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In recent years, although experiment technologies on real engines and simulation technologies has been improved rapidly, the tribology contributing factors have not been quantitatively well evaluated to reveal critical lubrication failure mechanisms. In this study the oil film thickness of the main bearings in multicylinder diesel engines was measured, and the data was analyzed using response surface methodology, which is a statistical analysis methods used to quantitatively derive the factors affecting oil film thickness and the extent of their contribution. We found that the factor with the strongest effect on minimum oil film thickness is oil pressure. Lastly, as a verification test, bearing wear on the main bearings was compared under various oil pressure conditions. Clear differences in bearing wear were identified.

Understanding and prediction of flash-boiling spray behavior in gasoline direct-injection (GDI) engines remains a challenge. In this study, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations using the homogeneous relaxation model (HRM) for not only internal nozzle flow but also external spray were evaluated using CONVERGE software and compared to experimental data. High-speed extinction imaging experiments were carried out in a real-size axial-hole transparent nozzle installed at the tip of machined GDI injector fueled with n-pentane under various ambient pressure conditions (Pa/Ps = 0.07 - 1.39). The width of the spray during injection was assessed by means of projected liquid volume, but the structure and timing for boil-off of liquid within the sac of the injector were also assessed after the end of injection, including cases with different designed sac volumes.

An accurate prediction of internal nozzle flow in fuel injector offers the potential to improve predictions of spray computational fluid dynamics (CFD) in an engine, providing a coupled internal-external calculation or by defining better rate of injection (ROI) profile and spray angle information for Lagrangian parcel computations. Previous research has addressed experiments and computations in transparent nozzles, but less is known about realistic multi-hole diesel injectors compared to single axial-hole fuel injectors. In this study, the transient injector opening and closing is characterized using a transparent multi-hole diesel injector, and compared to that of a single axial hole nozzle (ECN Spray D shape). A real-size five-hole acrylic transparent nozzle was mounted in a high-pressure, constant-flow chamber. Internal nozzle phenomena such as cavitation and gas exchange were visualized by high-speed long-distance microscopy.

The noise-generating mechanism of a reciprocating air compressor for heavy duty vehicles during idling was investigated. It was elucidated that the gear rattling noise of the air compressor drive gear train caused by the negative value of the air compressor drive torque was a major noise source. To completely suppress the gear rattling phenomenon, a new loading device with an air cylinder that cancels the negative value of the air compressor drive torque was fabricated. When the loading device was worked, the impulsive sound level was reduced to 10 dB(A). It was found that the impulsive sound level during gear rattling is closely related to the difference in gear teeth velocity between the crankshaft gear and the air compressor drive gear, as one of the characteristics that are needed to obtain a guide for carrying out estimations in the calculation simulation.

Since in-cylinder flame temperature has a direct effect on an engine's NOx characteristics, these phenomena have been studied in detail in a DI diesel engine using a newly developed method allowing the in-cylinder temperature distribution to be measured by the two color method. The flame light introduced from the visualized combustion chamber of the engine is divided into two colors by filters. The images of combustion phenomena using the two wavelengths are recorded with a framing streak camera which includes a CCD camera. The flame temperature is immediately calculated by a computer using two color images from the CCD camera. A parameter study was then carried out to determine the influence of intake valve number of the engine, and fuel injection rate (pilot injection) on the in-cylinder temperature distribution.

A newly developed OHC (Over-Head Camshaft) prototype of a six-cylinder in-line diesel engine (with bore size: 114mm, stroke size: 130mm) was studied, comparing with the previous version of OHV (Over-Head Valve) type engine (with bore size: 110mm, stroke size: 130mm). It was found that the new type of cylinder block (with 130.8 kg of mass) has significantly lower natural frequencies than those for the previous type of cylinder block (with 133.2 kg of mass). Furthermore, slightly more predominant engine noise and vibration were induced in the new engine. The vibration behavior and the excitation force transmission characteristics were investigated by EMA (Experimental Modal Analysis). We performed a series of impact tests for (1) free-free cylinder block, (2) free-free crankshaft substructure with torsional damper and flywheel attached, and (3) the case where (1) and (2) are assembled together.

Recently, exhaust emission has been enforced on diesel engines for the countermeasure of environmental problems. Accordingly, the cylinder pressure in the engine is being increased to improve fuel efficiency, the engine bearings must be used under severe conditions of high specific load. Because the connecting rod bearings, particularly of diesel engines, are used at high specific loads that exceed 100 MPa, elastic deformation of the bearing surface occurs, and the oil film thickness decreases at the edges of the bearing length in the axial direction. This causes the bearings to contact with the crankshaft, thus resulting in the wear of the bearings, which could even result in seizure. The following factors contribute to seizure: bearing materials, bearing shapes, machining methods, and incorrect assembly. Focusing on these factors, this study evaluated the behaviors exhibited by connecting rod bearings in actual engines by using the rig testers.

Heavy duty vehicles take a large role in providing global logistics. It is required to have both high durability and reduced CO2 from the viewpoint of global environment conservation. Therefore lubricating oils for transmission and axle/differential gear box are required to have excellent protection and longer drain intervals. However, it is also necessary that the gear oil maintain suitable friction performance for the synchronizers of the transmission. Even with such good performance, both transmission and axle/differential gear box lubricants must balance cost and performance, in particular in the Asian market. The development of gear oil additives for high reliability gear oil must consider the available base oils in various regions as the additive is a global product. In many cases general long drain gear oils for heavy duty vehicles use the group III or IV base oils, but it is desirable to use the group I/II base oils in terms of cost and availability.

In the Japanese heavy duty truck market, demands of improved fuel economy and lighter vehicles to increase load capacity, and further improvements in emissions are constantly increasing. To satisfy these requirements, basically a smaller sized and higher boosted diesel engine is effective, because such an engine has a compact size and light weight, and shows improved fuel consumption due to a relatively lower frictional loss. On the basis of this concept Hino introduced the original EP100 in 1981 as the first Japanese turbocharged and air to air charge-cooled engine. Since then Hino has made many efforts to improve the engines and develop new technologies.

This paper describes the investigation of the mechanisms of engine front noise generation and the corresponding countermeasures employed in the development of Hino's medium duty diesel engine. The engine front noise, which had a noise peak in the 630 Hz 1/3 octave band, was investigated by experiment and it was concluded that there were two mechanisms as follows: 1) Combustion pressure excites the crankshaft. Noise is generated by the crankshaft pulley which vibrates with the crankshaft system mode shapes. 2) The cavity between the torsional damper and the timing gear case resonates as a result of the vibration of the torsional damper. Noise caused by the acoustic resonance is emitted to the front of the engine. Using both experimental and analytical methods, crankshaft vibration and acoustic resonance were reduced, thus yielding a substantial noise reduction.

For most light-weight, high-power high-speed engines, slight differences in the pulley size and flywheel size can cause significant differences in engine structure noise and vibrations. In this research, a four-cylinder in-line (turbocharged) diesel engine of 1.7 liter (4-79x86) capacity for passenger cars was used. The vibration behavior of the total crankshaft system was intentionally changed by attaching five kinds of front pullies, each with different masses and moments of inertia. The influences of the pulley's dimensions on crankshaft vibration behavior and on the excitation transmission behavior from the crankshaft to the engine structure were examined. The crankshaft axial vibration at the pulley, the cylinder block surface accelerations, and the engine noise level were measured simultaneously under firing conditions.

In most high-speed engines, the crankshaft systems can become one of the most dangerous excitation sources. Since the crankshaft has significant kinetic and elastic (potential) energy, and is subjected directly to the impulsive excitation forces, significant engine structure noise and vibrations can often be caused. However, all excitation forces would be transmitted from the rotating crankshaft system to the engine structure only through the crankshaft main bearings. To investigate the excitation interaction between the crankshaft system and the engine structure, and the correlation between the crankshaft vibrations and the engine structure noise and vibrations, three phenomena were measured: (1) the crankshaft three-dimensional vibration behavior, (2) the vibration behavior of each crank journal main bearing, and (3) the engine structure noise at 1 m from the engine side.

In a heavy-duty engine with solid-structure crankshaft (in which all crank-throws are arranged radially in different planes), since a torsional deformation in one crank-throw can induce axial and bending deformations in other crank-throws, significant bending stresses can be induced at particular portions in the crankshaft by crankshaft torsional vibrations. In this paper, the correlation between the crankshaft torsional vibrations and the dynamic bending stresses at the front and rear fillets of the No. 1 crank-pin under operating conditions were investigated for a Vee-type 10-cylinder diesel engine. The dynamic bending stresses at the front and rear fillet of the No. 1 crank-pin in the crank-throw plane, and the torsional vibrations at the front end of the crank-pulley, were simultaneously measured under firing conditions. The three-dimensional vibration behavior of the crankshaft was calculated by the dynamic stiffness matrix method.

To decrease the noise and vibration of an engine powerplant, the three-dimensional vibration behavior of the crankshaft system must be clarified precisely. However, the description of dynamic behavior in fixed coordinates would be extremely complex, since many time-variable parameters must be introduced in the equation of motion for the rotating crankshaft. In this research, the vibration behavior of a rotating crankshaft system was analyzed by a rotating coordinate system attached to the crankshaft system: (1) by deriving the time-invariable characteristic matrices of multi-degrees of freedom for the crankshaft system, and (2) by calculating the forced vibration behavior of the crankshaft system under operating conditions.

Crankshaft torsional dampers are increasingly being used for the gasoline engines of compact cars as well as for ordinary high speed diesel and gasoline engines. Recently, so-called bending dampers are sometimes attached to the torsional dampers to reduce the bending and axial vibrations. To investigate the influence of such crankshaft torsional and bending dampers on the crankshaft vibrations, we first designed three kinds of dampers, each for the reduction of the crankshaft vibration, in the torsional, axial, and radial directions. Next, we developed two kinds of dampers for the simultaneous reduction in the torsional and axial modes, and in the torsional and radial direction modes. We measured the three-dimensional vibrations for both the dampers and the crankshaft, under engine operating conditions, A four-cylinder in-line diesel engine (4 - ϕ 115 x 110) was used for the experiments.

Torsional dampers have been attached to engine crankshafts only for the control of the crankshaft torsional vibrations. However, a torsional damper is a mass-spring system of three-dimensions, so the torsional damper could exert some influence on the three-dimensional vibrations of the crankshaft system. Since the inertia ring of the torsional damper has moments of inertia and it rotates with the crankshaft, gyroscopic vibrations of the inertia ring can also be generated. For a V-type ten-cylinder diesel engine (V- 10, ϕ119 × 150), the three-dimensional vibrations of the crankshaft system were calculated by the dynamic stiffness matrix method, taking account of the influence of the gyroscopic vibrations of the inertia ring of the torsional damper. The dynamic bending stresses were measured at the fillets of both the No.1 crank journal and the No.1 crank pin in the No.1 crank throw plane.

A historical review of Japanese turbocharged diesel engines for heavy duty vehicles is described, and newly developed turbocharged diesel engines of HINO are introduced. The design features of these engines include new turbocharging technologies such as highly backward curved impeller for compressor blade, variable controlled inertia charging and waste gate. Laboratory and field test results demonstrated better fuel economy and improved low speed and transient torque characteristics than the predecessors. Several operational experiences, technical analysis and reliability problems are discussed.

The friction pattern on the chamfers of sleeves and dog gears is a combination of peeling and adhesive wear caused by the formation and propagation of fine cracks. The effect of additional elements on wear were checked by making a test apparatus capable of performing evaluations on test pieces equivalent to those using actual parts. The results showed that the addition of B, Ti-Nb helped improve wear resistance. This is attributed to enhanced toughness and reduced peeling due to the formation of a texture. A 45% reduction in wear was achieved in actual parts tests on steel with added B, Ti-Nb.

The coupling behavior of the torsional, bending, and longitudinal vibrations in the crankshaft is described. The incidental excitation forces under crankshaft torsional vibration due to reciprocating and rotating masses are derived theoretically. Experiments on the coupling behavior of the crankshaft vibrations and the excitation behavior in the engine structure were performed in a four-cylinder automotive engine; their results are discussed.

Tooth contact marking of gears is an important quality characteristic that affects tooth strength and gear noise. Tooth contact marking measurement is generally done by painting the tooth surfaces of two meshed gears, rotating the gears and visually observing contact marks. Since it requires much working hours and experience to judge such a measurement, a method of measuring contact tooth markers by image processing has been developed. In this measurement method, the tooth surfaces of rotating gears are continuously observed by a TV camera, and the images are stored in an image memory device. Such quantities as the tooth surface size and tooth surface brightness level are set as initial settings, and the set values are compared with the observed images by a microcomputer to give the results of the measurement.