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Partly competing objectives, as low fuel consumption, low friction, long oil maintenance rate, and at the same time lowest exhaust emissions have to be fulfilled. Diminishing resources, continuously reduced development periods, and shortened product cycles yield detailed knowledge about oil consumption mechanisms in combustion engines to be essential. There are different ways for the lubricating oil to enter the combustion chamber: for example as blow-by gas, leakage past valve stem seals, piston rings (reverse blow-by) and evaporation from the cylinder liner wall and the combustion chamber. For a further reduction of oil consumption the investigation of these mechanisms has become more and more important. In this paper the influence of the mixture formation and the resulting fuel content in the cylinder liner wall film on the lubricant oil emission was examined.

The steady increase of engine power and the demand of lightweight design along with enhanced reliability require an optimized dimensioning process, especially in cylinder head valve bridge, which is progressively prone to cracking. The problems leading to valve bridge cracking are high temperatures and temperature gradients on one hand and high mechanical restraining on the other hand. The accurate temperature estimation at the valve bridge center has significant outcomes for valve bridge thickness and width optimization. This paper presents a 1D heat transfer model, which is constructed through the cross section of the valve bridge center by the use of well known quasi-stationary heat convection and conduction equations and reduced from 3D to 1D via regression and empirical weighting coefficients. Several diesel engine cylinder heads with different application types and materials are used for model setup and verification.

Controlled Auto Ignition combustion systems have a high potential for fuel consumption and emissions reduction for gasoline engines in part load operation. Controlled auto ignition is initiated by reaching thermal ignition conditions at the end of compression. Combustion of the CAI process is controlled essentially by chemical kinetics, and thus differs significantly from conventional premixed combustion. Consequently, the CAI combustion process is determined by the thermodynamic state, and can be controlled by a high amount of residual gas and stratification of air, residual gas and fuel. In this paper both fundamental and application relevant aspects are investigated in a combined approach. Fundamental knowledge about the auto-ignition process and its dependency on engine operating conditions are required to efficiently develop an application strategy for CAI combustion.

Fuels derived from biomass will most likely contain oxygen due to the high amount of hydrogen needed to remove oxygen in the production process. Today, alcohol fuels (e. g. ethanol) are well understood for spark ignition engines. The Institute for Combustion Engines at RWTH Aachen University carried out a fuel investigation program to explore the potential of alcohol fuels as candidates for future compression ignition engines to reduce engine-out emissions while maintaining engine efficiency and an acceptable noise level. The soot formation and oxidation process when using alcohol fuels in diesel engines is not yet sufficiently understood. Depending on the chain length, alcohol fuels vary in cetane number and boiling temperature. Decanol possesses a diesel-like cetane number and a boiling point in the range of the diesel boiling curve. Thus, decanol was selected as an alcohol representative to investigate the influence of the oxygen content of an alcohol on the combustion performance.

Advanced technologies such as direct injection DI, turbocharging and variable valve timing, have lead to a significant evolution of the gasoline engine with positive effects on driving pleasure, fuel consumption and emissions. Today's developments are primarily focused on the implementation of improved full load characteristics for driving performance and fuel consumption reduction with stoichiometric operation, following the downsizing approach in combination with turbocharging and high specific power. The requirements of a relatively small cylinder displacement with high specific power and a wide flexibility of DI injection specifications lead to competing development targets and additionally to a high number of degrees of freedom during optimization. In order to successfully approach an optimum solution, FEV has evolved an advanced development methodology, which is based on the combination of simulation, optical diagnostics and engine thermodynamics testing.

The modern engine development process is characterized by shorter development cycles and a reduced number of prototypes. However, simultaneously exhaust after-treatment and emission testing is becoming increasingly more sophisticated. It is expected that predictive simulation tools that encompass the entire powertrain can potentially improve the efficiency of the calibration process. The testing of an ECU using a HiL system requires a real-time model. Additionally, if the initial parameters of the ECU are to be defined and tested, the model has to be more accurate than is typical for ECU functional testing. It is possible to enhance the generalization capability of the simulation, with neuronal network sub-models embedded into the architecture of a physical model, while still maintaining real-time execution. This paper emphasizes the experimental investigation and physical modeling of the port fuel injected SI engine.

SI engines with gasoline direct injection are currently the focus of development for almost all car manufacturers. After the introduction of DISI engines, first to the Japanese market and after a short time delay also in Europe, a broad variety of technical solutions for efficient stratified concepts can be stated. The targets of the development activities in this field are defined by legislation and customer's demands. The potential reduction of fuel consumption with stratified operation has to be combined with a further improvement of the full load potential of the DISI engine. A substantial part of the development activities are the fulfillment of current and future emission standards. Therefore, in order to realize a highly efficient lean operation, new technologies and strategies in the field of exhaust gas aftertreatment and vehicle application are required.

Today, SULEV legislation represents the most stringent emission standard for vehicles with combustion engines, and it will be introduced starting by Model Year 2003. In order to meet such standards, even higher effort is required for the development of the exhaust gas emission concept of SI engines. Beyond a facelift of the combustion system, exhaust gas aftertreatment, and the engine management system, new approaches are striven for. The principle keys are well known: low HC feed gas, high thermal load for quick light-off, exhaust system with low heat capacity and highly effective exhaust gas aftertreatment.

Environmental concern demands that emissions and fuel consumption of vehicles have to improve considerably in the next 10 years. New technologies for gasoline engines, downsizing with high boosting, direct injection and fully variable valve train systems, are being developed. For Diesel engines, improved components including piezobased injectors and particle filters are expected. In the drive train new starter-generator systems as well as automated manual transmissions are being developed. In parallel alternative fuels are investigated and the use of hybrid drives and fuel cells are developed. This paper reports the progress made in the recent years and gives a comparative assessment on the different technologies with a prediction of the introduction dates and volumes into the market.

Electromechanical valve trains in camless engines enable virtually fully variable valve timing that offers large potential for both part load fuel economy and high low end torque. Based upon the principle of a spring-mass-oscillator, the actuator stores the energy to open and close the valves in springs. However, the motion of the valves and the electromechanical actuation suffers from parasitic losses, such as friction and ohmic resistance. Besides eddy current losses, gas forces obviously play a further important role in the control of exhaust valve opening especially at high engine speeds and loads. Based on engine test bench data, computational simulations (3D CFD, gas exchange process and electromechanical system) are carried out to analyze the effects of exhaust valve gas forces on the dynamic motion of valve and actuator. The modeling approach and results of this investigation are discussed in this paper.

The main goal in the development of new automobile SI engines is to significantly reduce fuel consumption. To this end both, variable valve actuation and direct gasoline injection, are being pursued as new engine concepts. Both approaches appear to offer approximately the same potential to reduce fuel consumption. The development so far is creating the impression of two competing technical concepts with no obvious way to combine them [1]. The two engine concepts, however, can be combined, although it is often objected that their combination would only yield marginal additional potential. That is true to the extent that the advantages of dethrottling offered by both of the concepts can only be counted once in terms of overall potential. But there is a number of additional effects to be taken into account. This Paper represents an analysis of the individual potential of the two approaches as well as an estimation of their combined potential.

The challenge to reduce fuel consumption in S.I. engines is leading to the application of new series production technologies: including direct injection and, recently, the variable valve train, both aiming at unthrottled engine operation. In addition to these technologies, turbo- or mechanical supercharging is of increasing interest because, in principle, it offers a significant potential for improved fuel economy. However, a fixed compression ratio normally leads to a compromise, in that the charged engine is more of a performance enhancement than an improver of fuel economy. Fuel efficient downsizing concepts can be realized through the application of variable compression ratio. In this paper, a variable compression ratio design solution featuring eccentric movement of the crankshaft is described. Special attention is given to the integration of this solution into the base engine.

The requirement of reducing worldwide CO₂ emissions and engine pollutants are demanding an increased use of bio-fuels. Ethanol with its established production technology can contribute to this goal. However, due to its resistive auto-ignition behavior the use of ethanol-based fuels is limited to the spark-ignited gasoline combustion process. For application to the compression-ignited diesel combustion process advanced ignition systems are required. In general, ethanol offers a significant potential to improve the soot emission behavior of the diesel engine due to its oxygen content and its enhanced evaporation behavior. In this contribution the ignition behavior of ethanol and mixtures with high ethanol content is investigated in combination with advanced ignition systems with ceramic glow-plugs under diesel engine relevant thermodynamic conditions in a high pressure and temperature vessel.

Both, the continuous strengthening of the exhaust emission legislation and the striving for a substantial reduction of carbon dioxide output in the traffic sector depict substantial requirements for the development of future diesel engines. These engines will comprise not only the mandatory diesel oxidation catalyst (DOC) and particulate filter DPF but a NOx aftertreatment system as well - at least for heavier vehicles. The oxidation catalysts as well as currently available NOx aftertreatment technologies, i.e., LNT and SCR, rely on sufficient exhaust gas temperatures to achieve a proper conversion. This is getting more and more critical due to the fact that today's and future measures for CO₂ reduction will result in further decrease of engine-out temperatures. Additionally this development has to be considered in the light of further engine electrification and hybridization scenarios.

The current discussion about possible limitation of CO2 emissions makes improvement of fuel consumption a central topic for gasoline engine development. Various technological solutions are available to realize this improvement. Concepts featuring direct fuel injection, engine downsizing and unthrottled control of engine load with variable valvetrains are currently considered the most promising ways to achieve this goal. Further concepts that are under development include Controlled Auto Ignition (CAI) and homogenous lean burn combustion as well as certain combinations of these technologies. Within the European market, direct injection is currently the most popular solution. The drawback is that a very expensive exhaust gas aftertreatment system is necessary to keep exhaust emissions within legal limits.

A main focus of development in modern SI engine technology is variable valve timing, which implies a high potential of improvement regarding fuel consumption and emissions. Variable opening, period and lift of inlet and outlet valves enable numerous possibilities to alter gas exchange and combustion. However, this additional variability generates special demands on the calibration process of specific engine control devices, particularly under cold start and warm-up conditions. This paper presents procedures, based on Hardware-in-the-Loop (HiL) simulation, to support the classical calibration task efficiently. An existing approach is extended, such that a virtual combustion engine is available including additional valve timing variability. Engine models based purely on physical first principles are often not capable of real time execution. However, the definition of initial parameters for the ECU requires a model with both real time capability and sufficient accuracy.

Controlled Auto Ignition (CAI) as a promising future combustion process is a concept to strongly reduce fuel consumption as well as NOx emissions. The acceptance and the potential of this combustion process depends on the possible CAI operation range in the engine map and the fuel consumption benefit, as well as the complexity of the variable valve train which is necessary to realize the CAI combustion process. The thermodynamic investigations presented in this paper were done on an engine equipped with an electromechanical valve train (EMVT), featuring Port Fuel Injection (PFI) and direct Injection. They show that the electromechanical valve train is an excellent platform for developing the CAI process. Controlled Auto Ignition has been realized with port fuel injection in a speed range between 1000 and 4500 rpm and in a load range between approximately 1 and 6 bar BMEP (about 5 bar BMEP for pressure gradients lower than 3 bar/°CA) depending on engine speed.

Due to the future application of combustion engines in small and hybrid vehicles, the demand for high efficiency with low mass and compact engine design is of prime importance. The diesel engine, with its outstanding thermal efficiency, is a well suited candidate for such applications. In order to realize these targets, future diesel engines will need to have increasingly higher specific output combined with increased power to weight ratios. This is therefore driving the need for new designs of 3 and/or 4 cylinder, small bore engines of low displacement, sub 1.5l. Recent work on combustion development, has shown that combustion systems, ports, valves and injector sizes are available for bore sizes down to 65 mm.

One of the most promising methods to reduce fuel consumption is to use unthrottled engine operation, where load control occurs by means of variable valve timing with an electromechanical valve train (EMV) system. This method allows for a reduction in fuel consumption while operating under a stoichiometric air-fuel-ratio and preserves the ability to use conventional exhaust gas aftertreatment technology with a 3-way-catalyst. Compared with an engine with a camshaft-driven valve train, the variable valve timing concept makes possible an additional optimization of cold start, warm-up and transient operation. In contrast with the conventionally throttled engine, optimized control of load and in-cylinder gas movement is made possible from the start of the first cycle. A load control strategy using a “Late Intake Valve Open” (LIO) provides a reduction in start-up HC emissions of approximately 60%.

In the recent years, it has become obvious that one of the main fields of interest in alternate fuels is the public transportation sector. Natural Gas seems to be advantageous. It is available and environmentally friendly, even if the greenhouse effect of methane is considered. The operation range of vehicles running on CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) is poor due to the large pressure vessels, but in case of urban buses with low daily mileage this is acceptable. On the other hand, the use of an environmentally friendly fuel is favorable especially in urban areas. Although there are some advantages of Natural Gas, diesel buses dominate the market. The reason is the better part-load fuel efficiency of the Diesel principle which is superior to the Otto-cycle due to the absence of engine throttling. The efficiency levels of Spark-Ignition (SI) -type, Lean Burn Natural Gas engines are quite comparable to diesel engines during full load conditions.