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Fuel efficiency and torque performance are two major challenges for highly downsized turbocharged engines. However, the inherent characteristics of the turbocharged SI engine such as negative PMEP, knock sensitivity and poor transient performance significantly limit its maximum potential. Conventional ways of improving the problems above normally concentrate solely on the engine side or turbocharger side leaving the exhaust manifold in between ignored. This paper investigates this neglected area by highlighting a novel means of gas exchange process. Divided Exhaust Period (DEP) is an alternative way of accomplishing the gas exchange process in turbocharged engines. The DEP concept engine features two exhaust valves but with separated function. The blow-down valve acts like a traditional turbocharged exhaust valve to evacuate the first portion of the exhaust gas to the turbine.

Light weight alloys are widely used in the automotive industry in order to meet environmental requirements. Cast magnesium alloys are candidate materials due to their high strength to weight ratio, high stiffness and excellent castability. However, some previously reported anomalous cyclic stress-strain behaviours of magnesium alloys have not been fully investigated especially in LCF characterisation. The main objective of this work was to investigate the cyclic loading-unloading behaviour of high pressure die cast (HPDC) AM60B and AE44 magnesium alloys under uniaxial tension or/and compression and its effect on LCF behaviour. It was found that classical linear stress-strain behaviour, for both AM60B and AE44 alloys, applied only to a very small range of stress beyond which significant pseudo-elastic behaviour was discovered. This affected LCF characterisation and subsequent fatigue analysis processes.

The paper discusses the concept, design and final results from the ‘Ultra Boost for Economy’ collaborative project, which was part-funded by the Technology Strategy Board, the UK's innovation agency. The project comprised industry- and academia-wide expertise to demonstrate that it is possible to reduce engine capacity by 60% and still achieve the torque curve of a modern, large-capacity naturally-aspirated engine, while encompassing the attributes necessary to employ such a concept in premium vehicles. In addition to achieving the torque curve of the Jaguar Land Rover naturally-aspirated 5.0 litre V8 engine (which included generating 25 bar BMEP at 1000 rpm), the main project target was to show that such a downsized engine could, in itself, provide a major proportion of a route towards a 35% reduction in vehicle tailpipe CO2 on the New European Drive Cycle, together with some vehicle-based modifications and the assumption of stop-start technology being used instead of hybridization.

Increasingly stringent regulations and rising fuel costs require that automotive manufacturers reduce their fleet CO2 emissions. Gasoline engine downsizing is one such technology at the forefront of improvements in fuel economy. As engine downsizing becomes more aggressive, normal engine operating points are moving into higher load regions, typically requiring over-fuelling to maintain exhaust gas temperatures within component protection limits and retarded ignition timings in order to mitigate knock and pre-ignition events. These two mechanisms are counterproductive, since the retarded ignition timing delays combustion, in turn raising exhaust gas temperature. A key process being used to inhibit the occurrence of these knock and pre-ignition phenomena is cooled exhaust gas recirculation (EGR). Cooled EGR lowers temperatures during the combustion process, reducing the possibility of knock, and can thus reduce or eliminate the need for over-fuelling.

Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) has designed and developed a new inline 4 cylinder engine family, branded Ingenium. In addition to delivering improved emissions and fuel economy over the outgoing engine, another key aim from the outset of the program was to reduce the combustion noise. This paper details the NVH development of the lead engine in this family, a 2.0 liter common rail turbo diesel. The task from the outset of this new program was to reduce the mass of the engine by 21.5 kg, whilst also improving the structural attenuation of the engine by 5 dB in comparison to the outgoing engine. Improving the structural attenuation by 5 dB was not only a key enabler in reducing combustion noise, but also helped to achieve a certified CO2 performance of 99 g/km in the all-new Jaguar XE model, by allowing more scope for increasing cylinder pressure forcing without compromising NVH.

The paper discusses investigations into improving the full-load and transient performance of the Ultraboost extreme downsizing engine by the application of the SuperGen variable-speed centrifugal supercharger. Since its output stage speed is decoupled from that of the crankshaft, SuperGen is potentially especially attractive in a compound pressure-charging system. Such systems typically comprise a turbocharger, which is used as the main charging device, compounded at lower charge mass flow rates by a supercharger used as a second boosting stage. Because of its variable drive ratio, SuperGen can be blended in and out continuously to provide seamless driveability, as opposed to the alternative of a clutched, single-drive-ratio positive-displacement device. In this respect its operation is very similar to that of an electrically-driven compressor, although it is voltage agnostic and can supply other hybrid functionality, too.

Throttling loss of downsized gasoline engines is significantly smaller than that of naturally aspirated counterparts. However, even the extremely downsized gasoline engine can still suffer a relatively large throttling loss when operating under part load conditions. Various de-throttling concepts have been proposed recently, such as using a FGT or VGT turbine on the intake as a de-throttling mechanism or applying valve throttling to control the charge airflow. Although they all can adjust the mass air flow without a throttle in regular use, an extra component or complicated control strategies have to be adopted. This paper will, for the first time, propose a de-throttling concept in a twin-charged gasoline engine with minimum modification of the existing system. The research engine model which this paper is based on is a 60% downsized 2.0L four cylinder gasoline demonstrator engine with both a supercharger and turbocharger on the intake.

The in-cabin sound pressure level response of a vehicle in yawed wind conditions can differ significantly between the smooth flow conditions of the aeroacoustic wind tunnel and the higher turbulence, transient flow conditions experienced on the road. Previous research has shown that under low turbulence conditions there is close agreement between the variation with yaw of in-cabin sound pressure level on the road and in the wind tunnel. However, under transient conditions, sound pressure levels on the road were found to show a smaller increase due to yaw than predicted by the wind tunnel, specifically near the leeward sideglass region. The research presented here investigates the links between transient flow and aeroacoustics. The effect of small geometry changes upon the aeroacoustic response of the vehicle has been investigated.

Numerical simulation of aerodynamics for vehicle development is used to meet a wide range of performance targets, including aerodynamic drag for fuel efficiency, cooling flow rates, and aerodynamic lift for vehicle handling. The aerodynamic flow field can also be used to compute the advection of small particles such as water droplets, dust, dirt, sand, etc., released into the flow domain, including the effects of mass, gravity, and the forces acting on the particles by the airflow. Previous efforts in this topic have considered the water sprays ejected by rotating wheels when driving on a wet road. The road spray carries dirt particles and can obscure the side and rear glazing. In this study, road sprays are considered in which the effects of additional water droplets resulting from splashing and dripping of particles from the wheel house and rear under body are added to help understand the patterns of dirt film accumulation on the side glass and rear glass.

Testing real-time vehicular systems challenges the tester to design test cases for concurrent and sequential input events, emulating unexpected user and usage profiles. The vehicle response should be robust to unexpected user actions. Sequence Covering Arrays (SCA) offer an approach which can emulate such unexpected user actions by generating an optimized set of test vectors which cover all possible t-way sequences of events. The objective of this research was to find an efficient nonfunctional sequence testing (NFST) strategy for testing the robustness of real-time automotive embedded systems measured by their ability to recover (prove-out test) after applying sequences of user and usage patterns generated by combinatorial test algorithms, considered as “noisy” inputs. The method was validated with a case study of an automotive embedded system tested at Hardware-In-the-Loop (HIL) level. The random sequences were able to alter the system functionality observed at the prove-out test.

Over the past decade there have been significant advances made in the technology used to engineer Powertrain Sound Quality into automobiles. These have included exhaust system technologies incorporating active and semi-active valves, intake system technologies involving passive and direct feedback devices, and technologies aimed at tuning the structure-borne content of vehicle interior sound. All of these technologies have been deployed to complement the traditional control of NVH issues through the enhancement of Powertrain Sound Quality. The aim of this paper is to provide an historical review of the recent industry-wide advances made in these technologies and to provide the author's perspective on what issues have been addressed and what opportunities have been delivered.

The notion of open source systems has been well established in systems software and typified by the development of the Linux operating system. An open source community is a community of interest that makes use of software tools in research and development. Their ongoing development is part of the free flow of ideas on which the community. The motivation for the work reported in this paper is to provide the research community in engine controls with a ready access to a complete engine management solution and the component parts. The work described in this paper extends open source principles to engine control with a portable spark ignition (SI) control strategy assembled using Simulink. The underlying low level drivers are written in C and designed for portability. A calibration tool is written in C and works over a controller area network (CAN) link to the engine control unit (ECU). The ECU hardware is based on the Infineon Tricore microcontroller.

A prototype multi-hole diesel injector operating with n-heptane fuel from a high-pressure common rail system is used in a high-pressure and high-temperature test rig capable of reaching 1100 Kelvin and 150 bar under different oxygen concentrations. A novel optical set-up capable of visualizing the soot cloud evolution in the fuel jet from 30 to 85 millimeters from the nozzle exit with the high-speed color diffused back illumination technique is used as a result of the insertion of a high-pressure window in the injector holder opposite to the frontal window of the vessel. The experiments performed in this work used one wavelength provide information about physical of the soot properties, experimental results variating the operational conditions show the reduction of soot formation with an increase in injection pressure, a reduction in ambient temperature, a reduction in oxygen concentration or a reduction in ambient density.

Complexity of electronics and embedded software systems in automobiles has been increasing over the years. This necessitates the need for an effective and exhaustive development and validation process in order to deliver fault free vehicles at reduced time to market. Model-based Product Engineering (MBPE) is a new process for development and validation of embedded control software. The process is generic and defines the engineering activities to plan and assess the progress and quality of the software developed for automotive applications. The MBPE process is comprised of six levels (one design level and five verification and validation levels) ranging from the vehicle requirements phase to the start of production. The process describes the work products to be delivered during the course of product development and also aligns the delivery plan to overall vehicle development milestones.

Simulation of local flow structures in the A-pillar/side glass region of bluff SUV geometries, typical of Land Rover vehicles, presents a considerable challenge. Features such as relatively tight A-pillar radii and upright windscreens produce flows that are difficult to simulate. However, the usefulness of aerodynamics simulations in the early assessment of wind noise depends particularly on the local accuracy obtained in this region. This paper extends work previously published by the author(1) with additional data and analysis. An extended review of the relevant published literature is also provided. Then the degree to which a commercial Lattice-Boltzman solver (Exa PowerFLOW™) is currently able to capture both the local flow structure and surface pressure distribution (both time averaged and unsteady) is evaluated. Influential factors in the simulation are shown to be spatial resolution, turbulence and boundary layer modelling.

Hybrid technologies enable the reduction of noxious tailpipe emissions and conformance with ever-decreasing allowable homologation limits. The complexity of the hybrid powertrain technology leads to an energy management problem with multiple energy sinks and sources comprising the system resulting in a high-dimensional time dependent problem for which many solutions have been proposed. Methods that rely on accurate predictions of potential vehicle operations are demonstrably more optimal when compared to rule-based methodology [1]. In this paper, a previously proposed energy management strategy based on an offline optimization using dynamic programming is investigated. This is then coupled with an online model predictive control strategy to follow the predetermined optimal battery state of charge trajectory prescribed by the dynamic program.

This paper presents the development and implementation of an Analytical Target Cascading (ATC) Multi-disciplinary Design Optimisation (MDO) framework for the steady state engine calibration optimisation problem. The case is made that the ATC offers a convenient framework for the engine calibration optimisation problem based on steady state engine test data collected at specified engine speed / load points, which is naturally structured on 2 hierarchical levels: the ‘Global’ level, associated with performance over a drive cycle, and ‘Local’ level, relating to engine operation at each speed / load point. The case study of a diesel engine was considered to study the application of the ATC framework to a calibration optimisation problem. The paper describes the analysis and mathematical formulation of the diesel engine calibration optimisation as an ATC framework, and its Matlab implementation with gradient based and evolutionary optimisation algorithms.

Engines equipped with pressure charging systems are more prone to knock partly due the increased intake temperature. Meanwhile, turbocharged engines when operating at high engine speeds and loads cannot fully utilize the exhaust energy as the wastegate is opened to prevent overboost. The turboexpansion concept thus is conceived to reduce the intake temperature by utilizing some otherwise unexploited exhaust energy. This concept can be applied to any turbocharged engines equipped with both a compressor and a turbine-like expander on the intake loop. The turbocharging system is designed to achieve maximum utilization of the exhaust energy, from which the intake charge is over-boosted. After the intercooler, the turbine-like expander expands the over-compressed intake charge to the required plenum pressure and reduces its temperature whilst recovering some energy through the connection to the crankshaft.

The paper discusses the effects of various charging system technologies on the performance and fuel consumption of a modern supercharged engine, the Jaguar Land Rover AJ126 3.0 litre V6. The goal of the project was to improve performance and reduce the fuel consumption of the standard engine by researching new technologies around the supercharger. As standard the AJ126 engine uses an Eaton R1320 supercharger with a fixed ratio drive from the crankshaft and no clutch.

The power demand of air conditioning in PHEVs is known to have a significant impact on the vehicle’s fuel economy and performance. Besides the cooling power associated to the passenger cabin, in many PHEVs, the air conditioning system provides power to cool the high voltage battery. Calculating the cooling power demands of the cabin and battery and their impact on the vehicle performance can help with developing optimum system design and energy management strategies. In this paper, a representative vehicle model is used to calculate these cooling requirements over a 24-hour duty cycle. A number of pre-cooling and after-run cooling strategies are studied and effect of each strategy on the performance of the vehicle including, energy efficiency, battery degradation and passenger thermal comfort are calculated. Results show that after-run cooling of the battery should be considered as it can lead to significant reductions in battery degradation.