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Emission and performance parameters of a medium size, and medium speed D.I. diesel engine equipped with a Miller System, a new developed High Pressure Exhaust Gas Recirculation System (HPEGR), a Common Rail (CR) system and a Turbocharger with Variable Turbine Geometry (VTG) have been measured and compared to the standard engine. While power output, fuel consumption, soot and other emissions are kept constant, nitric oxide emissions could be reduced by 30 to 50% depending on load and for the optimal combination of methods. Heat release rate analysis provides the reasons for the optimised engine behaviour in terms of soot and NOx emissions: The variable Nozzle Turbocharger helps deliver more oxygen to the combustion process (less soot) and lower the peak gas temperature (less NOx).

In the field of heavy-duty applications almost all engines apply the compression ignition principle, spark ignition is used only in the niche of CNG engines. The main reason for this is the high efficiency advantage of diesel engines over SI engines. Beside this drawback SI engines have some favorable properties like lower weight, simple exhaust gas aftertreatment in case of stoichiometric operation, high robustness, simple packaging and lower costs. The main objective of this fundamental research was to evaluate the limits of a SI engine for heavy-duty applications. Considering heavy-duty SI engines fuel consumption under full load conditions has a high impact on CO₂ emissions. Therefore, downsizing is not a promising approach to improve fuel consumption and consequently the focus of this work lies on the enhancement of thermal efficiency in the complete engine map, intensively considering knocking issues.

Modern electronic engine control systems allow manipulation of many control parameters in order to meet the emissions standards at reasonable fuel consumption. The great number of engine variables lead to very time consuming and expensive studies to determine the optimal combination at each engine operating condition. Compared with the possibilities to control the injection, the quantitative effects of parameter variations on the real processes in a operating combustion chamber and its effects on emissions and fuel consumption are little known. The first part of this paper deals with the problem of optimization of a complex engine control system in a DI-diesel engine. In the second part of this paper a novel optical diagnostic technique is proposed to detect combustion-relevant and controllable parameters such as spray propagation, droplet size and density distribution during injection in a DI-diesel engine combustion chamber.

The potential of Duty Cycle Operation (DCO) of a Spark Ignited (SI) engine on part load has been investigated. DCO keeps an engine running at full throttle in a stop and go mode to speed up a flywheel as a short time energy storage device. So the actual power demand is covered by the flywheel instead of the convenient direct power transfer from the engine. This work includes the calculation of the theoretical potential and preliminary results of a test setup. The results show a clear advantage of fuel consumption at the engine's low power output. The potential of DCO has proved to be higher than that of variable intake valve timing.

Emissions and performance parameters of a medium size, medium speed D.I. diesel engine with increased charge air pressure and reduced but fixed inlet valve opening period have been measured and compared to the standard engine. While power output and fuel consumption are slightly improved, nitric oxide emissions can be reduced by up to 20%. The measurements confirm the results of simulations for both performance and emissions, for which a quasidimensional model including detailed chemistry for nitric oxide prediction has been developed.

This paper describes work done on spark-ignition engine Downsizing and Super-Charging (DSC). Substantial DSC is shown to have a potential for good fuel-economy in SI-engines especially at part-load without compromising in pollutant emission levels. Built into a 4-passenger light-weight car a fuel economy of 67 M/gal (3.5 l/100km) in the European test cycle MVEG-95 was achieved with the potential to satisfy ULEV or Euro IV emission limits.

Electric vehicles today clearly represent the only solution fulfilling the zero emission vehicles (ZEV) standard. However, they are still not an equivalent alternative to gasoline driven cars due to the well known problems of today's batteries. The concept of a parallel hybrid drive line can be an optimal combination of both principles of propulsion in that the gasoline engine guarantees a wide range operation, while electric propulsion can be used within the restricted zero emission zones [20]. The parallel hybrid drive train described here has been realized at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich, Switzerland. For the first time a drive line consisting of a spark ignition engine, an electric asynchronous machine, a flywheel, and a wide range continuously variable transmission (CVT) is realized. An overall control system has been developed for the drive train. This drive line has been integrated in a multi purpose van for real road testing.