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This research effort focuses on lean-burn combustion in gasoline internal combustion engines. Gasoline is largely known to be characterized by narrow flammability range, which makes the use of ultra-lean mixtures very challenging. In order to fully explore the gasoline lean burn potential, a promising strategy should combine advanced intake geometries, injection strategies, and ignition technologies. In this paper, a CFD methodology is developed in order to provide proper insight into lean-burn gasoline combustion. A baseline homogenous/lean case is analyzed and numerical results are validated against engine data. Two critical issues are addressed. First, a relatively large detailed mechanism is validated against the experimental data for extreme operating conditions (low pressure values, lean mixtures). The large cycle-to-cycle variation characterizing lean combustion is shown experimentally.

Hydrogen is considered one of the most promising future energy carriers. There are several challenges that must be overcome in order to establishing a “hydrogen economy”, including the development of a practical, efficient, and cost-effective power conversion device. Using hydrogen as a fuel for internal combustion engines is a huge step toward developing a large-scale hydrogen infrastructure. This paper summarizes the testing of a hydrogen powered pick-up truck on a chassis dynamometer. The vehicle is powered by a port-injected 8-cylinder engine with an integrated supercharger and intercooler. The 4-wheel drive chassis dynamometer is equipped with a hydrogen delivery, metering and safety system as well as hydrogen specific instrumentation. This instrumentation includes numerous sensors, includes a wide-band lambda sensor and an exhaust gas hydrogen analyzer. This analyzer quantifies the amount of unburned hydrogen in the exhaust indicating the completeness of the combustion.