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The startability of SI engines, especially of DISI engines, is the greatest challenge when using ethanol blended fuels. The development of a suitable injection strategy is therefore the main engineering target when developing an ethanol engine with direct injection. In order to limit the test efforts of such a program, a vaporization model has been created that provides the quantity of vaporized fuel depending on pressure and on start and end, respectively number and split relation of injections. This model takes account of the most relevant fuel properties such as density, surface tension and viscosity. It also considers the interaction of the spray with cylinder liner, cylinder head and piston. A comparison with test results shows the current status and the need for action of this simulation model.

In the near future, emissions legislation will become more and more restrictive for direct injection SI engines by adopting a stringent limitation of particulate number emissions in late 2017. In order to cope with the combustion system related challenges coming along with the introduction of this new standard, Hitachi Automotive Systems Ltd., Hitachi Europe GmbH and IAV GmbH work collaboratively on demonstrating technology that allows to satisfy EU6c emissions limitations by application of Hitachi components dedicated to high pressure injection (1). This paper sets out to describe both the capabilities of a new high pressure fuel system improving droplet atomization and consequently mixture homogeneity as well as the process of utilizing the technology during the development of a demonstrator vehicle called DemoCar. The Hitachi system consists of a fuel pump and injectors operating under a fuel pressure of 30 MPa.

As a consequence of reduced fuel consumption, direct injection gasoline engines have already prevailed against port fuel injection. However, in-cylinder fuel homogenization strongly depends on charge motion and injection strategies and can be challenging due to the reduced available time for mixture formation. An insufficient homogenization has generally a negative impact on the combustion and therefore also on efficiency and emissions. In order to reach the targets of the intensified CO2 emission reduction, further increase in efficiency of SI engines is essential. In this connection, 0D/1D simulation is a fundamental tool due to its application area in an early stage of development and its relatively low computational costs. Certainly, inhomogeneities are still not considered in quasi dimensional combustion models because the prediction of mixture formation is not included in the state of the art 0D/1D simulation.

After the realization of very low exhaust gas emissions and corresponding OBD requirements to fulfill Euro VI and Tier 4 legislation, the focus in heavy-duty powertrain development is on the reduction of fuel consumption and thus CO₂ emissions again. Besides this, the total vehicle operation costs play another major role. A holistic view of the overall powertrain system including the combustion process, exhaust gas aftertreatment, energy recuperation and energy storage is necessary in order to obtain the best possible system for a given application. A management system coordinating the energy flow between the different subsystems while guaranteeing low exhaust emissions plays a major part in operating such complex architectures under optimal conditions.

Flow fields and fuel distribution play a critical role in developing the combustion process inside the cylinders of piston engines. This has prompted the development of measurement and diagnostic capabilities including laser techniques like Doppler Global Velocimetry (DGV). The paper provides an overview of the basics of DGV and the type of results that can be obtained. It also includes a short comparison to Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) which is a popular alternative method. Furthermore, it is shown that DGV can be used simultaneously in combination with droplet distribution visualization inside cylinders based on Mie scattering.

Internal combustion engines with lean homogeneous charge and auto-ignition combustion of gasoline fuels have the capability to significantly reduce fuel consumption and realize ultra-low engine-out NOx emissions. Group research of Volkswagen AG has therefore defined the Gasoline Compression Ignition combustion (GCI®) concept. A detailed investigation of this novel combustion process has been carried out on test bench engines and test vehicles by group research of Volkswagen AG and IAV GmbH Gifhorn. Experimental results confirm the theoretically expected potential for improved efficiency and emissions behavior. Volkswagen AG and IAV GmbH will utilize a highly flexible externally supercharged variable valve train (VVT) engine for future investigations to extend the understanding of gas exchange and EGR strategy as well as the boost demands of gasoline auto-ignition combustion processes.

Under the persistent pressure to further reduce fuel consumption worldwide, it is necessary to advance the processes that influence the efficiency of gasoline engines. In doing so, harnessing the entire potential of fully variable mechanical valve trains will involve targeting efforts on optimizing all design parameters. A new type of valve timing system is used to portray thermodynamic and mechanical as well as electronic aspects of developing fully variable mechanical valve timing and lift systems

State-of-the-art powertrain concepts with automatic transmission must comply with increasingly stringent legislation on emissions and fuel consumption while fulfilling or surpassing customers' expectations as to driveability. In this respect, automated manual transmissions (AMT) and automated shift transmissions (AST) must compete with conventional automatic transmissions (AT) and continuously variable transmissions (CVT). In order to exploit the theoretical advantages of ASTs and put them into practice, complex ECU functions are needed to coordinate engine and transmission. Adaptive control, sophisticated clutch management and an intelligent shifting strategy allow shifting quality and shifting points to be simultaneously optimized to the effect that performance and comfort are increased while fuel consumption is reduced.

Advanced SI engines for passenger cars often use the cylinder deactivation technology for dethrottling and thus achieving a reduction of fuel consumption. The gas exchange valves of the deactivated cylinders are closed permanently by a zero lift of the cams. The solutions for cylinder deactivation can vary in the kind of gas composition included in the deactivated cylinders: charge air, exhaust gas or vacuum. All these strategies have in common the frequent loss of captured charge mass from cycle to cycle. Their two-stroke compression-expansion cycle additionally intensifies this phenomenon. Thus, a significant decrease of the minimum cylinder pressure can cause an undesired entry of lubricant into the combustion chamber. The idea was to ventilate the generally deactivated cylinders frequently to compensate the loss of captured cylinder charge mass. The task was to keep the minimum cylinder pressure above a certain limit to prevent the piston rings from a failure.

Global warming is a climate phenomenon with world-wide ecological, economic and social impact which calls for strong measures in reducing automotive fuel consumption and thus CO2 emissions. In this regard, turbocharging and the associated designing of the air path of the engine are key technologies in elaborating more efficient and downsized engines. Engine performance simulation or development, parameterization and testing of model-based air path control strategies require adequate performance maps characterizing the working behavior of turbochargers. The working behavior is typically identified on test rig which is expensive in terms of costs and time required. Hence, the objective of the research project “virtual Exhaust Gas Turbocharger” (vEGTC) is an alternative approach which considers a physical modeled vEGTC to allow a founded prediction of efficiency, pressure rise as well as pressure losses of an arbitrary turbocharger with known geometry.

The combination of geometrically variable compression (VCR) and early intake valve closure (EIVC) proved to offer high potential for increasing efficiency of gasoline engines. While early intake valve closure reduces pumping losses, it is detrimental to combustion quality and residual gas tolerance due to a loss of temperature and turbulence. Large geometric compression ratio at part load compensates for the negative temperature effect of EIVC with further improving efficiency. By optimizing the stroke/bore ratio, the reduction in valve cross section at part load can result in greater charge motion and therefore in turbulence. Turbocharging means the basis to enable an increase in stroke/bore ratio, called β in the following, because the drawbacks at full load resulting from smaller valves can be only compensated by additional boosting pressure level.

Recent years have witnessed a dramatic increase in global ethanol production, while cellulosic feedstock or the algae-based production approach make more sustainable ethanol production foreseeable in many countries. The ethanol produced will increasingly penetrate the markets not only as blending component, but also as main fuel component, boosting demand for flex-fuel vehicles. One of the main challenges for flex-fuel vehicles is the cold start due to the poor vapor pressure of ethanol. This is detrimental to starting capability in DISI engines in particular, with increased cylinder wall wetting causing higher oil dilution. The most efficient solution for DISI engines is a smart injection strategy, enabling fuel vaporization during injection in the compression stroke. But this requires optimum injection parameters such as injection timing, split ratio and rail pressure.

The precision of direct fuel injection systems of combustion engines is crucial for the further reduction of emissions and fuel consumption. It is influenced by the dynamic behavior of the fuel system, in particular the injection valves and the common rail pressure. As model based control strategies for the fuel system could substantially improve the dynamic behavior, an accurate model of the common rail injection system for gasoline engines - consisting of the main components high-pressure pump, common rail and injection valves - that could be used for control design is highly desirable. Approaches for developing such a model are presented in this paper. For each key component, two models are derived, which differ in temporal resolution and number of degrees of freedom. Experimental data is used to validate and compare the models. The data was generated on a test bench specifically designed and built for this purpose.

As more virtual product development is integrated into the mass-production development process and overall development times are shortened, efficient intake-port design requires closer cooperation between design, simulation and test engineers. Doppler Global Velocimetry (DGV) has become an important link in the overall intake-port development process as it provides 3D-vector fields of flow velocity. Hence, it can be used to make direct comparisons with 3D-CFD-simulation results. The present paper describes the hardware-assisted inlet port development process for diesel engines, the cooperation among port design, 3D-CFD-simulation with the creation of alternative geometries and DGV flow-measurement of preferred variants with their capability of checking and improving simulation results.

Advanced Diesel combustion strategies with the focus on the reduction of NOx and PM emission as well as fuel consumption need an increase of the EGR rate and therefore improved boost concepts. The suppression of the nitrogen oxide build up requires changes in the charge condition (charge temperature, EGR rate), which have to be realized by the gas exchange system. The gas exchange system of IAV's ADCS test engine was dimensioned with the help of the engine process simulation software THEMOS®. This paper shows simulation and test bench results of the potential to increase the EGR rate and the charge density at stationary and transient operation. The increase of both EGR rate and boost pressure, as well as the need for a better control of transient operation leads to greater requirements for the engine control system. The potential of the engine and its control system for an application to a demo vehicle will be assessed.

Standard compressor and turbine maps obtained from steady-state test bench measurements are not sufficient for assessing transient turbocharger behavior. This also makes them inappropriate for gauging combustion-engine response and fuel consumption. Nor do they allow for the widely differing operating conditions which, apart from aerodynamics, have a major influence on heat transfer and turbocharger efficiency. This paper looks at a more complex approach of modeling the turbocharger as well developing appropriate measurement methods (“advanced turbocharger model”). This includes non-destructive measurements under various heat transfer conditions to define the turbocharger's adiabatic behavior needed to describe charge-air pressure increase in the compressor and engine exhaust gas backpressure from the turbine for transient engine operation.

A physics-based simulation program developed by IAV is used to calibrate the torque structure and cylinder charge calculation in the electronic control unit of SI engines. The model calculates both the charge cycle and combustion phase based on flow mechanics and a fractal combustion model. Once the air mass in the charge cycle has been computed, a fractal combustion model is used for the ongoing calculation of cylinder pressure and temperature. The progression of cylinder pressure over the high and low-pressure phases also provides information on engine torque. Following the engine-specific calibration of the model using elemental geometric information and reduced test bench measurements, the physical engine properties can be simulated over the operating cycle. The calibrated model allows simulations to be carried out at all operating points and the results to be treated as virtual test bench measurements.

A physically based simulation program developed by IAV makes a notable reduction of test bed measurements for the calibration of the cylinder charge calculation possible. Based upon geometric engine parameters and camshaft profiles, the cylinder charge is calculated from thermodynamic relationships taking into account the contribution of residual gas. After successful engine-specific calibration of the simulation model on the basis of a reduced set of test bed measurements, it is possible to calculate the cylinder air mass over the entire range of valve timing settings and operating points (engine load and speed). The simulation-generated “virtual” measurements can then be used for calibration of the control unit software over the entire operating range.

Mixture formation in gasoline direct-injection engines is largely determined by the quality of injection. Injection systems with a wide range of layouts are used today in enhancing spray quality. As parameters, the pressure and temperature of injected fuel play a crucial part in defining quality. The effect increasing pressure has on the quality of spray is basically known. So are ways of applying this process to gasoline fuel. The effect of massively increasing the temperature of injected fuel - to the point of reaching supercritical conditions - in contrast, is not known in any detail. For this reason, the following paper focuses attention on examining the fundamental influence of increasing fuel temperature from 25 °C to 450 °C on the spray behavior of a high-pressure injector with a GDI nozzle. Combining relevant levels of pressure and temperature, discussion also turns to supercritical fuel conditions and their effects on spray behavior.

Hydrogen engines offer the possibility of a carbon neutral transportation - a focal point of current propulsion development activities especially for EU and US future concepts. From today's point of view, hydrogen can play an important role in this regard as it is a carbon-free fuel, no CO2 emissions are produced during its combustion process. Besides, it can be well used for lean burn combustion leading to very low NOx emissions, a key benefit in combination with an optimized after-treatment system for future ultra-low NOx legislations of heavy-duty (HD) engines. Comprehensive investigations using experimental tests and model-based development approach are performed using a six cylinder HD hydrogen engine featuring PFI (port fuel injection) aiming the definition of a high efficiency hydrogen engine concept.