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This presentation will cover an overview of challenges and key discussion points for advanced electric motor and drive testing . Voiko will visit some examples of how D&V approaches these issues and also some suggestions for how the industry can view these intriguing problems as opportunities. The presentation will also delve into current testing developments that involve resolver, load bank and power measurement devices by highlighting solutions in the market today. There will also be a cursory look into the future of electric motor testing and what we can expect in the near term. Presenter Voiko Loukanov, D&V Electronics Limited

The development of PM and NOx reduction system with the combination of DOC included DPF and SCR catalyst in addition to the AOC sub-assembly for NH3 slip protection is described. DPF regeneration strategy and manual regeneration functionality are introduced with using ITH, HCI device on the EUI based EGR, VGT 12.3L diesel engine at the CVS full dilution tunnel test bench. With this system, PM and NOx emission regulation for JPNL was satisfied and DPF regeneration process under steady state condition and transient condition (JE05 mode) were successfully fulfilled. Manual regeneration process was also confirmed and HCI control strategy was validated against the heat loss during transient regeneration mode. Presenter Seung-il Moon

Direct injection offers a large number of degrees of freedom, as it strongly influences the mixture stratification process. Experiments on a single cylinder research engine fuelled by H2, carried out at Argonne National Laboratory, showed the influence of injection parameters (timing and geometry) on engine efficiency and combustion stability. At low load, when a late injection strategy was performed, an unstable engine behavior was detected varying the injection direction. In order to optimize the mixture stratification process in DI H2 engines, it is important to understand the physics underlying the experimental results. A spatially resolved representation of the in-cylinder processes is a useful tool to properly set the injection parameters. Also, the knowledge of the pre-injection flow field is of added value in optimizing the injection process.

Hydrogen is widely considered a promising fuel for future transportation applications for both, internal combustion engines and fuel cells. Due to their advanced stage of development and immediate availability hydrogen combustion engines could act as a bridging technology towards a wide-spread hydrogen infrastructure. Although fuel cell vehicles are expected to surpass hydrogen combustion engine vehicles in terms of efficiency, the difference in efficiency might not be as significant as widely anticipated [1]. Hydrogen combustion engines have been shown capable of achieving efficiencies of up to 45 % [2]. One of the remaining challenges is the reduction of nitric oxide emissions while achieving peak engine efficiencies. This paper summarizes research work performed on a single-cylinder hydrogen direct injection engine at Argonne National Laboratory.

The US Army is currently assessing the feasibility and defining the requirements of a Single Common Powertrain Lubricant (SCPL). This new lubricant would consist of an all-season (arctic to desert), fuel-efficient, multifunctional powertrain fluid with extended drain capabilities. As a developmental starting point, diesel engine testing has been conducted using the current MIL-PRF-46167D arctic engine oil at high temperature conditions representative of desert operation. Testing has been completed using three high density military engines: the General Engine Products 6.5L(T) engine, the Caterpillar C7, and the Detroit Diesel Series 60. Tests were conducted following two standard military testing cycles; the 210 hr Tactical Wheeled Vehicle Cycle, and the 400 hr NATO Hardware Endurance Cycle. Modifications were made to both testing procedures to more closely replicate the operation of the engine in desert-like conditions.

Conventional diesel fuel has been in the market for decades and used successfully to run diesel engines of all sizes in many applications. In order to reduce emissions and to foster energy source diversity, new fuels such as alternative and renewable, as well as new fuel formulations have entered the market. These include biodiesel, gas-to-liquid, and alternative formulations by states such as California. Performance variations in fuel economy, emissions, and compatibility for these fuels have been evaluated and debated. In some cases contradictory views have surfaced. “Sustainable”, “Renewable”, and “Clean” designations have been interchanged. Adding to the confusion, results from one fuel in one type of engine such as an older heavy-duty engine, is at times compared to that of another type such as a modern light-duty. This study was an attempt to compare the performance of several fuels in an identical environment, using the same engine, for direct comparison.

A prototype 2007 ISL Cummins diesel engine equipped with a diesel oxidation catalyst (DOC), diesel particle filter (DPF), variable geometry turbocharger (VGT), and cooled exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) was tested at Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) under a high-load accelerated durability cycle for 1000 hours with B20 soy-based biodiesel blends and ultra-low sulfur diesel (ULSD) fuel to determine the impact of B20 on engine durability, performance, emissions, and fuel consumption. At the completion of the 1000-hour test, a thorough engine teardown evaluation of the overhead, power transfer, cylinder, cooling, lube, air handling, gaskets, aftertreatment, and fuel system parts was performed. The engine operated successfully with no biodiesel-related failures. Results indicate that engine performance was essentially the same when tested at 125 and 1000 hours of accumulated durability operation.

A dilute spark-ignited engine concept has been developed as a potential low cost competitor to diesel engines by Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), with a goal of diesel-like efficiency and torque for light- and medium-duty applications and low-cost aftertreatment. The targeted aftertreatment method is a traditional three-way catalyst, which offers both an efficiency and cost advantage over typical diesel aftertreatment systems. High levels of exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) have been realized using advanced ignition systems and improved combustion, with significant improvements in emissions, efficiency, and torque resulting from using high levels of EGR. The primary motivation for this work was to understand the impact high levels of EGR would have on particulate matter (PM) formation in a port fuel injected (PFI) engine. While there are no proposed regulations for PFI engine PM levels, the potential exists for future regulations, both on a size and mass basis.

Work was performed to determine the feasibility of operating heavy-duty natural gas engines over a wide range of fuel compositions by evaluating engine performance and emission levels. Heavy-duty compressed natural gas engines from various engine manufacturers, spanning a range of model years and technologies, were evaluated using a diversity of fuel blends. Performance and regulated emission levels from these engines were evaluated using natural gas fuel blends with varying methane number (MN) and Wobbe Index in a dynamometer test cell. Eight natural gas blends were tested with each engine, and ranged from MN 75 to MN 100. Test engines included a 2007 model year Cummins ISL G, a 2006 model year Cummins C Gas Plus, a 2005 model year John Deere 6081H, a 1998 model year Cummins C Gas, and a 1999 model year Detroit Diesel Series 50G TK. All engines used lean-burn technology, except for the ISL G, which was a stoichiometric engine.

The addition of exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) has demonstrated the potential to significantly improve engine efficiency by allowing high CR operation due to a reduction in knock tendency, heat transfer, and pumping losses. In addition, EGR also reduces the engine-out emission of nitrogen oxides, particulates, and carbon monoxide while further improving efficiency at stoichiometric air/fuel ratios. However, improvements in efficiency through enhanced combustion phasing at high compression ratios can result in a significant increase in cylinder pressure. As cylinder pressure and temperature are both important parameters for estimating the durability requirements of the engine - in effect specifying the material and engineering required for the head and block - the impact of EGR on surface temperatures, when combined with the cylinder pressure data, will provide an important understanding of the design requirements for future cylinder heads.

The performance of an organic Rankine cycle (ORC) used to recover waste heat from the exhaust of a diesel and a spark ignition engine for electric power generation was modeled. The design elements of the ORC incorporated into the thermodynamic model were based on an experimental study performed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in which a regenerative organic Rankine cycle system was designed, assembled and integrated into the exhaust of a 1.9 liter 4-cylinder automotive turbo-diesel. This engine was operated at a single fixed-load point at which Rankine cycle state point temperatures as well as the electrical power output of an electric generator coupled to a turbine that expanded R245fa refrigerant were measured. These data were used for model calibration.

Lignin by-products from biorefineries has the potential to provide a low-cost alternative to petroleum-based precursors to manufacture carbon fiber, which can be combined with a binding matrix to produce a structural material with much greater specific strength and specific stiffness than conventional materials such as steel and aluminum. The market for carbon fiber is universally projected to grow exponentially to fill the needs of clean energy technologies such as wind turbines and to improve the fuel economies in vehicles through lightweighting. In addition to cellulosic biofuel production, lignin-based carbon fiber production coupled with biorefineries may provide $2,400 to $3,600 added value dry Mg−1 of biomass for vehicle applications. Compared to producing ethanol alone, the addition of lignin-derived carbon fiber could increase biorefinery gross revenue by 30% to 300%.

High pressure diesel sprays were visualized under vaporizing and combusting conditions in a constant-volume combustion vessel. Near-simultaneous visualization of vapor and liquid phase fuel distribution were acquired using a hybrid shadowgraph/Mie-scattering imaging setup. This imaging technique used two pulsed LED's operating in an alternative manner to provide proper light sources for both shadowgraph and Mie scattering. In addition, combustion cases under the same ambient conditions were visualized through high-speed combustion luminosity measurement. Two single-hole diesel injectors with same nozzle diameters (100μm) but different k-factors (k0 and k1.5) were tested in this study. Detailed analysis based on spray penetration rate curves, rate of injection measurements, combustion indicators and 1D model comparison have been performed.

The diesel engine can be an effective solution to meet future greenhouse gas and fuel economy standards, especially for larger segment vehicles. However, a key challenge facing the diesel is the upcoming LEV III and Tier 3 emission standards which will require significant reductions in hydrocarbon (HC) and oxides of nitrogen (NOx) emissions. The challenge stems from the fact that diesel exhaust temperatures are much lower than gasoline engines, so the time required to achieve effective emissions control after a cold-start with typical aftertreatment devices is considerably longer. To address this challenge, a novel diesel cold-start emission control strategy was investigated on a 2L class diesel engine. This strategy combines several technologies to reduce tailpipe HC and NOx emissions before the start of the second hill of the FTP75. The technologies include both engine tuning and aftertreatment changes.

Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) converted a 2012 Buick Regal GS to use an engine with Dedicated EGR™ (D-EGR™). D-EGR is an engine concept that uses fuel reforming and high levels of recirculated exhaust gas (EGR) to achieve very high levels of thermal efficiency [1]. To accomplish reformation of the gasoline in a cost-effective, energy efficient manner, a dedicated cylinder is used for both the production of EGR and reformate. By operating the engine in this manner, many of the sources of losses from traditional reforming technology are eliminated and the engine can take full advantage of the benefits of reformate. The engine in the vehicle was modified to add the following components: the dedicated EGR loop, an additional injector for delivering extra fuel for reformation, a modified boost system that included a supercharger, high energy dual coil offset (DCO) ignition and other actuators used to enable the control of D-EGR combustion.

A full understanding and characterization of the near-field of diesel sprays is daunting because the dense spray region inhibits most diagnostics. While x-ray diagnostics permit quantification of fuel mass along a line of sight, most laboratories necessarily use simple lighting to characterize the spray spreading angle, using it as an input for CFD modeling, for example. Questions arise as to what is meant by the “boundary” of the spray since liquid fuel concentration is not easily quantified in optical imaging. In this study we seek to establish a relationship between spray boundary obtained via optical diffused backlighting and the fuel concentration derived from tomographic reconstruction of x-ray radiography. Measurements are repeated in different facilities at the same specified operating conditions on the “Spray A” fuel injector of the Engine Combustion Network, which has a nozzle diameter of 90 μm.

Low temperature combustion through in-cylinder blending of fuels with different reactivity offers the potential to improve engine efficiency while yielding low engine-out NOx and soot emissions. A Navistar MaxxForce 13 heavy-duty compression ignition engine was modified to run with two separate fuel systems, aiming to utilize fuel reactivity to demonstrate a technical path towards high engine efficiency. The dual-fuel engine has a geometric compression ratio of 14 and uses sequential, multi-port-injection of a low reactivity fuel in combination with in-cylinder direct injection of diesel. Through control of in-cylinder charge reactivity and reactivity stratification, the engine combustion process can be tailored towards high efficiency and low engine-out emissions. Engine testing was conducted at 1200 rpm over a load sweep.

A new concept for an efficient radiator-cooling system is presented for reducing the size or increasing the cooling capacity of vehicle coolant radiators. Under certain conditions, the system employs active evaporative cooling in addition to conventional finned air cooling. In this regard, it is a hybrid radiator-cooling system comprised of the combination of conventional air-side finned surface cooling and active evaporative water cooling. The air-side finned surface is sized to transfer required heat under all driving conditions except for the most severe. In the later case, evaporative cooling is used in addition to the conventional air-side finned surface cooling. Together the two systems transfer the required heat under all driving conditions. However, under most driving conditions, only the air-side finned surface cooling is required. Consequently, the finned surface may be smaller than in conventional radiators that utilize air-side finned surface cooling exclusively.

The use of cooled EGR as a knock suppression tool is gaining more acceptance worldwide. As cooled EGR become more prevalent, some challenges are presented for engine designers. In this study, the impact of cooled EGR on peak cylinder pressure was evaluated. A 1.6 L, 4-cylinder engine was operated with and without cooled EGR at several operating conditions. The impact of adding cooled EGR to the engine on peak cylinder pressure was then evaluated with an attempt to separate the effect due to advanced combustion phasing from the effect of increased manifold pressure. The results show that cooled EGR's impact on peak cylinder pressure is primarily due to the knock suppression effect, with the result that an EGR rate of 25% leads to an almost 50% increase in peak cylinder pressure at a mid-load condition if the combustion phasing is advanced to Knock Limited Spark Advance (KLSA). When combustion phasing was held constant, increasing the EGR rate had almost no effect on PCP.

The ongoing pursuit of improved engine efficiency and emissions is driving gasoline low-pressure loop EGR systems into production around the globe. The Dedicated EGR (D-EGR®) engine was developed to minimize some of the challenges of cooled EGR while maintaining its advantages. The D-EGR engine is a high efficiency, low emissions internal combustion engine for automotive and off-highway applications. The core of the engine development focused on a unique concept that combines the efficiency improvements associated with recirculated exhaust gas and the efficiency improvements associated with fuel reformation. To outline the differences of the new engine concept with a conventional LPL EGR setup, a turbocharged 2.0 L PFI engine was modified to operate in both modes. The second part of the cooled EGR engine concept comparison investigates efficiency, knock resistance, combustion stability, and maximum load potential at high load conditions.