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Fuel consumption in internal combustion engines and their associated CO2 emissions have become one of the major issues facing car manufacturers everyday for various reasons: the Kyoto protocol, the upcoming European regulation concerning CO2 emissions requiring emissions of less than 130g CO2/km before 2012, and customer demand. One of the most efficient solutions to reduce fuel consumption is to downsize the engine and increase its specific power and torque by using turbochargers. The engine and the turbocharger have to be chosen carefully and be finely tuned. It is essential to understand and characterise the turbocharger's behaviour precisely and on its whole operating range, especially at low engine speeds. The characteristics at low speed are not provided by manufacturers of turbochargers because compressor maps cannot be achieve on usual test bench.

Surge is a phenomenon that limits the operational range of the compressor at low mass flow rates. The objective of this research is to study effective operational range for a ported shroud compressor. The size of the compressor is typical for a turbocharger used on diesel engines. To be able to extend the operational range, the surge characteristics have to be assessed. This is done by performing measurement of the flow at the inlet to the compressor wheel and pressure fluctuations at the inlet and outlet of the compressor housing. Detailed numerical computations of the flow in the entire compressor section under similar operating conditions have also been carried out. The experimental work includes Particle Imaging Velocimetry (PIV) measurements of the instantaneous and mean velocity field at the inlet. At surge, low frequency pulsations are detected that seem to result from back flow already observed in stall.

In this work we have proposed an interesting clamping solution of V-band which has an important industrial impact by reducing the cost and assembly process as well compare to the traditional V-band. The design what we are focusing for is applied for all size of turbochargers which helps to connect the hot components such as manifold and turbine housing. The cost for V-band is mainly from T-bolt. It is made from special stainless steel which represents 50% of the total cost. In this work it is proposed a new V-band joint by changing bolt clamping status from tension to compression. From tension to compression we change the bolt material from high cost steel to low cost steel. The new total cost is reduced by 40%. The prototype is made and performed in static tests including anti-rotating torque test and salt spray test. The new joint meets the design requirements at static condition. Further work will focus on the dynamic qualification and at high temperature as well.

The goal of the presented research is to study the effective operational range for a centrifugal vaneless diffuser turbocharger compressor with ported shroud typically used in diesel engines. A turbocharger bench facility was designed and tested in order to define the performances of the compressor and to better understand the occurrence of instabilities in the housing. Specific emphasis was given to the low mass flow rate region of the compressor performance characteristics where instabilities occur with fluctuations that can be significantly large in the case of surge. Static pressures and dynamic pressure fluctuations were measured at the inlet, the outlet, as well as at different positions around the volute and diffuser sections of the compressor in order to assess the development and propagation of flow instabilities. The dynamic signature of the flow was measured along with the elaboration of the compressor mapping.

Turbochargers are widely used to boost internal combustion engines for both on and off high way applications to meet emission and performance requirements. Due to the high operating temperature, turbochargers are subjected to hostile environment. Low vibration level is one of the key requirements while designing turbo for every application. An engine bracket is employed to support turbine housing to reduce total vibration level. Turbine housing in the turbocharger is commonly equipped with boss to accommodate the engine bracket supporting which eventually includes additional constraints in the turbocharger system. Additional constraints in the turbine housing can lead to adverse impact in the Thermo-Mechanical Fatigue (TMF) life of the housing component. Boss generally has critical influence to thermal stress distribution of the turbine housing.