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Homogeneous Charge Induced Ignition (HCII) combustion utilizes a port injection of high-volatile fuel to form a homogeneous charge and a direct injection of high ignitable fuel near the Top Dead Center (TDC) to trigger combustion. Compared to Conventional Diesel Combustion (CDC) with high injection pressures, HCII has the potential to achieve diesel-like thermal efficiency with significant reductions in NOx and PM emissions with relatively low-pressure injections, which would benefit the engine cost saving remarkably. In the first part of current investigation, experiments were conducted at medium load with single diesel injection strategy. HCII exhibited great potential of using low injection pressures to achieve low soot emissions. But the engine load for HCII was limited by high heat release rate. Thus, in the second and third part, experiments were performed at high and low load with double diesel injection strategy.

The combustion characteristics and soot emissions of three types of fuels were studied in a high pressure and temperature vessel. In order to achieve better volatility, proper cetane number and high oxygen content, the newly designed WDEP fuel was proposed and investigated. It is composed of wide distillation fuel (WD), PODE3-6 mixture (PODEn) and ethanol. For comparison, the test on WD and the mixture of PODEn-ethanol (EP) are also conducted. OH* chemiluminescence during the combustion was measured and instantaneous PLII was also applied to reveal the soot distribution. Abel transformation was adopted to calculate the total soot of axisymmetric flame. The results show that WDEP has similar ignition delays and flame lift-off lengths to those of WD at 870-920 K. But the initial ignition locations of WDEP flame in different cycles were more concentrated, particularly under the condition of low oxygen atmosphere.

In this paper, the differences between multi-hole and single-hole spray contour under the same conditions were compared by using high-speed photography. The difference between the contour area of multi-hole and that of single-hole spray was used as a parameter to describe the degree of spray collapse. Three dimensionless parameters (i.e. degree of superheat, degree of undercooling, and nozzle pressure ratio) were applied to characterize inside-nozzle thermodynamic, outside-nozzle thermodynamic and kinetic factors, respectively. In addition, the relationship between the three dimensionless parameters and the spray collapse was analyzed. A semi-empirical equation was proposed for evaluation of the degree of collapse based on dimensionless parameters of flash and non-flash boiling sprays respectively.

Combustion visualizations were carried out in a constant volume vessel to study the partially premixed combustion of a gasoline-like fuel using high speed imaging. The test fuel (G80H20) is composed by volume 80% commercial gasoline and 20% n-heptane. The effects of ambient gas composition, ambient temperature and injection pressure on G80H20 combustion characteristics were analyzed. Meanwhile, a comparison of the EGR effect on combustion process between G80H20 and diesel was made. Four ambient gas conditions that represent the in-cylinder gas compositions of a heavy-duty diesel engine with EGR ratios of 0%, 20%, 40% and 60% were used to simulate EGR conditions. Variables also include two ambient temperature (910K and 870K) and two injection pressure (20 MPa and 50 MPa) conditions.

Dieseline combustion as a concept combines the advantages of gasoline and diesel by offline or online blending the two fuels. Dieseline has become an attractive new compression ignition combustion concept in recent years and furthermore an approach to a full-boiling-range fuel. High speed imaging with near-parallel backlit light was used to investigate the spray characteristics of dieseline and pure fuels with a common rail diesel injection system in a constant volume vessel. The results were acquired at different blend ratios, and at different temperatures and back pressures at an injection pressure of 100MPa. The penetrations and the evaporation states were compared with those of gasoline and diesel. The spray profile was analyzed in both area and shape with statistical methods. The effect of gasoline percentage on the evaporation in the fuel spray was evaluated.

Super-knock has been a significant obstacle for the development of highly turbocharged (downsized) gasoline engines with spark ignition, due to the catastrophic damage super-knock can cause to the engine. According to previous research by the authors, one combustion process leading to super-knock may be described as hot-spot induced pre-ignition followed by deflagration which can induce detonation from another hot spot followed by high pressure oscillation. The sources of the hot spots which lead to pre-ignition (including oil films, deposits, gas-dynamics, etc.) may occur sporadically, which leads to super-knock occurring randomly at practical engine operating conditions. In this study, a spark plasma was used to induce preignition and the correlation between super-knock combustion and the thermodynamic state of the reactant mixture was investigated in a four-cylinder production gasoline engine.

Although energy harvesting systems are extensively used in different fields, studies on the application of energy harvesters embedded in tires for vehicle control are rare and mostly focus on solving power supply problems of tire pressure sensors. Sensors are traditionally powered by an embedded battery, which must be replaced periodically because of its limited energy storage. Heightened interest in vehicle safety is expected to drive increased design and manufacture of in-tire sensors, which in turn, translates to rising demand for power generation in tires. These challenges emphasize the need to investigate the substitution of batteries and in-tire energy harvesting systems. Current in-tire energy harvesting methods involve piezoelectric, electromagnetic, and electrostatic power generation, whose energy sources include tire vibrations, deformations, and rotations. Piezoelectric harvesters are generally compact but operate for short durations.

An appropriate fault diagnosis and Isolation (FDI) strategy is very useful to prevent system failure. In this paper, a model-based fault diagnosis strategy is developed for an internal combustion engine (ICE) under speed control. Engine throttle fault and the manifold pressure sensor fault are detected and isolated. A nonlinear observer based residual generation approach is proposed. Manifold pressure and throttle are observed. Fault codes are designed with redundancy to prevent bit error. Performance of fault diagnosis strategy has been evaluated with simulations.

Atomization of fuel sprays is a key factor in controlling the combustion quality in the direct-injection engines. In this present work, the effect of saturation ratio (Rs) on the near nozzle spray patterns of ethanol was investigated using an ultra-high speed imaging technique. The Rs range covered both flash-boiling and non-flash boiling regions. Ethanol was injected from a single-hole injector into an optically accessible constant volume chamber at a fixed injection pressure of 40 MPa with different fuel temperatures and back pressures. High-speed imaging was performed using an ultrahigh speed camera (1 million fps) coupled with a long-distance microscope. Under non-flash boiling conditions, the effect of Rs on fuel development was small but observable. Clear fuel collision can be observed at Rs=1.5 and 1.0. Under the flash boiling conditions, near-nozzle spray patterns were significant different from the non-flash boiling ones.

A conceptual approach to help understand and simulate droplet induced pre-ignition is presented. The complex phenomenon of oil-fuel droplet induced pre-ignition has been decomposed to its elementary processes. This approach helps identify the key fluid properties and engine parameters that affect the pre-ignition phenomenon, and could be used to control LSPI. Based on the conceptual model, a 3D CFD engine simulation has been developed which is able to realistically model all of the elementary processes involved in droplet induced pre-ignition. The simulation was successfully able to predict droplet induced pre-ignition at conditions where the phenomenon has been experimentally observed. The simulation has been able to help explain the observation of pre-ignition advancement relative to injection timing as experimentally observed in a previous study [6].

The spray characteristics is the key to achieve the clean combustion in diesel engines and the in-cylinder conditions are one of the factors affecting the spray process. In this work, the diesel spray characteristics were studied over a range of injection pressures and ambient pressures in a constant volume chamber and a single-hole common rail diesel injector was used. The present work is to decouple the effects of ambient pressure and ambient density on near-field spray processes by using different ambient gas (N2, and CO2). The spray processes were captured by a Photron SA X2 camera with speed of 300,000 fps and resolution of 256 by 80 pixels. The spray processes were analyzed in terms of penetration length and spray tip velocity. Difference in penetration length and tip velocity were found at the same ambient density and/or ambient pressure when different ambient gases were used.

This research focuses on the potential of Homogeneous Charge Induced Ignition (HCII) combustion meeting the Euro V emission standard on a heavy-duty multi-cylinder engine using a simple after-treatment system. However, in our previous studies, it was found that the gasoline ratio was limited in HCII by the over-high compression ratio (CR). In this paper, the effects of reducing CR on the performances of HCII at medium and high loads were explored by experimental methods. It was found that by reducing CR from 18:1 to 16:1 the peak in-cylinder pressure and the peak pressure rise rate were effectively reduced and the gasoline ratio range could be obviously extended. Thus, the combustion and emission characteristics of HCII at medium and high loads were noticeably improved. Soot emissions can be significantly reduced because of the increase of premixed combustion ratio. The reduction could be over 50% especially at high load and high speed conditions.

Experimentally derived brain response envelopes are needed to evaluate and validate existing finite element (FE) head models. Motion of the brain relative to the skull during rotational input was measured using high-speed biplane x-ray. To generate repeatable, reproducible, and scalable data, methods were developed to reduce experimental variance. An “extreme-energy” device was developed to provide a controlled input that is unaffected by specimen characteristics. Additionally, a stereotactic frame was used to deploy radiopaque markers at specific, pre-determined locations within the brain. One post-mortem human surrogate (PMHS) head specimen was subjected to repeat tests of a half-sine rotational speed pulse in the sagittal plane. The desired pulse had a peak angular speed of 40 rad/s and duration of 30 ms. Relative motion of the brain was quantified using radiopaque targets and high-speed biplane x-ray. Frontal and occipital intracranial pressure (ICP) were also measured.

In this research, propane flash boiling sprays discharged from a five-hole gasoline direct injector were studied in a constant volume vessel. The fuel temperature (Tfuel) ranged from 30 °C to 90 °C, and the ambient pressure (Pamb) varied from 0.05 bar to 11.0 bar. Different flash boiling spray behavior compared to that under sub-atmospheric conditions was found at high Pamb. Specifically, at the sub-atmospheric pressures, the individual flashing jets merged into one single jet due to the strong spray collapse. In contrast, at Pamb above 3.0 bar and Tfuel above 50 °C, the spray collapse was mitigated and the flashing jets were separated from each other. Further analyses revealed that the mitigation of spray collapse at high Pamb was ascribed to the suppression of jet expansion. In addition, it was found that the spray structure was much different at similar Rp, indicating that Rp lacked the generality in describing the structure of flash boiling sprays.

This paper describes the modeling, controller development, and implementation of a transmission clutch pressure control system. A nonlinear analytical model for the clutch pressure control system is developed and implemented using Matlab/Simulink, and validated by experimental data. The dominant dynamics are identified via model analysis, and a linear model is derived for controller design. Openloop (feedforward) and closed loop (feedback) pressure control strategies are designed and implemented in a test setup. Experimental results show that the combined feedforward and feedback control gives superior performance as compared to feedforward control alone.

Use of a hydraulic lash adjuster (HLA) in the valve train has some problems as well as several advantages. One of the problems is less stiffness of valve train, which may be further reduced when aeration of the oil in the oil circuit occurs. The much lower stiffness will lead to malfunction, noise and damage with the valve train. So the aeration of oil in HLA high pressure chamber must be considered in modeling and simulation of the valve train. Since air dissolved capacity in the oil varies with pressure, aeration (undissolved air content) in the high pressure chamber is different from that in the oil circuit. So far, only the air content in the oil circuit has been measured, and few reports have been found on determining the aeration in HLA of an operating valve train. Based on knowledge that HLA collapse is caused by compressibility and leakage of oil, a method of determining the aeration of the oil in the high pressure chamber is introduced.

A time-efficient throttle flow data collection method is described. It uses a sonic nozzle flow bench to measure air flow as a function of throttle angle and pressure in a manner analogous to on-engine dynamometer throttle flow characterization. Opening each sonic nozzle combination, then recording throttle downstream pressure and computed nozzle flow allows data to be taken in a fraction of the time normally needed. Throttle flow modeling considerations are then discussed.

In order to meet increasingly stringent fuel consumption and emission regulations, more attentions are paid to improve engine efficiency. A large amount of energy-saving technologies have been applied in automotive field especially in gasoline engines. It is well known that lean burn and ultra-high compression ratio technologies are two basic and important methods to increase efficiency. In this paper, a rapid compression machine was employed to study combustion process of lean iso-octane mixture at ultra-high compression ratios (16 to 19:1). Regardless of flammability of the mixture, spark was triggered at the timing right after the end of compression, then, the flame propagation and/or auto-ignition can be recorded using high-speed photography simultaneously. The effects of equivalence ratio (φ), compression ratio (ε), dilution ratio, and effective temperature (Teff) on the combustion process was investigated.

The current work demonstrates effective suppression of compression system surge instabilities by installing a variable cross-sectional flow area restriction within the inlet duct of a turbocharger centrifugal compressor operating on a bench-top facility. This restriction couples with the compressor, similar to stages in a multi-stage turbomachine, where the effective pressure ratio is the product of those for the restriction and compressor. During experiments at constant compressor rotational speed, the compressor is stable over the negatively sloped portion of the pressure ratio vs. flow rate characteristics, so the restriction is eliminated within this operating region to preserve compressor performance. At low flow rates, the slope of the compressor alone characteristics reaches a positive value, and the unrestricted compression system enters mild surge. Further reduction of flow rate with the unrestricted compressor inlet results in a sudden transition to deep surge instabilities.

Stoichiometric dual-fuel compression ignition (SDCI) combustion has superior potential in both emission control and thermal efficiency. Split injection of diesel reportedly shows superiority in optimizing combustion phase control and increasing flexibility in fuel selection. This study focuses on split injection strategies in SDCI mode. The effects of main injection timing and pilot-to-total ratio are examined. Combustion phasing is found to be retarded in split injection when overmixing occurs as a result of early main injection timing. Furthermore, an optimised split injection timing can avoid extremely high pressure rise rate without great loss in indicated thermal efficiency while maintaining soot emission at an acceptable level. A higher pilot-to-total ratio always results in lower soot emission, higher combustion efficiency, and relatively superior ITE, but improvements are not significant with increased pilot-to-total ratio up to approximately 0.65.