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The objective of this study was to develop a test method for heavy-duty HEVs using a hardware-in-the-loop simulator (HILS) to enhance the type-approval-test method. To achieve our objective, HILS systems for series and parallel HEVs were actually constructed to verify calculation accuracy. Comparison of calculated and measured data (vehicle speed, motor/generator power, rechargeable energy storage system power/voltage/current/state of charge, and fuel economy) revealed them to be in good agreement. Calculation error for fuel economy was less than 2%.

The emissions reduction potential of neat GTL (Gas to Liquids: Fischer-Tropsch synthetic gas-oil derived from natural gas) fuels has been preliminarily evaluated by three different latest-generation diesel engines with different displacements. In addition, differences in combustion phenomena between the GTL fuels and baseline diesel fuel have been observed by means of a single cylinder engine with optical access. From these findings, one of the engines has been modified to improve both exhaust emissions and fuel consumption simultaneously, assuming the use of neat GTL fuels. The conversion efficiency of the NOx (oxides of nitrogen) reduction catalyst has also been improved.

Large truck accidents sometimes result in severe damages or give large disturbance of traffic and there are demands of improving vehicle safety characteristics. Main types of traffic accidents concerned are rear-end collision and single accident. As countermeasures for rear-end collisions, world-first collision mitigation brake for commercial vehicles; Pre-crash Safety System, was developed. If there is possibility of collision, warning to driver and brake control intervention is carried out in stepwise fashion and collision speed is decreased. To achieve higher effect in collision mitigation, it is necessary to activate warning or brake-force in earlier timing. Inter-vehicle or infrastructure-vehicle communication offer promising prospect. Tractor-trailer combinations show some instable behaviors. “Roll Stability Assist” and “Vehicle Stability Control” were developed to assist drivers to avoid the occurrence of these instable behaviors.

The objective of this study is to improve fuel economy and reduce carbon dioxide emissions in diesel-electric hybrid automotive powertrains by developing an exhaust gas turbine generator system which utilizes exhaust gas energy from the turbocharger waste gate. The design of the exhaust gas turbine generator was based on a conventional turbocharger for a direct-injection diesel engine. Data from steady-state bench tests using air indicates about 50% of the turbine input energy can be converted to electric energy. Turbine generator output averaged 3 kW, while a maximum of about 6 kW was observed. Based on this data, we estimate that energy consumption in a vehicle could be reduced between 5% and 10%. Engine tests were conducted under both steady-state and transient conditions. These tests revealed that optimal performance occurred under high-speed, high-load conditions, typical of highway or uphill driving, and that performance at low-speed, low-loads was relatively poor.

DPR consists of a multiple fuel-injection system, an electronic engine control unit, and a DPR Cleaner. The DPR cleaner is one assembly unit consisting of a DOC, a catalyzed DPF, and an exhaust silencer. Thus, DPR is a system developed to achieve healthy operation of a DPF with active regeneration regardless of engine operating conditions. The IP Filter was developed to improve the DPR cleaner by reducing the size of the unit and shortening the regeneration time. Both the DOC and DPF are integrated into one unit structure. The IP Filter has open-ended cells on the front face unlike a conventional wall-flow DPF. Instead, the plugs are positioned at the interface between the DOC and DPF. On the rear face of the IP Filter, plugs are installed at the same positions as those of a conventional DPF. The DOC substrate of the IP Filter is made of highly porous, straight honeycomb, the same as that of DPF.

The Hino E13C was developed for heavy-duty truck application to meet Japan's 2003 NOx and 2005 particulate emissions standards simultaneously with significant fuel economy improvement. A combined EGR system consisting of an external EGR system with a highly efficient EGR cooler and an internal EGR system with an electronically controlled valve actuation device was newly developed to reduce NOx emissions for all operating conditions without requiring a larger engine coolant radiator. A Hino-developed DPR was installed to achieve extremely low particulate emissions at the tail pipe. Increased strength of engine structural components and a ductile cast iron piston enabled high BMEP operation at lower engine speeds and reductions of both engine size and weight. This paper describes key technologies developed for the E13C as well as the development results.

The Advanced Safety Vehicle (ASV) project phase 2 was organized by the Japanese ministry of lands, infrastructures and transport in 1996 as a five year project. Hino Motors participated in the project and developed an intelligent truck “HINO ASV-2”. HINO ASV-2 was equipped with safety systems for accident prevention and accident avoidance, which were most effective in reducing accidents in freight transport. These intelligent systems aimed to reduce driving fatigue, minimize the chance of driver’s mistake, and prevent the occurrence of accidents. Human-machine interface, and front underrun protection device were also studied. Through the development of the ASV systems, the feasibility and basic functions of these systems were studied. Further development is necessary to implement the ASV systems in production vehicles.

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.

The running direction of a vehicle can be controlled by not only wheel steer but also torque steer. This paper introduces the tractive torque steer effect produced by a newly developed electropneumatic control system, the limited-slip differential for large-sized vehicles. This system enhances the vehicle's running stability and controllability by controlling the tractive force of the drive axle. The tractive force maintains a stable running course against disturbances such as road roughness and wind gusts, thereby enhancing the steering response and providing a better feeling of handling to the driver. The system also improves mobility. especially on low-μ roads. It is expected that a single axle equipped with this system will exhibit good performance comparable to that of tandem axle.

A driving simulator system for developing steering road feel has been developed. A new steering gear box or an electronic steering system is installed on the simulator and its road feel and control algorithm are developed according to the characteristics of any vehicle which has been programed into the engineering work-station. The vehicle model programed into the engineering work station runs according to the driver's operations, which are fed through the new steering system to be tested. The steer-restoring torque of the vehicle programed into the engineering work-station is produced by an actuator, and gives the impression through the new system of having been fed back from an actual road.

Reduction of oil consumption of engines is required to avoid a negative effect on engine after treatment devices. Engines are required fuel economy for reduction of carbon-dioxide emission, and it is known that reduction of piston frictions is effective on fuel economy. However friction reduction of pistons sometimes causes an increase in engine oil consumption. Therefore reduction of engine oil consumption becomes important subject recently. The ultimate goal of this study is developing the estimation method of oil consumption, and the mechanism of oil upward transport at oil ring gap was investigated in this paper. Oil pressure under the oil ring lower rail was measured by newly developed apparatus. It was found that the piston slap motion and piston up and down motion affected oil pressure rise under the oil ring and oil was spouted through ring-gap by the pressure. The effect of the piston design on the oil pressure generation was also investigated.

Diesel engine has a good fuel economy and high durability and used widely for power source such as heavy duty in the world. On the other hand, it is required to reduce NOx (Nitrogen Oxides) and PM (Particulate Matter) emissions further from diesel exhaust gases to preserve atmosphere. The urea-SCR (Selective Catalytic Reduction) system is the most promising measures to reduce NOx emissions. DPF (Diesel Particulate Filter) system is commercialized for PM reduction. However, in case that a vehicle has a slow speed as an urban area driving, a diesel exhaust temperature is too low to activate SCR catalyst for NOx reduction in diesel emissions. Moreover, the diesel exhaust temperature becomes lower as a future engine has less fuel consumption. The purpose of this study is reduction of NOx emission from a heavy-duty diesel engine using the Urea SCR system at the low temperature.

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.

Hino has developed new J-series medium-duty diesel engines for trucks and buses. The new J-series comprises four, five and six-cylinder engines with the same cylinder bore and stroke and with both naturally aspirated and charge air cooled. Both output and torque have been enhanced along with fuel efficiency in an engine that is lighter and more compact than ever and reaches new heights of durability and reliability. J-series engine features a 4-valve system and OHC valve train design, which achieved an uniform combustion by a centered nozzle and combustion chamber design. This decreases the maximum combustion temperature and hence improved the NOx,smoke and PM emissions. And a reduced pumping loss results in improving the fuel consumption. J-series engines thus meet the Japanese 1994 emission regulations. Another feature is a fully electronically controlled common-rail fuel injection system, which is equipped in a specified engine of naturally aspirated 6 cylinder.

Ultra-low energy consumption and ultra-low emission vehicle technologies have been developed by combining petroleum-alternative clean energy with a hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) system. Their component technologies cover a wide range of vehicle types, such as passenger cars, delivery trucks, and city buses, adsorbed natural gas (ANG), compressed natural gas (CNG), and dimethyl ether (DME) as fuels, series (S-HEV) and series/parallel (SP-HEV) for hybrid types, and as energy storage systems (ESSs), flywheel batteries (FWBs), capacitors, and lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries. Evaluation tests confirmed that the energy consumption of the developed vehicles is 1/2 of that of conventional diesel vehicles, and the exhaust emission levels are comparable to Japan's ultra-low emission vehicle (J-ULEV) level.

This paper presents technical solutions and a development process to accomplish not only superior fuel economy but also excellent driveability with a turbocharged diesel engine for heavy duty trucks. For better fuel economy, one of the basic considerations is how to decrease the friction losses of the engine itself while keeping the required horsepower and torque characteristics. A high boost turbocharged small engine offers this possibility, but it has serious disadvantages such as inferior low speed torque, poorer accelerating response, insufficient engine braking performance, and finally not always so good fuel consumption in the engine operating range away from the matching point between engine and turbocharger. These are not acceptable in complicated traffic conditions like those in Japan - a mixture of mountainous and hilly roads, city road with numerous traffic signals, and freeways.

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.

A new combustion system for a light duty D.I. diesel engine was developed, and a 3.5 ton payload truck (6.5 ton G.V.W.) equipped with this D.I. diesel engine and this combustion system realized good fuel economy and lower exhaust gas emission. Generally, light duty vehicles have to operate over a wide engine speed range. Therefore application of a D.I. diesel engine to light duty vehicles is difficult because of combustion tuning requirements over a wide engine speed range. Up to now, most of the diesel engines for light vehicles have been of the I.D.I. type. But the D.I. diesel engine has an evident advantage of lower fuel consumption. In these circumstances the authors developed a new combustion chamber shape for a small D.I. diesel engine with turbulence induced intake port and optimum fuel injection equipment. Various combustion chamber geometries were tested and evaluated.

The purpose of the investigation presented here was to develop a high quality SAE 10W-30 engine lubricating oil to meet the heavy duty operating conditions of trucks. The operation of their engines is predicted to become more severe in future because of the trend toward higher power output, nore severe regulation of exhaust emissions and noise as well as the increasing demand for better fuel economy. To meet these demands, an improvement of the wear resistance of engine lubricating oil was considered to be the most important aspect for the development of high performance diesel engines in the future. The engine test developed was able to evaluate various experimental oils by observing wear resistance of the valve train which is considered to be one of the most severe tri-bological conditions. The best oils were determined by optimum selection of the amount and type of detergent, ashless dispersant and zinc dithiophosphate.

The sensitivity of steering increases as the vehicle speed rises. It requires a driver to make different steering maneuvers at high speed zone from that at low speed zone. In order to reduce the difference and to have a better steering “feel” for the driver, the characteristics of steering should be studied from both “the vehicle lateral movement corresponding to steering effort” and “the time lag of the vehicle lateral movement to steering effort”. And both should be decreased as vehicle speed rises. This paper explains how the above conclusion was reached through the development of engine/vehicle speed sensing power steering for commercial vehicles.