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For further increase in thermal efficiency of heavy-duty diesel engines, flexible regulation of the heat release rate (HRR) profile combined with higher compression ratio could have more rooms to improve indicated thermal efficiency by overcoming various drawbacks relevant to higher compression ratio. A new ideal HRR profile, which starts as a kind of delta shape to fulfil the isobaric cycle from top-dead-center (TDC) and is followed by the significant increase in HRR to reach the maximum cylinder pressure in the retarded timing, was proposed. We call it as ‘High-heels’ HRR profile from its two-step-increase delta shape. To confirm the potential of the ideal HRR profile by utilizing a single- cylinder heavy-duty diesel engine, a variable fuel injection rate equipment, novel combustion chamber designs, and an offset orifices nozzle were investigated as the technologies for modifying HRR profile.

A hybrid powertrain offers the potential of a significant fuel saving for heavy-duty Diesel vehicles, which results in CO2 reduction of more than 20%, depending on the application. Using advanced future fuels, like HVO offers additional CO2 saving potential. In addition, the future Diesel engine needs to comply with the next generation of emission legislation, given by the European EUVII and the US EPA2027 regulatory frameworks. To achieve these limits, a combination of different technologies for the engine and the aftertreatment system are required. The proposed paper will present these technology solutions and their impact on CO2 and emissions by means of engine testing and simulation.

Increasingly stringent regulations call for the reduction of emissions at engine startup to purify exhaust gas and reduce the amount of CO2 emitted. Air-fuel ratio (A/F) sensors detect the composition of exhaust gas and provide feedback to control the fuel injection quantity in order to ensure the optimal functioning of the catalytic converter. Reducing the time needed to obtain feedback control and enabling the restriction-free installation of A/F sensors can help meet regulations. Conventional sensors do not activate feedback control immediately after engine startup as the combination of high temperatures and splashes of condensed water in the exhaust pipe can cause thermal shock to the sensor element. Moreover, sensors need to be installed near the engine to increase the catalyst reaction efficiency. This increases the possibility of water splash from the condensed water in the catalyst.

The subject of this paper is to discuss the use of advanced combustion controls of direct injection diesel engines, to achieve simultaneous improvements in thermal efficiency while maintaining minimum pollutant emissions. In recent years, the emissions produced in the transportation sector are becoming increasingly scrutinized, leading to significantly strengthened emissions legislations with regard to NOx and CO2, especially under Real Driving Emission (RDE) conditions. Therefore, diesel combustion improvements are key to overcoming these challenges. This paper reports the following two innovative Diesel combustion control technologies to realize the objectives mentioned above. 1 Combustion improvement by accurate Combustion Rate Shaping (CRS), CRS enables direct control of in-cylinder pressure trace and heat release rate.

Diesel engines have smoke trade-offs with both NOx and combustion noise. Both the increment of air entrainment into the spray and deceleration of heat release rate slope which become quickly thanks to the increase of air entrainment are effective for overcoming the trade-off between smoke emission and combustion noise. In this study, effect of quick rising injection rate and pre-injection was focused as an enabler for the both. The mechanism of improvement in the trade-off caused by the quick rising injection rate and pre-injection was clarified by analyzing characteristics of spray and combustion, interaction of pre-injected spray to main-injected spray and behavior of smoke emission. Some visualization techniques were adapted to analysis of sprays and combustions. Spray momentum measurement was used for the air entrainment and mixture formation process analyzation.

The set-off length (also referred to as the “lift-off length”) is reduced by the re-entrainment of the burned gas by the backward flow surrounding a diesel spray jet produced by a multi-hole nozzle. In the present study, to estimate the equivalence ratio at the set-off length, a means of estimating the amount of burned gas that is re-entrained into the near-nozzle region of the diesel spray jet was established. The results revealed that the suppression of soot formation in quasi-steady diesel spray flames produced by a multi-hole nozzle and a high injection pressure is not attained by reducing the equivalence ratio at the set-off length. Analysis of the amount of soot along the spray axis using a two-color method revealed that the maximum soot amount position appears in a quasi-steady spray flame, after the collapse of the head vortex in which a dense soot cloud is formed. The maximum soot amount position does not change even if the injection pressure varies.

In the field of heavy-duty diesel engines, which require lifetime durability and high fuel efficiency, there is a growing demand for increased injection pressure and increased flow rate inside injection holes. This trend makes it important to prevent cavitation erosion of injector nozzles. This paper aims to clarify the relation between cavitation behavior and erosion damage experimentally by visualizing the flow inside diesel nozzles and to establish a new method for predicting cavitation erosion. To visualize internal flow, authors used the large-scale transparent nozzle whose Reynolds number and Cavitation number were matched with those of the actual real-size nozzle. Direct observation showed that the form of the cavitation changed from string-type cavitation to film-type cavitation with increasing needle lift.

Future diesel engine legislation Tier 4 / Stage V and EU6d demand further improvements to reduce CO2 while keeping the already low NOx emissions levels. For US trucks a more strict limit of 0.2 g/bhp-hr NOx emissions need to be achieved. In this trade-off, system costs and complexity of the after-treatment are defining the constraint in which the common rail fuel injection system layout has to be defined. The increase of rail pressure was in the past the major step to control the soot emissions in view of low engine-out NOx emissions by applying massive EGR. With the on-going development of NOx-aftertreatment by Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR), conversion efficiencies of up to 97% allow to reduce the EGR usage and rail pressure usage. In that context, the steepness of injection rate, the nozzle flow rate and the injection pressure are remaining parameters to control the NOx emissions.

The purpose of this study is to elucidate flame propagation behavior of homogeneous propane-air mixture under application of non-uniform electric field. A needle-shaped electrode was attached to the ceiling and a plate electrode was set at bottom of combustion chamber, so that the electric field was applied in the direction of the chamber's vertical axis. A homogeneous propane-air mixture was supplied at equivalence ratio of 1.0 and was ignited by leaser induced breakdown under atmospheric pressure and room temperature. It was found that the flame front and plate electrode were repelled each other and a thin air layer was formed between the flame and plate electrode when a relatively low positive DC non-uniform electric field was applied to the needle-shaped electrode. It might be thought that the induced current was generated in the flame front, so that the flame front and plate electrode repelled each other.

With regulations on exhaust-gas emissions becoming increasingly tight worldwide, high-accuracy exhaust-gas temperature (EGT) sensors are critical to precisely control the after-treatment systems of diesel engines. In addition, demands for longer sensor probes are growing, to enable the direct measurement of temperature at the core of the diesel particulate filter (DPF). To realize this, improved vibration resistance is required because the extension of the probe involves stronger vibration. An increasing number of turbocharged engines are expected to appear to satisfy fuel-efficiency requirements, and systems equipped with an EGT sensor will become more common for turbocharger protection. Vibration resistance is critical for an EGT sensor installed at the pre-turbocharger position because the sensor will be exposed to heavy vibration generated by the turbocharger. This study introduces a high-accuracy EGT sensor with an anti-resonance structure developed to satisfy these needs.

Customers tend to require more comfortable climate control in vehicles. This paper is concern with a new infrared sensor that detects surface temperature at six separate locations, and a climate control system that incorporates the sensor. In a conventional system using an air temperature sensor and solar radiation sensor, climate conditions are usually controlled according to the thermal load. It is believed that more comfortable climate control can be realized by using an infrared sensor to detect passengers' surface temperature. The sensor consists of a lens, an IC with six thermopiles, a circuit and a case, and has been improved to detect in-cabin surface temperature accurately even under severe environmental conditions. The HVAC system controls the outlet air temperature and mode individually for each seat according to detected temperatures.

In Japan, from the viewpoint of ozone layer protection, specified CFCs (Chlorofluorocarbons) phase-out started in 1992 and completed by 1995. HFC-134a (Hydro fluorocarbon-134a) is now dominant in the market. HFC-134a, the replacement, has zero ozone depleting potential, while it still has a higher global warming potential (GWP = 1430). In this paper, efforts of DENSO and the Japanese industry from aspects of refrigerant emission reduction and energy efficiency improvement are introduced.

At present, various efforts are being made in the industrial world to preserve the earth's environment. Automobile industry has to comply with the emission control regulations including NOx and PM and the requirement of reducing CO2 emission from the viewpoint of global warming protection and energy saving. In these situations, diesel engines having a high potential to reduce CO2 emission are attracting much attention. In order to enhance the potential of diesel to reduce CO2 while solving its problems (“slow, dirty, noisy”), common rail systems are vital. DENSO developed an advanced common rail system (CRS) that integrates fuel injectors capable of delivering up to five injection events per combustion cycle at 180MPa injection pressure. This paper describes the injection performance and effects of the 180MPa common rail system and then explains the next generation common rail system.

Many ICs are used in various electronic components in automotive applications, such as ECUs (electronic control units) and smart actuators. Automotive ICs required the following features: (1) high integration of analog, digital and output devices; (2) high breakdown voltage for analog devices standing the battery voltage; (3) highly accurate control for analog circuits; (4) susceptibility under harsh operating conditions, such as high ambient temperature and high humidity; and (5) high surge immunity such as ESD (electrostatic discharge) robustness. To meet these requirements, we developed analog and output devices with improved surge endurance based on SOI wafer and trench-dielectric-isolation technologies. Analog circuit applications, especially accurate power management or high-precision solenoid driving, demands stable temperature-compensated output. Load dump and battery-jumping also needs high voltage protection and high noise immunity for these devices.

In automotive air conditioning, balancing comfort and fuel efficiency is very important. Vehicle cooling performance improvements during initial cool down has reached a limit in recent years, especially in very hot regions. We have addressed this issue by developing a unique double-pipe internal heat exchanger. In the main discourse, we first clarify the concept of the internal heat exchanger system (IHE) using the temperature difference between the high and low pressure pipes in the refrigeration cycle, and propose the application of an efficient internal heat exchanger. This unique double-pipe internal heat exchanger can easily be manufactured by inserting the inner pipe into the outer pipe and by fixing the pipes at both ends. The length of the IHE is 400mm. This double-pipe internal heat exchanger can increase cooling performance by 5-12% at the equivalent power consumption levels in the same space as a conventional front air conditioner system.

The challenge for the diesel engines today is to reduce harmful emissions, such as particulate matter (PM) and Nitrogen oxides (NOx), and enhance the fuel efficiency and power, which are its main advantages. To meet this challenge, DENSO has developed an advanced common rail system (CRS) that uses piezo actuated fuel injectors capable of delivering up to five injection events per combustion cycle at 180MPa, currently the world's highest commercially available diesel fuel injection pressure. The DENSO piezo injector incorporates an internally developed piezoelectric element that energizes quicker than its solenoid counterpart, thereby reducing the transition time for the start and end of the fuel injection event. The piezoelectric element and unique passage structure of the DENSO injector combine to provide a highly reliable and responsive fuel injection event.

Through the years, aluminum automotive heat exchangers have been developed in order to have a high performance and a light weight. Therefore, the thickness of the aluminum sheets for the application has been reduced. As the brazeability declines with the reduction in thickness, fins having a thickness under 80μm may be difficult to secure a good brazeability. Therefore, we studied the brazeability to determine the limit of thickness using clad fins from 40 to 80μm. The fillet volume formed at the joints of the fin and tube decreased with the decreasing fin thickness and the Si content in both the filler metals and the core alloys. The suitable range of Si content in the filler metals and the core alloys to obtain a good brazeability decreased with the decreasing fin thickness. When the fins were thinner than the critical values, it was impossible to have a good brazeability.

Spark plugs with higher ignitability are continuously in great demand to realize high fuel efficiency and low emissions. To meet this demand, DENSO launched the Iridium Spark Plug in 1997, which realized the two characteristics that had been conventionally difficult to achieve concurrently-high ignitability and long life. The development of this product was enabled by miniaturizing the center electrode, produced using DENSO's original, highly wear-resistant iridium alloy (featuring a high melting point and excellent oxidation resistance). While spark plugs are now required to have a longer service life, they are also required to be higher in ignitability, as exhaust gas regulations have been tightened recently. However, the effort to miniaturize the center electrode is reaching a limit.

The direct injection diesel engine system was developed to solve the problems of conventional diesel engine systems: emissions of PM (Particulate Matter) and high emissions of NOx (nitrogen oxides). The common rail pressure sensor is a key sensor in the system, which requires high-pressure resistance of 160MPa and accuracy of ±1%. This paper discusses our development of a new generation of common rail system high-pressure sensors that are structurally simpler than conventional sensors, while meeting the above requirements.

We have achieved significant weight reduction for the MS (Multi-Tank Super Slim Structure) Evaporator (1)currently in production at DENSO CORPORATION. The evaporator of HVAC unit, located in the instrument panel, is a component of the aluminum heat exchanger used in automotive air conditioners. The new evaporator uses thinner quad-layer sheet material, thanks to optimization of the electrical potential among its outer filler metal, intermediate anodic layer and core. The evaporator is thus lighter than conventional evaporators, but retains equivalent corrosion resistance.