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Direct injection (DI) and jet ignition (JI), plus assisted turbocharging, have been demonstrated to deliver high efficiency, high power density positive ignition (PI) internal combustion engines (ICEs) with gasoline. Peak efficiency above 50% and power density of 340 kW/liter at the 15,000 rpm revolution limiter working overall λ=1.45 have been report-ed. Here we explore the further improvement in power density that may be obtained by replacing gasoline with ethanol or methanol, thanks to the higher octane number and the larger latent heat of vaporization, which translates in an increased resistance to knock, and permits to have larger compression ratios. Results of simulations are proposed for a numerical engine that uses rotary valves rather than poppet valves, while also using mechanical, rather than electric, assisted turbocharging. While with gasoline, the power density is 410-420 kW/liter, the use of oxygenates permits to achieve up to 475 kW/liter working with methanol.

Data of battery electric vehicles (BEV) with and without a range extender internal combustion engines (ICE) are reviewed and integrated with weight and performance models. A BEV with an on-board, high efficiency, electricity generator based on positive ignition (PI) ICEs is proposed to improve the uptake of the BEV targeting city commuters while improving their economic and environmental impacts. The small ICE, that is working stationary, fixed load and speed, and the generator similarly optimized for a single point operation, permit an efficiency fuel chemical-to-electric of about 49%. This is much better than producing electricity centralized from combustion fuels (average efficiency with included distribution and recharging losses), and it does not require any electric recharging infrastructure. The range of cars can be extended to about the same values of today's car with traditional combustion engines.

The paper aims to provide an assessment of the Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) combustion, compared to a well-established alternative such as Direct Injection Compression Ignition (DICI) combustion, under the criteria of CO2 emission reduction potential. The assessment is performed by reviewing the relevant literature and analyzing the commercial products available on the market that are featuring these two technologies. DICI engines have demonstrated in the real world the ability to deliver top fuel conversion efficiencies of about 50%, and fuel conversion efficiencies largely above 40% over most of the load and speed range. Research-only HCCI engines have delivered fuel efficiencies well below 40% in the very few carefully selected map points where they working during carefully performed laboratory experiments.

The turbocharged direct injection lean burn Diesel engine is the most efficient now in production for transport applications with full load brake efficiencies up to 40 to 45% and reduced penalties in brake efficiencies reducing the load by the quantity of fuel injected. The secrets of this engine's performances are the high compression ratio and the lean bulk combustion mostly diffusion controlled in addition to the partial recovery of the exhaust energy to boost the charging efficiency. The major downfalls of this engine are the carbon dioxide emissions and the depletion of fossil fuels using fossil diesel, the energy security issues of using foreign fossil fuels in general, and finally the difficulty to meet future emission standards for soot, smoke, nitrogen oxides, carbon oxide and unburned hydrocarbons for the combustion of the fuel injected in liquid state and the lack of maturity the lean after treatment system.

Several race car competitions seek to limit engine power through a rule that requires all of the engine combustion air passes through a hole of prescribed diameter. As the approach and departure wall shapes to this hole, usually termed orifice or restrictor are not prescribed, there is opportunity for innovation in these shapes to obtain maximum flow and therefore power. This paper reports measurements made for a range of restrictor types including venturis with conical inlets and outlets of various angles and the application of slotted throats of the ‘Dall tube’ type. Although normal venturis have been optimized as subsonic flow measuring devices with minimum pressure losses, at the limit the flow in the throat is sonic and the down stream shocks associated with flow transition from sub-sonic to sonic are best handled with sudden angular changes and the boundary layer minimized by the corner slots between the convergent and divergent cones.

Current flexi fuel gasoline and ethanol engines have brake efficiencies generally lower than a dedicated gasoline engines because of the constraints to accommodate a variable mixture of the two fuels. Considering ethanol has a few advantages with reference to gasoline, namely the higher octane number and the larger heat of vaporization, the paper explores the potentials of dedicated pure ethanol engines using the most advanced techniques available for gasoline engines, specifically direct injection, turbo charging and variable valve actuation. Computations are performed with state-of-the-art, well validated, engine and vehicle performance simulations packages, generally accepted to produce accurate results targeting major trends in engine developments. The higher compression ratio and the higher boost permitted by ethanol allows larger top brake efficiencies than gasoline, while variable valve actuation produces small penalties in efficiency changing the load.

Downsizing and Turbo Charging (TC) and Direct Injection (DI) may be combined with Variable Valve Actuation (VVA) to better deal with the challenges of fuel economy enhancement. VVA may control the load without throttle; control the valve directly and quickly; optimize combustion, produce large volumetric efficiency. Benefits lower fuel consumption, lower emissions and better performance and fun to drive. The paper presents an engine model of a 1.6 litre TDI VVA engine specifically designed to run pure ethanol, with computed engine maps for brake specific fuel consumption and efficiency. The paper also presents driving cycle results obtained with a vehicle model for a passenger car powered by this engine and a traditional naturally aspirated gasoline engine. Preliminary results of the VVA system coupled with downsizing, turbo charging and Direct Injection permits significant driving cycle fuel economies.

Jet ignition and direct fuel injection are potential enablers of higher efficiency, cleaner Internal Combustion Engines (ICE). Very lean mixtures of gaseous fuels could be burned with pollutants formation below Euro 6 levels (in the ultra-lean mode), efficiencies approaching 50% full load and small efficiency penalties when operating part load. The lean burn Direct Injection Jet Ignition (DI-JI) ICE uses a fuel injection and mixture ignition system comprising one main chamber direct fuel injector and one small-size jet ignition pre-chamber per engine cylinder. The jet ignition pre-chamber is connected to the main chamber through calibrated orifices and accommodates a second direct fuel injector. In the spark plug version, the jet ignition pre-chamber includes a spark plug that ignites the slightly rich pre-chamber mixture that then bulk ignites the ultra lean, stratified main chamber mixture through multiple jets of hot reacting gases entering the in-cylinder.

Cylinder deactivation has been proposed so far for improved part load operation of large gasoline engines. In all this application, the cylinder deactivation has been achieved keeping the intake and exhaust valves closed for a particular cylinder, with pistons still following their strokes. The paper presents a new mechanism between the piston and the crankshaft to enable selective deactivation of pistons, therefore decoupling the motion of the piston from the rotation of the crankshaft. The reduced friction mean effective pressure of the new technology enables the use of piston deactivation in large engines not necessarily throttle controlled but also controlled by quantity of fuel injected. Results of performance simulations are proposed for a HSDI V8 engine, producing significant savings during light operation.

Variable compression ratio is the technology to adjust internal combustion engine cylinder compression ratio to increase fuel efficiency while under varying loads. The paper presents a new design of a variable compression ratio engine that allows for the volume above the piston at Top Dead Centre (TDC) to be changed. A modeling study is then performed using the WAVE engine performance simulation code for a naturally aspirated gasoline V8 engine. The modeling study shows significant improvements of fuel economy over the full range of loads and especially during light loads operation as well as an improvement of top power and torque outputs.

Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) of alternative transportation fuels clearly shows the advantages of reducing the use of non renewable fossil fuels vs. renewable biologic novel fuels to reduce the emissions of carbon dioxide. Being based on the natural recycle of carbon dioxide through the use of renewable energy sources, use of these renewable fuels do not imply depletion of natural resources and is therefore sustainable in the long term. Renewable fuels and advanced internal combustion engines and powertrains are the technologies that in addition to be the most likely to produce benefits in term of carbon balance and fossil fuel saving, are also those that unequivocally have the smallest ecological footprint considering all the environmental implication of transportation technologies, with all the other more exotic solutions having much higher environmental costs to produce, use and dispose of alternative transportation technologies.

Prior papers have shown the potentials of gasoline-like internal combustion engines fitted with waste heat recovery systems (WHR) to deliver Diesel-like steady state fuel conversion efficiencies recovering the exhaust and the coolant waste heat with off-the-shelf components. In addition to the pros of the technology significantly increasing steady state efficiencies - up to 5 % in absolute values and much more in relative values - these papers also mentioned the cons of the technology, increased back pressures, increased weight, more complex packaging, more complex control, troublesome transient operation, and finally the cold start issues that prevent the uptake of the technology. This paper further explores the option to use Rankine cycle systems to improve the fuel economy of vehicles under normal driving conditions. A single Rankine cycle system is integrated here with the engine design.

The paper presents a novel concept of very efficient transportation engines for operation with CNG, LNG or LPG. The combustion system permits mixed diesel/gasoline-like operation changing the load by quantity of fuel injected and modulating the premixed and diffusion combustion phases for high fuel energy transfer to piston work. A waste heat recovery system (WHRS) is then recovering the intercooler and engine coolant energy plus the exhaust energy. The WHRS uses a power turbine on the exhaust and a steam turbine feed by a single loop turbo-steamer. The WHRS is the enabler of much faster warm up of the engine and further improvements of the top fuel conversion efficiency to above 50% for the specific case with reduced fuel efficiency penalties changing the load or the speed.

The paper presents a novel concept of a very efficient transportation engines for operation with CNG, LNG or LPG. The paper considers the options of single fuel design with jet ignition and dual fuel design with Diesel and gas. In the first option gas fuel is injected into the main chamber by a direct injector and ignited by jet ignition. In the second option gas fuel is injected into the main chamber by a direct injector and ignited by the direct injection of a small quantity of Diesel fuel. Injection and ignition may be tuned to control the amount of premixed and diffusion combustion to produce the best fuel conversion efficiency vs. load and speed requirements within the prescribed pressure and temperature constraints.

The paper considers a novel waste heat recovery (WHR) system integrated with the engine architecture in a hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) platform. The novel WHR system uses water as the working media and recovers both the internal combustion engine coolant and exhaust energy in a single loop. Results of preliminary simulations show a 6% better fuel economy over the cold start UDDS cycle only considering the better fuel usage with the WHR after the quicker warm-up but neglecting the reduced friction losses for the warmer temperatures over the full cycle.

The paper presents a survey of the opportunities to convert compression ignition heavy duty truck engines to work on single or dual fuel modes with CNG. In one popular option, the compression ignition engine is converted to spark ignition with throttle load control and port injection of the CNG. In another option of increasing popularity, the LNG is directly injected and ignited by direct injection of pilot Diesel. This latter option with direct injection of natural gas and diesel through separate injectors that are fully independent in their operation is determined to be the most promising, as it is expected to deliver better power density and similar part load fuel economy to Diesel.

The consumption of fossil fuels is one of the largest problems facing humankind. One of the heaviest users of non-renewable energy sources is the transport industry. Tightening worldwide legislation aims to place restrictions on the transport industry to reduce its use of fossil fuels and reduce the levels of pollution being released to the atmosphere. Although several different alternatives to the vehicles only powered by internal combustion engine (ICEs) have been investigated, none have as yet become equally widespread. Alternative research into development of hybrid vehicles was specifically concerned with electric hybrids especially for passenger vehicles. Currently there is a resurgence of interest in the Hybrid Hydraulic Vehicle (HHV) in application to commercial and to a lesser degree to passenger vehicles. This paper gives an overview of hydraulic hybrid technology.

Advanced Vehicle Technologies (AVT), a Ballarat Australia based company, has developed the World's first diesel to 100% LPG conversion for heavy haul trucks. There is no diesel required or utilized on the trucks. The engine is converted with minimal changes into a spark ignition engine with equivalent power and torque of the diesel. The patented technology is now deployed in 2 Mercedes Actros trucks. The power output in engine dynamometer testing exceeds that of the diesel (in excess of 370 kW power and 2700 Nm torque). In on-road application the power curve is matched to the diesel specifications to avoid potential downstream power-train stress. Testing at the Department of Transport Energy & Infrastructure, Regency Park, SA have shown the Euro 3 truck converted to LPG is between Euro 4 and Euro 5 NOx levels, CO2 levels 10% better than diesel on DT80 test and about even with diesel on CUEDC tests.

Ethanol, unlike petroleum, is a renewable resource that can be produced from agricultural feed stocks. Ethanol fuel is widely used by flex-fuel light vehicles in Brazil and as oxygenate to gasoline in the United States. Ethanol can be blended with gasoline in varying quantities up to pure ethanol (E100), and most modern gasoline engines well operate with mixtures of 10% ethanol (E10). E100 consumption in an engine is higher than for gasoline since the energy per unit volume of ethanol is lower than for gasoline. The higher octane number of ethanol may possibly allow increased power output and better fuel economy of pure ethanol engines vs. flexi-fuel engines. High compression ratio ethanol only vehicles possibly will have fuel efficiency equal to or greater than current gasoline engines.

Policy makers, especially in the European Union, are pushing towards an early transition to electric mobility, with the internal combustion engine supposed to be phased out by 2030. With a world population projected to exceed 10 billion peoples by 2050, the electric car mobility still lacks the significant development needed to become a real alternative to the internal combustion engine based mobility. Resources availability, and environmental, energetic and economic downfalls, are currently largely underrated or simply unassessed. It is unclear how many will be able to afford to purchase and recharge an electric vehicle in this new world.