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The aim of this paper is to analyse the quantitative impact of fuel sulphur content on particulate oxidation catalyst (POC) functionality, focusing on soot emission reduction and the ability to regenerate. Studies were conducted on fuels containing three different levels of sulphur, covering the range of 6 to 340 parts per million, for a light-duty application. The data presented in this paper provide further insights into the specific issues associated with usage of a POC with fuels of higher sulphur content. A 48-hour loading phase was performed for each fuel, during which filter smoke number, temperature and back-pressure were all observed to vary depending on the fuel sulphur level. The Fuel Sulphur Content (FSC) affected also soot particle size distributions (particle number and size) so that with FSC 6 ppm the soot particle concentration was lower than with FSC 65 and 340, both upstream and downstream of the POC.

MAHLE Powertrain has built a range-extended electric vehicle demonstrator, with a series hybrid configuration. The vehicle is intended to operate predominantly purely electrically. Once the battery state of charge is depleted a gasoline engine (range extender) is activated to provide the energy required to propel the vehicle. As part of the continuing development of this vehicle, MAHLE Powertrain has recorded data during real world driving, with the aim of further investigating the actual usage a range-extended electric vehicle under non-laboratory test conditions. The vehicle is instrumented with a data acquisition system which records physical parameters, for example coolant temperatures, as well as CAN-based data from the engine and vehicle management systems.

Concerns over greenhouse gas emissions are driving governments and the automotive industry to seek out ways of reducing vehicle CO₂ emissions. Engine friction reduction is one means of reducing CO₂ emissions, through fuel consumption improvements. Of the different systems within the engine, the camshaft timing drive can contribute around 5 to 10% of the overall engine friction. It is therefore a system that can benefit from careful optimization. MAHLE has undertaken a motored friction-testing program on a 2.2-liter turbocharged diesel engine with the following different types of camshaft timing drive: - Chain drive with hydraulic tensioner. This is the standard configuration for this engine. - Chain drive with friction tensioner. - Wet belt drive. - Dry belt drive. Testing was conducted to allow the differences in friction between the different drive configurations to be calculated, by comparing each camshaft drive against the standard chain drive system.

An unmodified, conventionally fuelled, 2009 Class D vehicle with a 2.0L turbocharged gasoline direct injection engine was operated on a range of gasoline, gasoline-ethanol and gasoline-butanol fuel blends over NEDC drive cycles and WOT power curves on a chassis dynamometer. Engine performance, engine management system parameters and vehicle out emissions were recorded to investigate the response of a current state-of-the-art technology vehicle to various alcohol fuel blends. The vehicle fired on all fuels and was capable of adapting its long term fuelling trim to cope with the increased fuel flow demand for alcohol fuels up to E85. Over the NEDC tests, the volumetric fuel consumption was very strongly related to the calorific content of the fuel. CO and NOx emissions were largely unaffected for the mid alcohol blends, but CO emissions decreased and NOx emissions increased significantly for the high alcohol fuels. THC emissions were largely unaffected.

Present automobile development is keenly focused on measures to reduce the CO2 output of vehicles. Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) enable grid electricity, which is clean in tail-pipe emissions terms, to be utilised whilst the on-board electrical storage has sufficient charge. MAHLE Powertrain and Protean have jointly developed a plug-in hybrid demonstrator vehicle based on a C-segment passenger car. The vehicle features Protean’s compact direct drive in-wheel motors with integrated inverters on the rear axle and retains the standard gasoline engine, and manual transmission, on the front axle. To support this one-off prototype, a flexible vehicle control unit has been developed, which is easily re-configurable and adaptable to any hybrid vehicle architecture.

Concerns over greenhouse gas emissions are driving governments and the automotive industry to seek out ways of reducing vehicle CO₂ emissions. Engine friction reduction is one means of reducing CO₂ emissions, through fuel consumption improvements. The ancillary drive system typically contributes up to 8% of the total engine friction level, so improvements in this system can make a real difference to engine efficiency, fuel consumption and CO₂ emissions. Mahle has undertaken a series of rig tests, based on a 2.5-liter gasoline engine, but built to a minimum friction level of hardware. Using motored drive torques, the losses associated with different alternator drive concepts was investigated: - Standard 150A alternator, - Reduced capacity 120A alternator, - Reduced capacity 120A alternator driven by a dual speed gearbox, and - Reduced capacity 120A alternator driven by a twin-belt dual ratio pulley.

This paper forms the third of a series and presents results obtained during the testing and development phase of a dedicated range-extender engine designed for use in a compact-class vehicle. The first paper in this series used real-world drive logs to identify usage patterns of such vehicles and a driveline model was used to determine the power output requirements of a range-extender engine for this application. The second paper presented the results of a design study. Key attributes for the engine were identified, these being minimum package volume, low weight, low cost, and good NVH. A description of the selection process for identifying the appropriate engine technology to satisfy these attributes was given and the resulting design highlights were described. The paper concluded with a presentation of the resulting specification and design highlights of the engine. This paper will present the resulting engine performance characteristics.

Concerns over greenhouse gas emissions are driving governments and the automotive industry to seek out ways of reducing vehicle CO₂ emissions. Engine friction reduction is one means of reducing CO₂ emissions, through fuel consumption improvements. One area where it is felt that friction reduction is possible is in connection with the camshaft bearings. Mahle has conducted experimental evaluation of rolling element bearings used to support camshafts, replacing the standard plain journal bearings. The aim of the testing was to gain an understanding of the durability of rolling element bearings, tested in a range of different operating conditions. The controlled test conditions included variations to: - Camshaft speed, - Oil temperature, - Oil age/specification, - Oil supply method/flowrate, - Bearing journal line bore misalignment tolerance, and - Bearing journal diametrical tolerance.

Concerns over greenhouse gas emissions are driving governments and the automotive industry to seek out ways of reducing vehicle CO₂ emissions. Engine friction reduction is one means of reducing CO₂ emissions, through fuel consumption improvements. One area where it is felt that friction reduction is possible is in connection with the camshaft bearings. The use of rolling element bearings is generally considered to provide friction reductions by two means: 1. As a direct substitution of the journal bearings by rolling element bearings and 2. As an enabling opportunity to reduce the oil flow requirement of the engine. MAHLE has undertaken a motored friction-testing program on a 2.5-liter gasoline engine, comparing the drive torques associated with the standard camshaft bearings and also with camshafts supported by rolling element bearings. The test engine incorporated a direct-acting valve train design.

The automobile industry is under intense pressure to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions of vehicles. There is also increasing pressure to reduce the other tail-pipe emissions from vehicles to combat air pollution. Electric powertrains offer great potential for eliminating tailpipe CO2 and all other tailpipe emissions. However, current battery technology and recharging infrastructure still present limitations for some applications, where a continuous high-power demand is required. Furthermore, not all markets have the infrastructure to support a sizeable electric fleet and until the grid energy generation mix is of a sufficiently low carbon intensity, then significant vehicle life-cycle CO2 savings could not be realized by the Battery Electric Vehicles. This investigation examines the effects of combustion, efficiencies, and emissions of two alcohol fuels that could help to significantly reduce CO2 in both tailpipe and the whole life cycle.

Emissions legislation, fleet CO₂ targets and customer demands are driving the requirements for reducing fuel consumption. This is being achieved in the gasoline market in the near term through the adoption of engine downsizing. In order to reduce fuel consumption further and in the wider real-world operating region complimentary technologies are being investigated and applied to an extreme downsized engine. In this paper future gasoline engine technologies are applied and experimentally assessed in terms of fuel consumption improvement whilst the impact of subsequent loadings on the thermal management system have been simulated, both over drive cycle and using real-world drive data.

The open MAHLE Flexible ECU (MFE) was developed and successfully implemented for controlling gasoline, diesel and hybrid engines. The increased demand of new functions development to address future powertrain challenges, such as lower fuel consumption, ever more stringent emissions legislative targets as well as the need to reduce development time and cost at the same time, led to the incorporation of the MFE functions in a co-simulation environment. The co-simulation environment consists of using the virtual engine developed with 1D or 3D numerical simulation tools and the functions of MFE developed with Simulink-Targetlink. This co-simulation approach allows modifying either the engine control or the engine itself. Regarding the engine control and its development, the existing and new functions were tested for the performance, emissions and behaviour changes on several production and prototype engines.

Today the light-duty commercial market is dominated by internal combustion engine powered vehicles, primarily diesel-powered delivery vans, which contribute to urban air quality issues. Global concerns regarding climate change have prompted zero emission vehicles to be mandatory in many markets as soon as 2035. For the light-duty commercial vehicle sector there is significant interest in pure electric vehicles. However, for some markets, or usage cases, electric vehicles may not be the best solution due to practical limitations of battery energy storage capacity or recharging times. For such applications there is growing interest in hydrogen fuel cells as a zero emissions alternative. Bramble Energy’s patented printed circuit board (PCB) fuel cell technology (PCBFC™) enables the use of cost-effective production methods and materials from the PCB industry to reduce the cost and complexity of manufacturing hydrogen fuel cell stacks.

This paper investigates the energy efficiency and emissions benefits possible with connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs). Such benefits could be instrumental in decarbonising the transport sector. The impact of CAV technology on operation, usage and specification of vehicles for optimised energy efficiency is considered. Energy consumption reductions of 55% – 66% are identified for a fully autonomous road transport system versus the present. 46% is possible for a CAV on today’s roads. Smoothing effects and reduced stoppage in the drive cycle achieve a 31% reduction in travel time if speed limits are not reduced. CAV powertrain optimised for different scenarios requires just 10 kW – 40 kW maximum power whilst the vehicle mass is reduced by up to 40% relative to current cars. Urban-optimised powertrain, with only 10 kW – 15 kW maximum power, allows energy consumption reductions of over 71%.

In 2012 MAHLE Powertrain developed a range-extended electric vehicle (REEV) demonstrator, based on a series hybrid configuration, and uses a battery to store electrical energy from the grid. Once the battery state of charge (SOC) is depleted a gasoline engine (range extender) is activated to provide the energy required to propel the vehicle. As part of the continuing development of this vehicle, MAHLE Powertrain has developed control software which can intelligently manage the use of the battery energy through the combined use of GPS and road topographical data. Advanced knowledge of the route prior to the start of a journey enables the software to calculate the SOC throughout the journey and pre-determine the optimum operating strategy for the range extender to enable best charging efficiency and minimize NVH. The software can also operate without a pre-determined route being selected.

Vehicle manufacturers are experiencing a shift in legislation and customer attitudes towards powertrain technologies. To support the pathway towards net-zero emissions by 2050, technologies that significantly reduce CO2 emissions will be needed. This will require increasing levels of electrification, and in the areas of compact cars and urban transportation, the adoption of pure battery electric powertrains is expected to become the dominant technology. For large passenger cars and light commercial vehicles (LCVs) meeting all customer requirements, including range, payload, towing capability, and purchase cost with a pure electric vehicle is challenging and requires the use of heavy and expensive battery packs, which have a high embedded CO2 content. The study builds on the work previously presented on the MAHLE modular hybrid powertrain (MMHP) concept and examines the suitability of this powertrain configuration to meet the future needs of large passenger cars and LCVs.