has been mandated by government regulation for light and medium vehicles since the 1996 model year. The regulations specify many of the detailed features that on-board diagnostics must exhibit. In addition, the penalties for not meeting the requirements or providing in-field remedies can be very expensive. This course is designed to provide a fundamental understanding of how and why OBD systems function and the technical features that a diagnostic should have in order to ensure compliant and successful implementation.

Due to its physical and chemical properties, hydrogen is an attractive fuel for internal combustion engines, providing grounds for studies on hydrogen engines. It is common practice to use a mathematical model for basic engine design and an essential part of this is the simulation of the combustion cycle, which is the subject of the work presented here. One of the most widely used models for describing combustion in gasoline and diesel engines is the Wiebe model. However, for cases of hydrogen combustion in DI engines, which are characterized by mixture stratification and in some cases significant incomplete combustion, practically no data can be found in the literature on the application of the Wiebe model. Based on Wiebe's formulas, a mathematical model of hydrogen combustion has been developed. The model allows making computations for both DI and PFI hydrogen engines. The parameters of the Wiebe model were assessed for three different engines in a total of 26 operating modes.

Nowadays, green hydrogen can play a crucial role in a successful clean energy transition, thus reaching net zero emissions in the transport sector. Moreover, hydrogen exploitation in internal combustion engines is favoured by its suitable combustion properties and quasi-zero harmful emissions. High flame speeds enable a lean combustion approach, which provides high efficiency and reduces NOx emissions. However, high air flow rates are required to achieve the load levels typical of heavy-duty applications. In this framework, the present study aims to investigate the required boosting system of a 6-cylinder, 13-liter heavy-duty spark ignition engine through 1D numerical simulation. A comparison among various architectures of the turbocharging system and the size of each component is presented, thus highlighting limitations and potentialities of each architecture and providing important insights for the selection of the best turbocharging system.

Society is moving towards climate neutrality where hydrogen fuelled combustion engines (H2 ICE) could be considered a main technology. These engines run on hydrogen (H2) so carbon-based emission are only present at a very low level from the lube oil. The most important pollutants NO and NO2 are caused by the exhaust aftertreatment system as well as CO2 coming from the ambient air. For standard measurement technologies these low levels of CO2 are hard to detect due to the high water content. Normal levels of CO2 are between 400-500 ppm which is very close or even below the detection limit of commonly used non-dispersive-infrared-detectors (NDIR). As well the high water content is very challenging for NOx measuring devices, like chemiluminescence detectors (CLD), where it results in higher noise and therefore a worse detection limit. Even for Fourier-transformed-infrared-spectroscopy-analysers (FT-IR) it is challenging to deal with water content over 15% without increased noise.

By building on mature internal combustion engine (ICE) hardware combined with dedicated hydrogen (H2) technology, the H2-ICE has excellent potential to accelerate CO2 reduction. H2-ICE concepts can therefore contribute to realizing the climate targets in an acceptable timeframe. In the landscape of H2-ICE combustion concepts, High Pressure Direct Injection (HPDI™) is an attractive option considering its high thermal efficiency, wide load range and its applicability to on-road as well as off-road heavy-duty equipment. Still, H2-HPDI is characterized by diffusion combustion, giving rise to significant NOx emissions. In this paper, the potential of H2-HPDI toward compliance with future emissions legislation is explored on a 1.8L single-cylinder research engine. With tests on multiple load-speed points, Exhaust Gas Recirculation (EGR) was shown to be an effective measure for reducing engine-out NOx, although at the cost of a few efficiency points.

This work aims at investigating the optimal configuration of an internal combustion engine fueled with bio-ethanol for improving its brake power and efficiency as well as for reducing the NOx emissions, in stationary applications. A turbocharged spark ignition engine characterized by a single-point injection was preliminarily considered; subsequently, a direct injection configuration was investigated. For both cases, a 1-D numerical model was developed to compare the injection configurations under stoichiometric conditions and different spark timings. The analysis shows that the direct injection guarantees: a limited improvement of brake power and efficiency when the same spark timing is adopted, while NOx emissions increases by 20%; an increase of 6% in brake power and 2 percentage points in brake thermal efficiency by adopting the knock limited spark advance, but an almost double NOx emissions increase.

Fossil fuels such as natural gas used in engines still play the most important role worldwide despite such measures as the German energy transition which however is also exacerbating climate change as a result of carbon dioxide emissions. One way of reducing carbon dioxide emissions is the choice of energy sources and with it a more favourable chemical composition. Natural gas, for instance, which consist mainly of methane, has the highest hydrogen to carbon ratio of all hydrocarbons, which means that carbon dioxide emissions can be reduced by up to 35% when replacing diesel with natural gas. Although natural gas engines show an overall low CO2 and pollutant emissions level, methane slip due to incomplete combustion occurs, causing methane emissions with a more than 20 higher global warming potential than CO2.

Ammonia has emerged as a promising carbon-free alternative fuel for internal combustion engines (ICE), particularly in large-bore engine applications. However, integrating ammonia into conventional engines presents challenges, prompting the exploration of innovative combustion strategies like dual-fuel combustion. Nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions have emerged as a significant obstacle to the widespread adoption of ammonia in ICE. Various studies suggest that combining exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) with adjustments in inlet temperature and diesel injection timing can effectively mitigate nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions across diverse operating conditions in dual-fuel diesel engines.