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An operational scheme with fuel-lean and exhaust gas dilution in spark-ignited engines increases thermal efficiency and decreases NOx emission, while these operations inherently induce combustion instability and thus large cycle-to-cycle variation in engine. In order to stabilize combustion variations, the development of an advanced ignition system is becoming critical. To quantify the impact of spark-ignition discharge, ignitability tests were conducted in an optically accessible combustion vessel to characterize the flame kernel development of lean methane-air mixture with CO₂ simulating exhaust diluent. A shrouded fan was used to generate turbulence in the vicinity of J-gap spark plug and a Variable Output Ignition System (VOIS) capable of producing a varied set of spark discharge patterns was developed and used as an ignition source. The main feature of the VOIS is to vary the secondary current during glow discharge including naturally decaying and truncated with multiple strikes.

A Ford 2.4-liter 115PS light-duty diesel engine was modified to allow solenoid control of the oil feed to the piston cooling jets, enabling these to be switched on or off on demand. The influence of the jets on piston temperatures, engine thermal state, gaseous emissions and fuel economy has been investigated. With the jets switched off, piston temperatures were measured to be between 23 and 88°C higher. Across a range of speed-load points, switching off the jets increased engine-out emissions of NOx typically by 3%, and reduced emissions of CO by 5-10%. Changes in HC were of the same order and were reductions at most conditions. Fuel consumption increased at low-speed, high-load conditions and decreased at high-speed, low-load conditions. Applying the results to the NEDC drive cycle suggests active on/off control of the jets could reduce engine-out emissions of CO by 6%, at the expense of a 1% increase in NOx, compared to the case when the jets are on continuously.

This work investigates the effect of a three-way catalytic converter and sampling dilution ratio on nano-scale exhaust particulate matter emissions from a gasoline direct-injection engine during cold-start and warm-up transients. Experimental results are presented from a four cylinder in-line, four stroke, wall-guided direct-injection, turbo-charged and inter-cooled 1.6 litre gasoline engine. A fast-response particulate spectrometer for exhaust nano-particle measurement up to 1000 nm was utilised. It was observed that the three-way catalytic converter had a significant effect on particle number density, reducing the total particle number by up to 65 % over the duration of the cold-start test. The greatest change in particle number density occurred for particles less than 23 nm diameter, with reductions of up to 95 % being observed, whilst the number density for particles above 50 nm diameter exhibited a significant increase.

Pending reductions in light duty vehicle PM emissions standards from 10 to 3 mg/mi and below will push the limits of the gravimetric measurement method. At these levels the PM mass collected approaches the mass of non-particle gaseous species that adsorb onto the filter from exhaust and ambient air. This introduces an intrinsic lower limit to filter based measurement that is independent of improvements achieved in weighing metrology. The statistical variability of back-up filter measurements at these levels makes them an ineffective means for correcting the adsorption artifact. The proposed subtraction of a facility based estimate of the artifact will partially alleviate the mass bias from adsorption, but its impact on weighing variability remains a problem that can reach a significant fraction of the upcoming 3 and future 1 mg/mi standards. This paper proposes an improved PM mass method that combines the gravimetric filter approach with real time aerosol measurement.

In order to meet more stringent evaporative emissions requirements, multiple advancements in vehicle fuel system and carbon canister technologies have been made. Regardless of technological advancements, the vapor pressure of the fuel remains a vital property in controlling evaporative emissions. A series of tests were performed to explore the effects of vapor pressure on multiday diurnal evaporative emissions for 9 and 10 psi Reid Vapor Pressure (RVP) 10% ethanol (E10) gasoline-blend fuels, followed by tests with 7 psi RVP E10 gasoline on a subset of the same vehicles. A test procedure was developed to monitor evaporative emissions, canister loading profiles and breakthrough emissions for each of the fuels. A total of five vehicles were tested on all 3 fuels, blended to represent 7, 9, and 10 psi at sea level. Tests were run over 14 days using the United States (U.S.)

The present work studied exhaust emission levels from small low-output two-stroke spark ignition engines and investigated the means to reduce exhaust emission levels. The work presented here investigated two different approaches for in-cylinder combustion control to reduce emission levels. The first approach employed piston crown treatment with copper-coating to identify any improvement in combustion performance; the second approach employed Keronite® coating, i.e, ceramic-coating to act as a thermal barrier to improve combustion or reduce thermal losses. The engine performance and emission levels obtained for similar loading conditions using these approaches were compared with that of baseline engine performance. The study found that significant reduction of emission levels especially un-burned hydrocarbon and carbon monoxide could be obtained by applying in-cylinder coating in two-stroke engines.

The work presented investigates the effect of road gradient, head-wind, horizontal road curvature, changes in tyre rolling radius, vehicle drag co-efficient and vehicle weight on real-world emission levels of a modern EURO-IV vehicle. A validated steady-state engine performance map based vehicle modeling approach has been used for the analysis. The results showed that a generalized correction factor to include the effect of road-gradient on real-world emission levels might not yield accurate results, since the emission levels are strongly dependent on the position of the vehicle operating parameters on the engine maps. In addition, it also demonstrated that the inclusion of horizontal road curvature such as roundabouts and traffic islands are essential for the estimation of the real-world emission levels.

The present work evaluated the performance of a EURO-IV vehicle for real-world driving in Mexico City. This work also attempted to identify if it was possible to reduce green house gas emission and fuel consumption for real-world driving in Mexico City by using vehicle technology available in EURO-IV certified vehicles. It used three different drive cycles representing typical driving conditions in North, South and Central zones of Mexico City. These drive cycles were developed using a single instrumented-experimental vehicle and the data collected from 200 trips over a year covering peak and off-peak driving conditions. This work used a vehicle-powertrain model of a EURO-IV vehicle, which was validated by the authors using experimental data for four other drive cycles that represented typical driving conditions in the United Kingdom.

Recent developments in measurement techniques enabled researchers to measure ultra-fine particulates of nano-scale range and provided more evidence that the smaller particulates typically emitted from gasoline engines may have more severe impacts on human respiratory system than the bigger particulates from diesel engines. The knowledge of the characteristics of particulates from gasoline engines, especially, the effect of fuel borne additives is sparse. This work presents the findings from a study into the effect of aftermarket additives on nano-scale particulates. Four commercially available fuel borne additives used in gasoline engines mainly by private vehicle owners in the United Kingdom were selected for this study. The combustion and emission performance of the additive fuels were compared against that of commercially available gasoline fuel using a 4-stroke, throttle body injected gasoline engine.

This work attempted to correlate the ultra fine particulate count to the flame propagation time, in-cylinder peak pressure, and in-cylinder ageing time (the time the particulates stay inside the cylinder) of a throttle body gasoline injected engine. The engine was tested at different loads and speeds ranging from 20 Nm to 100 Nm and 2000 to 3400 rpm respectively. A fast particle spectrometer, a mass spectrometer, and an in-cylinder pressure measurement system were used to characterize the particulate emission. This work identified the correlation between the nucleation of particulates and rate of burning, the particulate count for particles size greater than 200 nm and the in-cylinder ageing time. It identified that an increase in engine load at constant speed increased the particle number density of the 10 nm diameter particles; the effect was less significant on the particles of diameter greater than 50 nm and almost absent on particles of diameter greater than 200 nm.

This study attempted to identify the correlation between the gaseous species and nano-scale exhaust particles from a gasoline engine using simultaneous particulate and gaseous measurement. A fast particle spectrometer for particulates and a quadrupole mass spectrometer for gaseous species were employed in this work. Two commercially available super unleaded gasoline fuels were used in this study to establish a link between the gaseous species and nano-scale particulates. The possible correlations between the gaseous species such as acetylene, 1, 5 hexadyne, toluene, benzene and furaldehyde and nano-scale particles were identified and are detailed in this paper.

A benchmark study was conducted to assess the capability of an open source CFD based process to accurately simulate the physics of the flow field around various vehicle types. The ICON FOAMpro process was used to simulate the flow field of four baseline geometries of a Truck, CD-Car, B-Car and an SUV. Further studies were carried out to assess the effects of geometry variations on the predicted aerodynamic lift and drag. A Detached-Eddy Simulation (DES) approach was chosen for the benchmarks. In addition to aerodynamic lift and drag values, the results for surface pressure data, surface and wake flow fields were calculated. These results were compared with values obtained using Ford's existing CFD processes.

With a push to continuously develop traditional engine technology efficiencies and meet stringent emissions requirements, there is a need to improve the precision of injection rate measurement used to characterise the performance of the fuel injectors. New challenges in precisely characterising injection rate present themselves to the Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), with the additional requirements to measure multiple injection strategies, increased injection pressure and rate features. One commonly used method of measurement is the rate tube injection analyser; it measures the pressure wave caused by the injection within a column of stationary fluid. In a rate tube, one of the significant sources of signal distortion is a result of the injected fluid pressure waves reflected back from the tube termination.

In the continuous search for technology to improve the fuel economy and reduce greenhouse gas emission levels from the automotive vehicle, the automotive industry has been evaluating various technological options. Since the introduction of stringent legislative targets in Europe as well as in the United States of America in late 20th Century, one of the viable options identified by the industry was the application of alternative powertrain. On the motorsport arena, changes introduced by the Formula 1 governing body (FIA) for the high-performance racing engines also focuses on fuel economy. FIA regulation for 2014 restricts the fuel-flow rate to a maximum of 100kg/hr beyond 10,500 rev/min and prescribe fuel flow rate below 10,500 rev/min operating conditions for the F1 Engines. In addition, Formula1 and Le Mans racing regulations actively promote the integration of the hybrid powertrain in order to achieve optimum fuel economy.

A new diesel engine, called the 6.7L Power Stroke® V-8 Turbo Diesel and code named "Scorpion" was designed and developed by Ford Motor Company for the full-size pickup truck and light commercial vehicle markets. A high pressure Exhaust Gas Recirculation (EGR) layout in combination with a Variable Geometry Turbine (VGT) is used to deliver cooled EGR for in-cylinder NOx reduction. The cylinder-to-cylinder variation of EGR and swirl ratio is tightly controlled by the careful design of the EGR mixer and intake system flow path to reduce variability of cylinder-out PM and NOx emissions. 3D-CFD studies were used to quickly screen several EGR mixer designs based on mixing efficiency and pressure drop considerations. To optimize the intake system, 1D-3D co-simulation methodology with AVL-FIRE and AVL-BOOST has been used to assess the cylinder-to-cylinder EGR distribution and dynamic swirl.

Air pollution levels in an urban environment is a major concern for developed and developing countries alike. Governments around the world are constantly trying to control and reduce air pollution levels through regulations. Low emission zones are being designated in cities worldwide in order to reduce the level of pollutants in big cities. The automotive industry is affected by those regulations and they are becoming more demanding over the years. Present work is aimed at developing a control strategy for a hybrid vehicle in order to optimize the fuel economy and emission levels based on GPS information, driver specific driving characteristics and weather forecast data for a given route. It uses powertrain model of a hybrid vehicle for developing route and driver specific control strategy. The full vehicle model has two sub-models: a route selector and a powertrain optimization model.

This work investigates the effect of engine operating conditions and exhaust sampling conditions (i.e. dilution ratio) on engine-out, nano-scale, particulate matter emissions from a gasoline direct-injection engine during cold-start and warm-up transients. The engine used for this research was an in-line four cylinder, four stroke, wall-guided direct-injection, turbo-charged and inter-cooled 1.6 l gasoline engine. A fast-response particulate spectrometer for exhaust nano-particle measurement up to 1000 nm was utilized, along with a spark-plug mounted pressure transducer for combustion analysis. It was observed that the total particle count decreases during the cold-start transient, and has a distinct relationship with the engine body temperature. Tests have shown that the engine body temperature may be used as a control strategy for engine-out particulate emissions.

U.S. federal vehicle emission standards effective in 2007 require tight control of NOx and hydrocarbon emissions. For light-duty vehicles, the current standard of Tier 2 Bin 5 is about 0.07 g/mi NOx and 0.09 g/mi NMOG (non-methane organic gases) at 120,000 mi. However, the proposed future standard is 0.03 g/mi for NMOG + NOx (~SULEV30) at 150,000 mi. There is a significant improvement needed in catalyst system efficiencies for diesel vehicles to achieve the future standard, mainly during cold start. In this study, a less than 6000 lbs diesel truck equipped with an advanced urea Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) system was used to pursue lower tailpipe emissions with an emphasis on vehicle calibration and catalyst package. The calibration was tuned by optimizing exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) fuel injection and cold start strategy to generate desirable engine-out emissions balanced with reasonable temperatures.

Exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) coolers are commonly used in diesel engines to reduce the temperature of recirculated exhaust gases in order to reduce NOx emissions. The presence of a cool surface in the hot exhaust causes particulate soot deposition as well as hydrocarbon and water condensation. Fouling experienced through deposition of particulate matter and hydrocarbons results in degraded cooler effectiveness and increased pressure drop. In this study, a visualization test setup is designed and constructed so that the effect of water condensation on the deposit formation and growth at various coolant temperatures can be studied. A water-cooled surrogate rectangular channel is employed to represent the EGR cooler. One side of the channel is made of glass for visualization purposes. A medium duty diesel engine is used to generate the exhaust stream.

Soot formation and distribution inside the cylinder of a light-duty direct injection diesel engine, have been predicted using Kiva-3v CFD software. Pathlines of soot particles traced from specific in-cylinder locations and crank angle instants have been explored using the results for cylinder charge motion predicted by the Kiva-3v code. Pathlines are determined assuming soot particles are massless and follow charge motion. Coagulation and agglomeration have not been taken into account. High rates of soot formation dominate during and just after the injection. Oxidation becomes dominant after the injection has terminated and throughout the power stroke. Computed soot pathlines show that soot particles formed just below the fuel spray axis during the early injection period are more likely to travel to the cylinder wall boundary layer. Soot particles above the fuel spray have lesser tendency to be conveyed to the cylinder wall.