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In the quest for cleaner air, there are numerous approaches in various stages of study, development and implementation. Despite stringent clean air regulations, which have reduced previously uncontrolled engine exhaust emissions by more than 10 fold, the population of pollution sources is growing faster than the reduction in the pollution rate per source. Various alternatives include cleaner fuels and alternative fuels, cleaner engines and alternative engines, as well as bold proposals such as electrical power or hydrogen as a fuel, which offer some measure of improvement. However, most efforts to date appear to fall in the category of too little, too late or too costly. It is concluded that a major changeover to natural gas as an alternative fuel for use in most engines, with a program that includes retrofit of old engines and modification of new engines to utilize natural gas, offers an effective and rational solution.

Increasing emphasis on natural gas as a clean, economical, and abundant fuel, encourages the search for the optimum approach to management of fuel, air and combustion to achieve the best results in power, fuel economy and low exhaust emissions. Electronic injection of fuel directly into the throttle body, intake ports or directly into the cylinder offers important advantages over carburetion or mixing valves. This is particularly true in the case of installations in which the gas supply is available at several atmospheres pressure above maximum intake manifold pressure. The use of choked-flow pulse- width-modulated electronic injectors offers precision control over the engine operating range with a wide variety of options for both stoichiometric and lean bum applications. A complete system utilizing commercially available components together with the application, calibration and engine mapping techniques is described.

Natural gas is a low cost, abundant and clean burning fuel. Current internal combustion engines can be readily adapted to use natural gas fuel either in conjunction with conventional liquid fuels or as dedicated systems. Use of modern electronic controls allows consideration of new engine management strategies that are not practical or even possible with mechanical systems. The preferred approach is pre-mixed lean burn with cylinder-by-cylinder fuel injection and full time control of optimized air/fuel ratio and ignition.

Dual-fuel pilot ignited natural gas engines have several intrinsic advantages relative to spark ignited; mainly higher thermal efficiency and lower conversion costs. The major drawback is associated with light loads. This paper discusses objectives, approaches, methods and results of the development of strategies which overcome the drawbacks and enhance the advantages. Development of a pilot fuel injection system, having a delivery of only 1 mm3 at a duration of 0.6 ms, was described in a previous paper. This paper concentrates on the results of strategies to reduce unburned methane in the exhaust and to increase the substitution of gas at light loads through skip-fire, by-passing boost air and exhaust gas recirculation techniques. Engine tests proved that with these strategies, diesel fuel replacement of more than 95% over the entire engine operating map, including idle, can be achieved and current and anticipated future emission standards satisfied.

The paper discusses objectives, approaches and results of the development of a pilot fuel injection system (FIS) for a dedicated, compression ignition, high-speed, heavy duty natural gas/diesel engine. The performance of the pilot FIS is crucial for the success of a dual fuel concept. The Servojet electro-hydraulic, accumulator type fuel system was chosen for the pilot fuel injection. An alternative pilot FIS based on the “water hammer” (WH) effect was also considered. The modifications to a stock 17 min injector is described. Three different types of pilot injector nozzle were investigated: standard Valve Covered Orifice (VCO), modified minisac and new designed, unthrottled pintle. Preliminary results from engine tests proved that the optimum pilot fuel quantity is the minimum quantity. Based on that finding, the pilot FIS design was further optimized.

This paper describes an integrated approach to the reduction of three pollutants; HC, CO, and NOx, as well as the soluble organic fraction of particulate matter emitted from engines operating with excess air. This technology is applicable to all lean burn engines and is particularly pertinent to natural gas, methane, and propane fueled engines due to the difficulty of catalytic oxidation of low molecular weight hydrocarbons, such as methane. The technology uses existing catalytic materials and combines a novel approach to thermal management of the catalyst bed. Additionally, a HC rich exhaust serves as a reducing agent for a deNOx catalyst as well as a source of chemical energy to heat the catalyst. This paper will detail the configuration of the catalyst system during testing, the test conditions under which the unit was run, and the results of emissions reduction and mechanical integrity tests.

Emissions from trucks and buses equipped with Caterpillar dual-fuel natural gas (DFNG) engines were measured at two chassis dynamometer facilities: the West Virginia University (WVU) Transportable Emissions Laboratory and the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LA MTA). Emissions were measured over four different driving cycles. The average emissions from the trucks and buses using DFNG engines operating in dual-fuel mode showed the same trends in all tests - reduced oxides of nitrogen (NOx) and particulate matter (PM) emissions and increased hydrocarbon and carbon monoxide (CO) emissions - when compared to similar diesel trucks and buses. The extent of NOx reduction was dependent on the type of test cycle used.