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Hybrid powertrain has been proven to be an effective fuel-saving technology in commercial vehicles, but many hybrid commercial vehicles still use conventional diesel engines, resulting in limited fuel savings. The main purpose of this study is to enhance the thermal efficiency of a dedicated hybrid diesel engine focusing on the characteristic operating conditions. Via fundamental thermodynamics process analysis of internal combustion engine, steel piston with high compression ratio, air system involving two-stage turbocharger(2TC) with an intercooler, and late intake valve closing(IVC) timing are proposed to improve the thermal efficiency of the engine. Experimental results show that high compression ratio and lower thermal conductivity of the combustion chamber surface lead to lower heat release rates, requiring optimization of piston profile to accelerate the mixing rate. Besides, high compression ratio also leads to higher mechanical losses.

As a critical power source, the diesel engine is widely used in various situations. Diesel engine failure may lead to serious property losses and even accidents. Fault detection can improve the safety of diesel engines and reduce economic loss. Surface vibration signal is often used in non-disassembly fault diagnosis because of its convenient measurement and stability. This paper proposed a novel method for engine fault detection based on vibration signals using variational mode decomposition (VMD), K-means, and genetic algorithm. The mode number of VMD dramatically affects the accuracy of extracting signal components. Therefore, a method based on spectral energy distribution is proposed to determine the parameter, and the quadratic penalty term is optimized according to SNR. The results show that the optimized VMD can adaptively extract the vibration signal components of the diesel engine. In the actual fault diagnosis case, it is difficult to obtain the data with labels.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of intake air hydrogenation coupled with intake air humidification (IAH) on the combustion and emission of marine diesel engines. A 3D numerical model of four-stroke turbocharged intercooled marine diesel engine was established by using commercial software AVL-Fire. The effects of hydrogen and water injected into the intake port on engine in-cylinder combustion and emission characteristics at 1350 r/min and partial load were studied. The novelty of this study is to combine different hydrogen-fuel ratios and water-fuel ratios, so as to find the optimization method that can reduce NOx and soot emissions and ensure the thermal efficiency of the engine doesn’t decrease.

Pumping Mean Effective Pressure (PMEP) is the main factor limiting the improvement of thermal efficiency in a spark-ignition (SI) engine under low load. One of the ways to reduce the pumping loss under low load is to use Cylinder DeActivation (CDA). The CDA aims at reducing the firing density (FD) of the SI engine under low load operation and increasing the mass of air-fuel mixture within one cycle in one cylinder to reduce the throttling effect and further reducing the PMEP. The multi-stroke cycles can also reduce the firing density of the SI engine after some certain reasonable design, which is feasible to improve the thermal efficiency of the engine under low load in theory. The research was carried out on a calibrated four-cylinder SI engine simulation platform. The thermal efficiency improvements of the 6-stroke cycle and 8-stroke cycle to the engine performance were studied compared with the traditional 4-stroke cycle under low load conditions.

Two-stroke engines have to face the problems of insufficient charge for short intake time and the loss of intake air caused by long valve overlap. In order to promote the power of a two-stroke poppet valve diesel engine, measures are taken to help optimize intake port structure. In this work, the scavenging and combustion processes of three common types of intake ports including horizontal intake port (HIP), combined swirl intake port (CSIP) and reversed tumble intake port (RTIP) were studied and their characteristics are summarized based on three-dimensional simulation. Results show that the RTIP has better performance in scavenging process for larger intake air trapped in the cylinder. Its scavenging efficiency reaches 84.7%, which is 1.7% higher than the HIP and the trapping ratio of the RTIP reaches 72.3% due to less short-circuiting loss, 11.2% higher than the HIP.

This work numerically investigates the detailed combustion kinetics of partially premixed combustion (PPC) in a diesel engine under three different premixed ratio fuel conditions. A reduced Primary Reference Fuel (PRF) chemical kinetics mechanism was coupled with CONVERGE-SAGE CFD model to predict PPC combustion under various operating conditions. The experimental results showed that the increase of premixed ratio (PR) fuel resulted in advanced combustion phasing. To provide insight into the effects of PR on ignition delay time and key reaction pathways, a post-process tool was used. The ignition delay time is related to the formation of hydroxyl (OH). Thus, the validated Converge CFD code with the PRF chemistry and the post-process tool was applied to investigate how PR change the formation of OH during the low-to high-temperature reaction transition. The reaction pathway analyses of the formations of OH before ignition time were investigated.

The objective of this study was to investigate combined effects of split injection strategies and intake air humidification on combustion and emissions of a partially premixed charge compression ignition (PCCI) marine diesel engine. In this research, a three-dimensional numerical model was established by a commercial code AVL-Fire to explore in-cylinder combustion process and pollutant formation factors in a four-stoke supercharged intercooled marine diesel engine under partial load at 1350 r/min. The novelty of this study is to combine different water-fuel ratios and fuel injection parameters (pilot injection timing and main injection timing) to find the optimized way to improve engine performance as well as NOx-soot emissions, thus meeting the increasingly stringent emissions restriction.

As a major power source, diesel engines are being widely used in a variety of fields. However, because of complex structure, some faults which cannot be detected by direct signals would occur on engines and even lead to accidents. Among all kinds of indirect signals, vibration signal is the most common choice for faults detection without disassemble because of its convenience and stability. This paper proposed a novel approach for detecting multiple engine faults based on block vibration signals using variational mode decomposition (VMD) and echo state network (ESN). Since the quadratic penalty has a great influence on adaptable VMD that may make expected component signals cannot be extracted exactly, this paper proposed a dynamic quadratic penalty value, which will change with decomposing level. This paper selected a best dynamic quadratic penalty value by analyzing a large amount of data and results showed that this approach can decompose signals more exactly.

Electrically assisted turbochargers are a promising technology for improving boost response of turbocharged engines. These systems include a turbocharger shaft mounted electric motor/generator. In the assist mode, electrical energy is applied to the turbocharger shaft via the motor function, while in the regenerative mode energy can be extracted from the shaft via the generator function, hence these systems are also referred to as regenerative electrically assisted turbochargers (REAT). REAT allows simultaneous improvement of boost response and fuel economy of boosted engines. This is achieved by optimally scheduling the electrical assist and regeneration actions. REAT also allows the exhaust turbine to operate within a narrow range of optimal vane positions relative to the unassisted variable geometry turbocharger (VGT). The ability to operate within a narrow range of VGT vane positions allows an opportunity for a more optimal turbine design for a REAT system.

Nowadays the strong knocking combustion involving destructive pressure wave or shock wave has become the main bottleneck for highly boosted engines when pursuing high thermal efficiency. However, its fundamental mechanism is still not fully understood. In this study, synchronization measurements through simultaneous pressure acquisition and high-speed direct photography were performed to comparatively investigate the strong knocking combustion of iso-octane and propane in a rapid compression machine with flat piston design. The pressure characteristics and visualized images of autoignition and reaction wave propagation were compared, and the correlations between thermodynamic trajectories and mixture reactivity progress were analyzed. The results show that iso-octane behaves a greater propensity to strong knocking combustion than propane at similar target pressures.

The potential of diesel/gasoline RCCI combustion coupled with late intake valve closing (LIVC) and double direct injection of diesel for meeting high fuel efficiency with ultra-low emissions was investigated in this study. The study was aiming at high load operation in a heavy-duty diesel engine. Based on the reactivity stratification of RCCI combustion, the employment of double injection of diesel fuel provided concentration stratification of the high-reactivity fuel, which is to further realize effective control of the combustion process. Meanwhile, late intake valve closing (LIVC) strategy is introduced to control the maximum in-cylinder pressure and nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions.

PEMFC (proton exchange membrane or polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell) is a potential candidate as a future power source for automobile applications. Water and thermal management is important to PEMFC operation. Numerical models, which describe the transport and electrochemical phenomena occurring in PEMFCs, are important to the water and thermal management of fuel cells. 3D (three-dimensional) multi-scale CFD (computational fluid dynamics) models take into account the real geometry structure and thus are capable of predicting real operation/performance. In this study, a 3D multi-phase CFD model is employed to simulate a large-scale PEMFC (109.93 cm2) under various operating conditions. More specifically, the effects of operating pressure (1.0-4.0 atm) on fuel cell performance and internal water and thermal characteristics are studied in detail under two inlet humidities, 100% and 40%.

Proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell is widely recognized as an outstanding portable power plant and expected to be possibly commercialization in the near future. As is well known, mechanical stresses implemented on the bipolar plates during the assembly procedure should have prominent influences on mass and heat transfer behavior inside the cell, as well as the resultant performance. In this study, an analytical model is proposed to comprehensively investigate the influence of clamping force on the mass transport, electrochemical properties and overall cell output capability of a PEM fuel cell. The results indicate that proper clamping force not only benefits the gas leakage prevention but also increases the contact area between the neighboring components to decrease the contact ohmic resistance.

In order to meet the increasingly stringent emissions restriction, it is indispensable to improve the combustion and emissions technology of high-speed marine diesel engines. Oxygen-enriched combustion and intake air humidification are effective ways to control pollution from diesel engines and improve combustion of diesel engines. In this study, the combustion and emission characteristics of supercharged intercooled marine diesel engine with humidity ratio and intake oxygen concentration were investigated by using multi-dimensional CFD model. The combustion model was established by AVL Fire code. The combination strategy of intake air humidification and oxygen-enriched combustion were optimized under partial load at 1350 rpm.

As the intake noise is a major contributing factor to automotive passenger compartment noise levels, it has received much more attention than before. Because the plastic manifolds could induce and transmit more noise owing to their lighter weight, aerodynamic noise has become a more serious problem in plastic manifolds than in conventional aluminum-made manifolds. Due to the complexity of aerodynamic noise of the intake system, it is difficult to predict the noise precisely, especially for the part whose frequency is higher than 1000 Hz. This paper introduces a new co-simulation method to simulate the aerodynamic noise at the engine inlet. With the coupled simulation between two programs, GT-Power and Fluent, it could simulate the gas flow inside the engine intake system, under the actual running condition of engine.

The aim of this research is to investigate the effects of ashless dispersant of lube oils on diesel exhaust particles. Emphasis is placed on particle size, morphology, nanostructure and graphitization degree. Three kinds of lube oils with different percentages of ashless dispersant were used in a two-cylinder diesel engine. Ashless dispersant (T154), which is widely used in petrochemical industry, were added into baseline oil at different blend percentages (4.0% and 8.0% by weight) to improve lubrication and cleaning performance. A high resolution Transmission Electron Microscope (HRTEM) and a Raman spectroscopy were employed to analyze and compare particle characteristics. According to the experiment results, primary particles diameter ranges from 3 nm to 65 nm, and the diameter distribution conformed to Gaussian distribution. When the ashless dispersant was used, the primary particles diameter decrease obviously at both 1600 rpm and 2200 rpm.

The intake process plays an important role in the operation of internal combustion engines. In the present study, a three-dimensional transient simulation of a four-valve diesel engine was performed using Large Eddy Simulation (LES) model based on software CONVERGE. The mean velocity components in three directions through the intake valve curtain, the flow separation around the intake valves, the influences of inlet jet on turbulence flow field and cycle-to-cycle variation were investigated in this work. The result shows that the mean velocity distributes non-uniformly near the valve curtain at high valve lifts. In contrast, the mean velocity distribution is uniform at low valve lifts. It is found that the flow separation occurs at valve stem, valve seat and valve sealing through the outlet of the helical port. In contrast, flow separation is only observed in the valve seat through the outlet of the tangential port.

In-cylinder direct-injected technology provides a flexible and accurate optimization for internal combustion engines to reduce emission and improve fuel efficiency. With increasingly stringent requirements for the emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx) and CO2, the content of injections in an engine combustion cycle has reached 7 to 9 times in gasoline direct injection (GDI) and the diesel engine with high-pressure common rail (HPCR). Accurate control of both time and quantity of injection is critical for engine performance and emissions, while the dynamic response of injector spray characteristics is a key factor. In this paper, a test bench was built for monitoring the dynamic response of solenoid injectors with high-speed micro-photography and synchronous current collection system. Experimental studies on the dynamic response of GDI and HPCR solenoid injectors were carried out.

Butanol is a promising alcohol fuel. Previous studies on combustion and diesel engines showed different trends in sooting tendencies of the butanol isomers (n-butanol, iso-butanol, sec-butanol and tert-butanol).The impact of butanol isomers on the particulate emissions of GDI (Gasoline Direct Injection) engines, however, has not been reported. This work examines the combustion performance and particle number emissions of a GDI engine fueled with gasoline/butanol blends in steady state modes. Each isomer was tested at blend ratios from 10% to 50% by volume. Spark timings for all the fuels are set to obtain the maximum break torque (MBT), i.e. the MBT spark timings. Results show that the particle number concentration is reduced significantly with increasing butanol content for all the isomers.

High-pressure common rail (HPCR) fuel injection system is the most widely used fuel system in diesel engines. However, when multiple injection strategy is used, the pressure wave fluctuation is un-avoided due to the opening and closing of the needle valve which will affect the subsequent fuel injection and combustion characteristics. In this paper, several parameters: injection pressure, injection intervals, the main injection pulse widths are investigated on a common rail fuel injection test rig with two injection pulses to explore their effect on the fuel injection rate and fuel quantity. The result showed that the longer injection interval between the pilot and main injections will lead to a rail pressure drop at the beginning of the main injection so that a smaller fuel quantity will be delivered. The main injection pulse width also influences fuel injection rate and the main fuel quantity.