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Detailed chemical kinetics is essential for accurate prediction of combustion performance as well as emissions in practical combustion engines. However, implementation of that is challenging. In this work, dynamic adaptive chemistry (DAC) is integrated into large eddy simulations (LES) of an n-heptane spray flame in a constant volume chamber (CVC) with realistic application conditions. DAC accelerates the time integration of the governing ordinary differential equations (ODEs) for chemical kinetics through the use of locally (spatially and temporally) valid skeletal mechanisms. Instantaneous flame structures and global combustion characteristics such as ignition delay time, flame lift-off length (LOL) and emissions are investigated to assess the effect of DAC on LES-DAC results. The study reveals that in LES-DAC simulations, the auto-ignition time and LOL obtain a well agreement with experiment data under different oxygen concentrations.

Homogeneous Charge Induced Ignition (HCII) combustion utilizes a port injection of high-volatile fuel to form a homogeneous charge and a direct injection of high ignitable fuel near the Top Dead Center (TDC) to trigger combustion. Compared to Conventional Diesel Combustion (CDC) with high injection pressures, HCII has the potential to achieve diesel-like thermal efficiency with significant reductions in NOx and PM emissions with relatively low-pressure injections, which would benefit the engine cost saving remarkably. In the first part of current investigation, experiments were conducted at medium load with single diesel injection strategy. HCII exhibited great potential of using low injection pressures to achieve low soot emissions. But the engine load for HCII was limited by high heat release rate. Thus, in the second and third part, experiments were performed at high and low load with double diesel injection strategy.

Traffic congestions are increasingly severe in urban areas, especially at the merging areas of the ramps and the arterial roads. Because of the complex conflict relationship of the vehicles in ramps and arterial roads in terms of time-spatial constraints, it is challenging to coordinate the motion of these vehicles, which may easily cause congestions at the merging areas. The connected and automated vehicles (CAVs) provides potential opportunities to solve this problem. A centralized merging control method for CAVs is proposed in this paper, which can organize the traffic movements in merging areas efficiently and safely. In this method, the merging control model is built to formulate the vehicle coordination problem in merging areas, which is then transformed to the discrete nonlinear optimization form. A simulation model is built to verify the proposed method.

An energy management strategy is needed to optimally allocate the driver's power demands to different power sources in the fuel cell hybrid vehicles. The driver's power demand is modelled as a Markov process in which the transition probabilities are estimated on the basis of the observed sample paths. The Markov Decision Process (MDP) theory is applied to design a stochastic energy management strategy for fuel cell hybrid vehicles. This obtained control strategy was then tested on a real time simulation platform of the fuel cell hybrid vehicles. In comparison to the other 3 strategies, the constant bus voltage strategy, the static optimization strategy and the dynamic programming strategy, simulations in the Beijing bus driving cycle demonstrate that the obtained stochastic energy management strategy can achieve better performance in fuel economy in the same demand of dynamic.

In this paper, a hybrid combustion mode in four-stroke gasoline direct injection engines was studied. Switching cam profiles and injection strategies simultaneously was adopted to obtain a rapid and smooth switch between SI mode and HCCI mode. Based on the continuous pressure traces and corresponding emissions, HCCI steady operation, HCCI transient process (combustion phase adjustment, SI-HCCI, HCCI-SI, HCCI cold start) were studied. In HCCI mode, HCCI combustion phase can be adjusted rapidly by changing the split injection ratio. The HCCI control strategies had been demonstrated in a Chery GDI2.0 engine. The HCCI engine simulation results show that, oxygen and active radicals are stored due to negative valve overlap and split fuel injection under learn burn condition. This reduces the HCCI sensitivity on inlet boundary conditions, such as intake charge and intake temperature. The engine can be run from 1500rpm to 4000rpm in HCCI mode without spark ignition.

Advanced compression ignition combustion system which reduces simultaneously both nitride oxides (NOx) and particulate matter (PM) is a promising approach to meet future emission regulations. In order to achieve advanced compression ignition, flexible fuel injection is required for ultra-early and post-TDC injections, which conventional injector fails to accomplish due to wall-wetting effect. In this work, special injectors with the spray angle of 60 degree are applied on a 4 cylinder mass-production diesel engine without modification of the engine configuration. For application-oriented study, sweep experiments of injection timings and durations, fuel injection pressure and the boost pressure are carried out to investigate the relationships between the control parameters and the engine performance. Model based calibration and real application tests validate the maximum applicable operation range of maximum speed of 2200 RPM and IMEP of 8.0 bar.

The traditional vacuum booster is gradually replaced by Brake-by-Wire system (BBW) in modern passenger car, especially Electric Vehicle (EV). Some mechanical and hydraulic components are replaced by electronic components in Brake-by-Wire system. Using BBW system in modern passenger vehicles can not only improve the automotive safety performance, reliability and stability, but also promote vehicle maneuverability, comfort, fuel economy and environmental protection. Although vehicle's braking performance is greatly improved by using BBW, the system will inevitably consume some energy of the vehicle power supply, thus introducing unexpected drawback in comparison with the traditional vacuum assist braking system, since it doesn't need any electric power. Therefore, the analysis of energy consumption on typical main cylinder booster based BBW system under typical driving cycles will contribute to advanced design of current advanced braking system.

Gasoline direct injection (GDI) engines have been developed rapidly in recent years, driven by stringent legislative requirements on vehicle fuel efficiency and emissions. However, one challenge facing GDI is the formation of particulate emissions, particularly with the presence of injector tip deposits. The Chinese market features some gasoline fuels that contain no detergent additives and are prone to deposit formation, which can affect engine performance and emissions. The use of detergent additives to mitigate the formation of injector deposits in a GDI engine was investigated in this study by testing a 1.5L turbocharged GDI engine available in the Chinese market. The engine was operated both on base gasoline and on gasoline dosed with detergent additives to evaluate the effect on injector deposit formation and engine performance and emissions.

Low temperature combustion (LTC) is an advanced combustion mode, which can achieve low emissions of NOx and PM simultaneously, and keep relatively high thermal efficiency at the same time. However, one of the major challenges for LTC is the cold condition. In cold conditions, stable compression ignition is hard to realize, while thermal efficiency and emissions deteriorate, especially for gasoline or fuel with high octane number. This study presents using pressure sensor glow plugs (PSG) to realize Glow plug assisted compression ignition (GA-CI) at cold conditions. Further, a glow plug control unit (GPCU) is developed, a closed-loop power feedback control algorithm is introduced based on GPCU. In the experiment, engine coolant temperature is swept. Experimental results show that GA-CI has earlier combustion phases, larger combustion duration and higher in-cylinder pressure. And misfire is avoided, cycle-to-cycle variations are greatly reduced.

High boost and direct injection are effective ways for energy saving in gasoline engines. However, the occurrence of super-knock at high load has become a main obstacle for further improving power density and fuel economy. It has been known that super-knock can be induced by pre-ignition, and oil droplet auto-ignition is found to be one of the possible mechanisms. In this study, experiments were conducted in a single-cylinder thermal research engine (TRE), in which different types of oil and surrogates were directly injected into the cylinder and then led to pre-ignition and super-knock. The effect of oil injection timing, oil injection quantity, different gasoline and different oil were tested. All the oil in this work could induce pre-ignition, even though their combustion phasing was much later than that in the case of n-hexadecane.

This research focuses on the potential of Homogeneous Charge Induced Ignition (HCII) combustion meeting the Euro V emission standard on a heavy-duty multi-cylinder engine using a simple after-treatment system. However, in our previous studies, it was found that the gasoline ratio was limited in HCII by the over-high compression ratio (CR). In this paper, the effects of reducing CR on the performances of HCII at medium and high loads were explored by experimental methods. It was found that by reducing CR from 18:1 to 16:1 the peak in-cylinder pressure and the peak pressure rise rate were effectively reduced and the gasoline ratio range could be obviously extended. Thus, the combustion and emission characteristics of HCII at medium and high loads were noticeably improved. Soot emissions can be significantly reduced because of the increase of premixed combustion ratio. The reduction could be over 50% especially at high load and high speed conditions.

Tracked vehicles are widely used for agriculture, construction and many other areas. Due to high emissions, hybrid electric driveline has been applied to tracked vehicles. The hybrid powertrain design for the tracked vehicle has been researched for years. Different from wheeled vehicles, the tracked vehicle not only requires high mobility while straight driving, but also pursues strong steering performance. The paper takes the hybrid track-type dozers (TTDs) as an example and proposes an optimal design of a novel power-split powertrain for TTDs. The commercial hybrid TTD usually adopts the series hybrid powertrain, and sometimes with an extra steering mechanism, which has led to low efficiency and made the structure more complicated. The proposed three-planetary-gear power-split hybrid powertrain can overcome the problems above by utilizing the characteristics of planetary gear sets.

Hybridization of vehicles is considered as the most promising technology for automakers and researchers, facing the challenge of optimizing both the fuel economy and emission of the road transport. Extensive studies have been performed on power-split hybrid electric vehicles (PS-HEVs). Despite of the fact that their excellent fuel economy performance in city driving conditions has been witnessed, a bottle neck for further improving the fuel economy of PS-HEVs has been encountered due to the inherent engine-generator-motor power circulation of the power-split system under medium-low speed cruising scenarios. Due to the special mechanical constraints of the power-split device (PSD), the conventional periodic cruising strategy like Pulse and Glide cannot be applied to PS-HEVs directly.

Hybrid electric vehicles (HEV) are essential for reducing fuel consumption and emissions. However, when analyzing different segments of the transportation industry, for example, public transportation or different sizes of delivery trucks and how the HEV are used, it is clear that one powertrain may not be optimal in all situations. Choosing a hybrid powertrain architecture and proper component sizes for different applications is an important task to find the optimal trade-off between fuel economy, drivability, and vehicle cost. However, exploring and evaluating all possible architectures and component sizes is a time-consuming task. A search algorithm, using Gaussian Processes, is proposed that simultaneously explores multiple architecture options, to identify the Pareto-optimal solutions.

Gasoline direct injection engines can greatly improve the fuel economy, but the idea mixture distribution cannot be easily controlled. In this paper, the linearized instability sheet atomization (LISA) and large eddy simulation (LES) implemented into KIVA-3V code were used to study the gasoline hollow cone spray process for gasoline direct injection (GDI) in a constant volume vessel. The three-dimensional results show that the LISA model can effectively simulate the gasoline hollow cone spray and obtain the string structure compared to the experiment data. And the velocity interpolation method can reduce the grid dependency of spray simulation. Using dense grid (about 8 million cells) in LES and RANS all can obtain the good spray tip penetration and width. Unlike diesel spray, for gasoline spray there are not big difference between the results using LES and RANS. In additional the ambient pressure significantly influence the gasoline spray shape.

To further explore the potential of fuel economy for hybrid electric vehicle (HEV), a methodology of demand power optimization is proposed. The fuel consumption depends not only on the EMS, but also on the way to operate vehicle. A control strategy to adjust driver’s demand before power splitting is necessary. To get accurate and reliable control strategy, two aspects are the most important. First, a rigorous and organized modeling approach is a base to describe complicated powertrain system of HEV. The energetic macroscopic representation (EMR) is a graphical synthetic description of electromechanical conversion system based on energy flow. A powertrain architecture of HEV is described explicitly via the EMR. Second, the effectiveness of EMS and the reasonability of driving operations are vital.

Injection rate control is considered as an effective way to optimize diesel combustion process, decrease emission and improve fuel economy. There are many injection rate shaping devices, but most of them still suffer from structure complexity and parameter sensitivity which limit their effectiveness and practicality. A new initial injection rate control method in solenoid-controlled diesel injection systems is introduced in this paper. The basic idea of this method is to maintain a small spill passage between plunger chamber and inlet port during initial injection period. The initial injection rate can be regulated by changing the closing timing of the solenoid-controlled spill valve. This method has the advantages of simple construction, flexible adjustment and stable performance. Computer aided analysis and design based on a simulation program of the system is conducted to compare and select the sizes of the small spill passage according to their effect on injection characteristics.

In order to address the increasing energy and environmental concerns, China and the US both launched the fuel economy regulations and aim to push the development of technology. In this study, the stringency of CAFC and CAFE regulations and the technology development of two countries are compared. Besides, the optimal technology pathways of America and automakers for the compliance of CAFE regulations are calculated based on the modified VOLPE model, and the results are used as reference for China. The results indicate that the annual regulation improvement rates of China is higher than America and the AIR of China 2015-2020 regulation reaches 6.2% and is the most stringent phase in 10 years from 2015 to 2025. From the perspective of technology, there are still big gaps between China and the US in the applications of advanced fuel saving technologies.

Gasoline particulate filter (GPF) is considered a suitable solution to meet the increasingly stringent particle number (PN) regulations for both gasoline direct injection (GDI) and multi-port fuel injection (MPI) engines. Generally, GDI engines emit more particulate matter (PM) and PN. In recent years, GDI engines have gained significant market penetration in the automobile industry owing to better fuel economy and drivability. In this study, an accelerated ash loading method was tested by doping lubricating oil into the fuel for a GDI engine. Emission tests were performed at different ash loads with different driving cycles and GPF combinations. The results showed that the GPF could significantly reduce particle emissions to meet the China 6 regulation. With further ash loading, the filtration efficiency increased above 99% and the effects on fuel consumption and backpressure were found to be limited, even with an ash loading of up to 50 g/l.

Diesel particulate filter (DPF) is necessary for diesel engines to meet the increasingly stringent emission regulations. Many studies have demonstrated that the lubricant derived ash has a significant effect on DPF pressure drop and engine fuel economy, and this effect becomes more and more severe with the increasing of operating hours of the DPF because the ash accumulated in the DPF cannot be removed by regeneration. It is reported that most of the DPFs operated with more ash than soot in the filter for more than three quarters of the time during its lifetime [1]. In order to mitigate this problem, the original engine manufacturers (OEM) tend to use an oversized DPF for the engine. However, it will increase the costs of the DPF and reduce the compactness of the engine aftertreatment system.