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This is a follow-up report about the development of a cost-effective Palladium (Pd) zeolite-based (HC/NOx trap type) cold-start catalyst (CSC) [1] to meet the future more stringent Chinese vehicle tailpipe emission standard. The impacts of Pd /stabilizer combination within zeolite for the HC/NOx trapping efficiency, the high temperature aging and the durability of the CSCs will be demonstrated by the laboratory results within this paper. The feasibility of a Cu zeolite, a popular non-precious metal ion- zeolite CSC for vehicle applications with respect to cost saving options will be demonstrated. A more complete picture of the effects of PGM/stabilizer within the zeolite to the functions of a CSC will also be summarized in this paper. All results indicate clearly that without the PGM/stabilizer within the zeolite, it would be difficult for the zeolite-based HC/NOx trap type CSC catalyst to be practically used for a vehicle application.

The current political push for e-mobility marked a major decline in the R&D interest to internal combustion engine (ICE). Following this global trend, Ford is committed to going 100% electric by 2030 for passenger cars and 2035 for light commercial vehicles. At the same time, many researchers admit that, due to many objective factors, vehicles powered by ICE will remain in operation for decades to come. Development of alternative carbon-neutral fuels can bring a renaissance in the ICE development as practical limitations of electric-only approach get exposed. Since a significant part of energy losses in the ICE comes from friction, engine tribology has been an important research topic over the past two decades and a significant progress in improving the engine efficiency was achieved.

A state of art Pd-zeolite based cold-start catalyst (CSC) or HC/NOx trap type of catalyst was codeveloped between Geely Automotive Company and Ningbo Kesen Exhaust Gas Cleaner Manufacturing CO. LTD. This CSC catalyst was added to the downstream of an existing catalyst system (TWC+CGPF) of a China 6b conventional passage car which was powered by a 1.5L turbo charge direct injection (1.5L GTDI) engine. The CSC significantly converted cold-start tailpipe NMHC emission and enabled the tailpipe emissions to meet the engineering targets of the projected next more stringent Chinese vehicle tailpipe emission standards in WLTC cycles. The vehicle tailpipe emission results with the addition of the laboratory simulated 120K km aged CSC also met the projected emission engineering targets of a fresh catalyst. Both the vehicle and laboratory results demonstrated the excellent ammonia adsorption and oxidation function of this CSC catalyst as a very efficient natural ammonia slip catalyst (ASC).

Development of propulsion control systems frequently involves large-scale transient simulations, e.g. Monte Carlo simulations or drive-cycle optimizations, which require fast dynamic plant models. Models of the air-path—for internal combustion engines or fuel cells—can exhibit stiff behavior, though, causing slow numerical simulations due to either using an implicit solver or sampling much faster than the bandwidth of interest to maintain stability. This paper proposes a method to reduce air-path model stiffness by adding an impedance in series with potentially stiff components, e.g. throttles, valves, compressors, and turbines, thereby allowing the use of a fast-explicit solver. An impedance, by electrical analogy, is a frequency-dependent resistance to flow, which is shaped to suppress the high-frequency dynamics causing air-path stiffness, while maintaining model accuracy in the bandwidth of interest.

The increase in efficiency is the focus of current engine development by adopting different technologies. One limiting factor for the rise of SI-engine efficiency is the onset of knock, which can be mitigated by improving the combustion process. HCCI/SACI represent sophisticated combustion techniques that investigate the employment of pre-chamber with lean combustion, but the effective use of them in a wide range of the engine map, by fulfilling at the same time the need of fast load control are still limiting their adoption for series engine. For these reasons, the technologies for improving the characteristics of a standard combustion process are still largely investigated. Among these, water injection, in combination with the Miller cycle, offers the possibility to increase the knock resistance, which in turn enables the rise of the engine geometric compression ratio.

Gasoline Direct Injection (GDI) engines show advantages in reducing fuel consumption and gaseous pollution emissions when compared to Port Fuel Injection (PFI) engines. However, particulate matter emissions are an essential issue for GDI engine development due to increasingly stringent worldwide emission regulations. Previous studies have shown that gasoline fuel compositions, as well as deposits formed in GDI fuel injectors, can affect emissions in the GDI engine. In this work, the impact of gasoline fuel properties on forming injector deposits and the resulting effect on particulate emissions were investigated using a modern Chinese GDI engine. Six test fuels with different properties involving changes in olefins, aromatics, heavy (C9/C9+) aromatics, T90 and deposit control additive (DCA) were prepared based on the gasoline survey results from the Chinese gasoline fuel market and the China 6 gasoline fuel standard limits.

Global automotive fuel economy and emissions pressures mean that 48 V hybridisation will become a significant presence in the passenger car market. The complexity of powertrain solutions is increasing in order to further improve fuel economy for hybrid vehicles and maintain robust emissions performance. However, this results in complex interactions between technologies which are difficult to identify through traditional development approaches, resulting in sub-optimal solutions for either vehicle attributes or cost. The results presented in this paper are from a simulation programme focussed on the optimisation of various advanced powertrain technologies on 48 V hybrid vehicle platforms. The technologies assessed include an electrically heated catalyst, an insulated turbocharger, an electric water pump and a thermal management module.

The ability to switch off the internal combustion engine (ICE) during vehicle operation is a key functionality in hybrid powertrains to achieve low fuel economy. However, this can affect driveability, namely acceleration response when an ICE re-engagement due to a driver initiated torque demand is required. The ICE re-start as well as the speed and load synchronisation with the driveline and corresponding vehicle speed can lead to high response times. To avoid this issue, the operational range where the ICE can be switched off is often compromised, in turn sacrificing fuel economy. Based on a 48V off-axis P2 hybrid powertrain comprising a lay-shaft transmission we present an up-front simulation methodology that considers the relevant parameters of the ICE like air-path, turbocharger, friction, as well as the relevant mechanical and electrical parameters on the hybrid drive side, including a simplified multi-body approach to reflect the relevant vehicle and powertrain dynamics.

Under the competitive pressure of automotive industry the customer’s focus is on a vehicle’s quality perception. Side door closing efforts make a considerable share of the overall impression as the doors are the first physical and haptic interface to the customer. Customer’s subjective feeling of vehicle quality demands for detailed analysis of each contributor of door closing efforts. Most contributors come from kinematic influences. Beside the losses due to mechanical subsystems like the checkarm, latch or hinge friction one of the biggest impacts originates from the pressure spike that builds up due to air being pushed into the cabin. Subject of this publication is to discuss the dependencies of closing efforts on cabin pressure and air extraction. It demonstrates an approach to simulate the development of the air pressure during door closing motions and the validation of the simulation method with the “EZ-Slam” measurement device.

Super ultra-low NOX emission engine concepts are essential to comply with future emission legislations. To meet the future emission standards, application of advanced diesel exhaust aftertreatment systems (EATS), such as Diesel Oxidation Catalyst (DOC), Lean NOX Trap (LNT), Selective Catalytic Reduction coatings on Soot Filters (SCRF) and underfloor SCR, is required. Effective customized thermal management strategies are essential to ensure fast light-off of the EATS after engine cold start, and to avoid significant cooldown during part load operation. The authors describes the investigation of different exhaust gas heating measures, such as intake throttling, late fuel injection, exhaust throttling, advanced exhaust cam phasing, retarded intake cam phasing, cylinder deactivation, full turbine bypass, electric catalyst heating and electrically heated intake manifold strategies.

Advanced powertrains for modern vehicles require the optimization of conventional combustion engines in combination with tailored electrification and vehicle connectivity strategies. The resulting systems and their control devices feature many degrees of freedom with a large number of available adjustment parameters. This obviously presents major challenges to the development of the corresponding powertrain control logics. Hence, the identification of an optimal system calibration is a non-trivial task. To address this situation, physics-based control approaches are evolving and successively replacing conventional map-based control strategies in order to handle more complex powertrain topologies. Physics-based control approaches enable a significant reduction in calibration effort, and also improve the control robustness.

The Bharat Stage (CEV/Tractor) IV & V emission legislations will come into force in Oct 2020 & Apr 2024 respectively, posing a major engineering challenge in terms of system complexity, reliability, costs and development time. Solutions for the EU Stage-V NRMM legislation in Europe, from which the BS-V limits are derived, have been developed and are ready for implementation. To a certain extent these European solutions can be transferred to the Indian market. However, certain market-specific challenges are yet to be defined and addressed. In addition, a challenging timeline has to be considered for application of advanced technologies and processes during the product development. In this presentation, the emission roadmap will be introduced in the beginning, followed by a discussion of potential technology solutions on the engine itself as well as on the after treatment components.

Upcoming China 4th stage of fuel consumption regulation and China 6a emission legislation require improvement of many existing engines. This paper summarizes an upgrade of combustion system and mechanical layout for a four-cylinder engine family. Based on an existing production process for a naturally aspirated 2.0-liter gasoline engine, a 1.8-liter down-speeded and turbocharged gasoline engine is derived. Starting development by analysis of engine base geometry, a layout for a Miller-Cycle gas exchange with early closing of intake valves is chosen. Requirements on turbocharger configuration are investigated with one-dimensional gas exchange simulation and combustion process will be analyzed by means of 3D-CFD simulation. Challenging boundary conditions of a very moderate long-stroke layout with a stroke/bore-ratio of only 1.037 in combination with a cost efficient port fuel injection system and fixed valve lift profiles are considered.

Using a holistic 1D engine simulation approach for the modelling of full-transient engine operation, allows analyzing future engine concepts, including its exhaust gas aftertreatment technology, early in the development process. Thus, this approach enables the investigation of both important fields - the thermodynamic engine process and the aftertreatment system, together with their interaction in a single simulation environment. Regarding the aftertreatment system, the kinetic reaction behavior of state-of-the-art and advanced components, such as Diesel Oxidation Catalysts (DOC) or Selective Catalytic Reduction Soot Filters (SCRF), is being modelled. Furthermore, the authors present the use of the 1D engine and exhaust gas aftertreatment model on use cases of variable valve train (VVT) applications on passenger car (PC) diesel engines.

In-use compliance under LEV III emission standards, GHG, and fuel economy targets beyond 2025 poses a great opportunity for all ICE-based propulsion systems, especially for light-duty diesel powertrain and aftertreatment enhancement. Though diesel powertrains feature excellent fuel-efficiency, robust and complete emissions controls covering any possible operational profiles and duty cycles has always been a challenge. Significant dependency on aftertreatment calibration and configuration has become a norm. With the onset of hybridization and downsizing, small steps of improvement in system stability have shown a promising avenue for enhancing fuel economy while continuously improving emissions robustness. In this paper, a study of current key technologies and associated emissions robustness will be discussed followed by engine and aftertreatment performance target derivations for LEV III compliant powertrains.

Dynamic skip fire (DSF) has shown significant fuel economy improvement potential via reduction of pumping losses that generally affect throttled spark-ignition (SI) engines. In DSF operation, individual cylinders are fired on-demand near peak efficiency to satisfy driver torque demand. For vehicles with a downsized-boosted 4-cylinder engine, DSF can reduce fuel consumption by 8% in the WLTC (Class 3) drive cycle. The relatively low cost of cylinder deactivation hardware further improves the production value of DSF. Lean burn strategies in gasoline engines have also demonstrated significant fuel efficiency gains resulting from reduced pumping losses and improved thermodynamic characteristics, such as higher specific heat ratio and lower heat losses. Fuel-air mixture stratification is generally required to achieve stable combustion at low loads.

In order to meet increasingly stringent emission regulations and reduce fuel consumption, development of modern powertrain is becoming more complicated, combining many advanced technologies. Gasoline engine downsizing is already established as a proven technology to reduce vehicle fleet CO2 emissions. Compressed natural gas (CNG) offers increased potential to further reduce both tailpipe CO2 and other regulated exhaust gas emissions without compromising driving performance. In this study, a turbocharged CNG port fuel injection (PFI) engine was developed based on gasoline version. Making most use of positive fuel properties of CNG, the paper quantifies the performance characteristics of downsized CNG engine considering reduced knock sensitivity, adaption of compression ratio and combustion efficiency. While peak cylinder pressure was controlled below 120 bar, peak torque 180Nm, same level as gasoline variant, was realized from 3000rpm.

High combustion pressure in combination with high pressure gradient, as they e.g. can be evoked by high efficient combustion systems and e.g. by alternative fuels, acts as broadband excitation force which stimulates natural vibrations of piston, connecting rod and crankshaft during engine operation. Starting from the combustion chamber the assembly of piston, connecting rod and crankshaft and the main bearings represent the system of internal vibration transfer. To generate exact input and validation values for simulation models of structural dynamic and elasto-hydrodynamic coupled multi-body systems, experimental investigations are done. These are carried out on a 1.5-l inline four cylinder Euro 6 Diesel engine. The modal behaviour of the system was examined in detail in simulation and test as a basis for the investigations. In an anechoic test bench airborne and structure-borne noises and combustion pressure are measured to identify the engine´s vibrational behaviour.

The application of a turbocharger, having an electric motor/generator on the rotor was studied focusing on the electric energy recuperation on a downsized gasoline internal combustion engine (turbocharged, direct injection) using 1D-calculation approaches. Using state-of-the art optimization techniques, the settings of the valve timing was optimized to cater for a targeted pre-turbine pressure and certain level of residual gases in the combustion chamber to avoid abnormal combustion events. Subsequently, a steady-state map of the potential of electric energy recuperation was performed while considering in parallel different efficiency maps of the potential generator and a certain waste-gate actuation strategy. Moreover, the results were taken as input to a WLTP cycle simulation in order to identify any synergies with regard to fuel economy.

In recent years, more attention has been focused on environment pollution and energy source issues. As a result, increasingly stringent fuel consumption and emission legislations have been implemented all over the world. For automakers, enhancing engine’s efficiency as a must contributes to lower vehicle fuel consumption. To reach this goal, Geely auto started the development of a 3-cylinder 1.0L turbocharged direct injection (TGDI) gasoline engine to achieve a challenging fuel economy target while maintaining fun-to-drive and NVH performance. Demanding development targets for performance (specific torque 205Nm/L and specific power 100kW/L) and excellent part-load BSFC were defined, which lead to a major challenge for the design of engine systems, especially for combustion system.