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The present work proposed to implement oxy-fuel combustion mode into a homogeneous charge compression ignition engine to reduce complexity in engine emissions after-treatment and lower carbon dioxide emission. The combination of oxy-fuel combustion mode with homogeneous charge compression ignition engine can be further optimized by the utilization of direct high temperature and pressure water injection to improve cycle performance. A retrofitted conventional diesel engine coupled with port fuel injection and direct water injection is utilized in this study. A self-designed oxygen and carbon dioxide mixture intake system with flexible oxygen fraction adjustment ability is implemented in the test bench to simulate the adoption of exhaust gas recirculation. Water injection system is directly installed in the combustion chamber with a modified high speed solenoid diesel injector.

In recent years, particulate matters (PM) emissions from gasoline direct injection (GDI) engines have been gradually paid attention to, and the hydrous ethanol has a high oxygen content and a fast burning rate, which can effectively improve the combustion environment. In addition, Exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) can effectively reduce engine NOx emissions, and combining EGR technology with GDI engines is becoming a new research direction. In this study, the effects of hydrous ethanol gasoline blends on the combustion and emission characteristics of GDI engines are analyzed through bench test. The results show that the increase of the proportion of hydrous ethanol can accelerate the burning rate, shorten the combustion duration by 7°crank angle (CA), advance the peak moment of in-cylinder pressure and rate of heat release (RoHR) and improve the combustion efficiency. The hydrous ethanol gasoline blends can effectively improve the gaseous and PM emissions of the GDI engine.

By changing the top-land radial clearance, this paper presents the effect of the piston crevice on the transient HC emissions of the first firing cycle at cold start on an LPG SI Engine. A fast-response flame ionization detector (FFID) was employed to measure transient HC emissions of the first firing cycle. At the same time, the transient cylinder pressure and instantaneous crankshaft speed of the engine were measured and recorded. The results show that increasing 50% crevice volume leads to 25% increase of HC emissions in the lean region and 18% increase of HC emissions in the rich region, however, the 50% increase of crevice volume contributes to 32% decease of HC emissions in the stable combustion region. For LPG SI engine, the HC emissions of the first firing cycle during cold start are relatively low in a wide range of the excess air ratio.

Combustion and emission characteristics of diesel and biodiesel blends (soybean methyl ester) were studied in a single-cylinder Direct Injection (DI) engine at different loads and a constant speed. The results show that NOx emission and fuel consumption are increased with increasing biodiesel percentage. Reduction of smoke opacity is significant at higher loads with a higher biodiesel ratio. Compared with the baseline diesel fuel, B20 (20% biodiesel) has a slight increase of NOx emission and similar fuel consumption. Smoke emission of B20 is close to that of diesel fuel. Results of combustion analysis indicate that start of combustion (SOC) for biodiesel blends is earlier than that for diesel. Higher biodiesel percentage results in earlier SOC. Earlier SOC for biodiesel blends is due to advanced injection timing from higher density and bulk modulus and lower ignition delay from higher cetane number.

In this paper, the characteristics of performance and emissions of diesel and biodiesel blends are studied in a four-cylinder DI engine employing common rail injection system. The results show that engine output power is further reduced and brake specific fuel consumption (BSFC) increased with the increase of the blend concentration. B100 provides average reduction by 8.6% in power and increase by 11% in BSFC. With respect to the emissions, although NOx emissions were increased with increasing the blend concentration, the increase depends on the load. Filter smoke number is reduced with increasing the blend concentration. At the same time, NO, NO2 and other specific emissions are also investigated. In addition, difference of performance and emission between standard parameters of ECU and modified parameters of ECU is investigated for B10 and B20 based on same output power. The results show that NOx emission and FSN are still lower than baseline diesel.

In this paper, characteristics of gas emission and particle size distribution are investigated in a common rail diesel engine fueled with biodiesel blends. Gas emission and particle size distribution are measured by AVL FTIR - SESAM and SMPS respectively. The results show that although biodiesel blends would result in higher NOx emissions, characteristics of NOx emissions were also dependent on the engine load for waste cooking oil methyl ester. Higher blend concentration results in higher NO2 emission after two diesel oxidation catalyst s (DOC). A higher blend concentration leads to lower CO and SO2 emissions. No significant difference of Alkene emission is found among biodiesel blends. The particle size distributions of diesel exhaust aerosol consist of a nucleation mode (NM) with a peak below 50N• m and an accumulation mode with a peak above 50N • m. B100 will result in lower particulates with the absence of NM.

The effects of biodiesel on the swelling of the elastomers and plastics and the corrosion of metals are studied by the immersion tests. The results indicate that biodiesels make little corrosion effect on aluminum, steel and little swelling impact on plastics, but a significant corrosion may be taken place on cooper and brass for some sourced biodiesels. For nitrile-butadiene rubber, the variation of swelling properties in biodiesels is slightly higher than that in diesel. For the non-diesel-resistant elatomers, the variation of swelling properties is lower than those in diesel. The production process and biodiesel source have an influence on the result of elastomer swelling and corrosion. The relationship between the impact of biodiesel on materials and biodiesels properties are also discussed.

A biodiesel fuel, obtained from Jatropha seed in China, was tested in a direct injection, high pressure common-rail diesel engine for passenger cars. Effects of biodiesel on particle number and size distribution of the diesel engine are studied using an Engine Exhaust Particle Sizer (EEPS). Base petroleum diesel fuel, 10% and 20% v/v biodiesel blends with the base petroleum diesel fuel, the biodiesel fuel (B0, B10, B20 and B100 fuels) were tested without engine modification. For all test fuels, the particle number and size distribution show unimodal or bimodal log-normal distribution, with a nucleation mode peak value in 6.04nm to 10.8nm particle diameter, and with an accumulation mode peak value in 39.2nm to 60.4nm particle diameter.

Future clean combustion engines tend to increase the cylinder charge to achieve better fuel economy and lower exhaust emissions. The increase of the cylinder charge is often associated with either excessive air admission or exhaust gas recirculation, which leads to unfavorable ignition conditions at the ignition point. Advanced ignition methods and systems have progressed rapidly in recent years in order to suffice the current and future engine development, and a simple increase of energy of the inductive ignition system does not often provide the desired results from a cost-benefit point of view. Proper design of the ignition system circuit is required to achieve certain spark performances.

In order to investigate the impacts of recirculated exhaust gas temperature on gasoline engine combustion and emissions, an experimental study has been conducted on a turbocharged PFI gasoline engine. The engine was equipped with a high pressure cooled EGR system, in which different EGR temperatures were realized by using different EGR coolants. The engine ran at 2000 r/min and 3000 r/min, and the BMEP varied from 0.2MPa to 1.0MPa with the step of 0.2MPa. At each case, there were three conditions: 0% EGR, 10% LT-EGR, 10% HT-EGR. The results indicated that LT-EGR had a longer combustion duration compared with HT-EGR. When BMEP was 1.0 MPa, CA50 of HT-EGR advanced about 5oCA. However, CA50 of LT-EGR could still keep steady and in appropriate range, which guaranteed good combustion efficiency. Besides, LT-EGR had lower exhaust gas temperature, which could help to suppress knock. And its lower exhaust gas temperature could reduce heat loss. These contributed to fuel consumption reduction.

Biodiesel as a renewable energy is becoming increasingly attractive due to the growing scarcity of conventional fossil fuels. Meanwhile, the development of after-treatment technologies for the diesel engine brings new insight concerning emissions especially the particulate matter pollutants. In order to study the coupling effects of biodiesel blend and CCRT (Catalyzed Continuously Regeneration Trap) on the particulate matter emissions, the particulate matter emissions from an urban bus with and without CCRT burning BD0 and BD10 respectively was tested and analyzed using electrical low pressure impactor (ELPI). The operation conditions included steady state conditions and transient conditions. Results showed that the particulate number-size distribution of BD10 and BD0 both had two peaks in nuclei mode and accumulation mode at the conditions of idle, low speed and medium speed while at high speed condition the particulate number-size distribution only had one peak.

An EURO 3 certified common rail diesel engine was fueled with pure petroleum diesel (EURO 4 standard) and three different alternative blended diesel fuels, 10% biodiesel blended diesel (B10), 10% gas to liquid blended diesel (G10) and 10% water emulsified diesel (E10). Tests were performed at different engine speeds and load states. Particle number concentration and size distribution data were obtained from an engine exhaust particle sizer (EEPS). Over all the working conditions, total particle and nucleation mode particle number concentration among these fuels from high to low were in this order: B10, E10, pure diesel and G10. Proportions for nucleation mode particle over all the operating states in that order were 89%, 82%, 59% and 66%. Particle size distributions of B10 and E10 presented bimodal logarithmic distributions with outstanding nucleation mode peaks at all working conditions.

The increasingly stringent emission regulations have mandated the use of CCRT (catalyzed continuously regeneration trap) made by upstream DOC (diesel oxidation catalyst) and downstream CDPF (catalyzed diesel particulate filter) for heavy-duty diesel vehicles, which is proved to be the only way that can efficiently control the gaseous and particulate emissions. The performance of after-treatment is greatly influenced by the running conditions of the diesel vehicle and its exhaust parameters, so this paper intended to use grey relational analysis to study the correlation between running conditions (velocity, acceleration, VSP (vehicle specific power)), exhaust parameters (exhaust flow rate, DOC inlet temperature, concentrations of CO, THC, O2 and NOX) and the performance of DOC and CCRT based on chassis dynamometer test. Results showed that the effect of DOC on CO and THC is mainly affected by exhaust flow rate, exhaust temperature and THC concentration.

Due to the oil crisis and the requirements of energy saving and emission reduction, the research of alternative energy sources for sustainable development has made good progress. Methanol has proven to be a very suitable alternative clean fuel. Compared with gasoline, methanol has a wide range of source and the higher oxygen content and octane number and combustion efficiency, which are beneficial for the engine performance. The effect of different proportions of methanol-gasoline mixed fuel on the performance of SI engine was studied experimentally (lower proportion and higher proportion). It was found that the engine power performance, fuel economy and exhaust emissions were related to the methanol ratio under different operating conditions. In order to adapt to different operating conditions to improve the performance of methanol-gasoline engine, an on-board flexible fuel mixed system was proposed.

Based on pure diesel, pure biodiesel, and two biodiesel blends at volumetric mixture ratio of 10% and 20%, NEDC emission tests were carried out on a Euro 3-compliant diesel car. Results showed that pure biodiesel and biodiesel blends had decreasing effects on CO and HC emissions under warm-up situations, but deteriorations of CO and HC emissions were observed under cold start-up and low vehicle speed operating conditions, and this caused increasing results of CO and HC emission factors in NEDC tests when substituting pure diesel with both of pure biodiesel and biodiesel blend of 20%. Pure biodiesel aroused an increase in NOX emissions compared with pure diesel, but the two low mixture ratio biodiesel blends were observed in different increasing effects and even decreasing effects on NOX emissions. Only pure biodiesel had limited increasing effects on CO₂ emissions.

Regulated gaseous and particulate matter (PM) emissions in the exhaust from a heavy duty diesel engine with biodiesel fuel were studied, and the emission characteristics of PM and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) emissions in PM were highlighted. In the experiment, pure diesel fuel and B10 (a blend of diesel and biodiesel fuels with the volume ratio of 9 to 1) fuel were chosen. The study shows that, compared to the pure diesel, the emissions of PM, soluble organic fractions (SOF) and PAHs from the heavy duty diesel engine decrease when the engine burns B10 fuel, and the nitrogen oxides (NOx) emission slightly increases, while the unburned hydrocarbon (HC) and carbon monoxide (CO) emissions also decline. Among the detected 12 kinds of PAHs, emission concentrations of 10 kinds of PAHs from the engine with B10 descend. Especially Benzo(a)pyrene equivalent toxicity (BEQ) analysis results show that the BEQ of B10 fuel decreases by 15.2% compared to pure diesel.

Most of the existing energy management strategies for Extended-Range Electric Vehicles (E-REVs) are heuristic, which restricts coordination between the battery and the Range Extender. This paper presents an instantaneous optimization energy management strategy based on the Minimum Loss Power Algorithm (MLPA) for a fuel cell E-REV. An instantaneous loss power function of power train system is constructed by considering the charge and discharge efficiency of the battery, together with the working efficiency of the fuel cell Range Extender. The battery working mode and operating points of the fuel cell Range Extender are decided by an instantaneous optimization module (an artificial neural network) that aims to minimize the loss power function at each time step.

The First Firing Cycle (FFC) is very important at cold-start. Misfiring of the first firing cycle can lead to significant HC emissions and affect the subsequent cycles. This paper presents an investigation of characteristics of transient NO emissions in a small LPG SI engine with electronic gaseous injection system. To determine the optimal excess air coefficient ( λ=[A/F]/[A/F]stoic) of the first firing cycle, the emission of instantaneous NO was proposed as a useful criterion to judge if the combustion is occurred or not. A fast response NO detector- Cambustion fNOx400, based on the chemiluminescence's (CLD) method, has been employed to measure continuous, transient emissions of NO during the first firing cycle in the exhaust port of the engine. At the same time, the transient cylinder pressure, instantaneous crankshaft speed of the engine and engine-out HC emissions were measured and recorded.

Based on a 125cm3 single cylinder SI engine, the designated idle speed was controlled by adjusting of cycle ignition advance angle. By analyzing the effects of different idle speed and throttle open position on three way catalyst (TWC) light-off time and conversion efficiency of HC and CO emissions, combined with the corresponding total HC and CO emissions level, the optimum idle speed and throttle open position at engine's warm-up phase were found by the matching optimum. The present method for engine control strategy is helpful to optimize the warm-up phase emission levels in SI engine with LPG fuel.

Lane marking detection plays a crucial role in Autonomous Driving Systems or Advanced Driving Assistance System. Vision based lane marking detection technology has been well discussed and put into practical application. LiDAR is more stable for challenging environment compared to cameras, and with the development of LiDAR technology, price and lifetime are no longer an issue. We propose a lane marking detection algorithm based on solid-state LiDARs. First a series of data pre-processing operations were done for the solid-state LiDARs with small field of view, and the needed ground points are extracted by the RANSAC method. Then, based on the OTSU method, we propose an approach for extracting lane marking points using intensity information.