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The emissions reduction potential of neat GTL (Gas to Liquids: Fischer-Tropsch synthetic gas-oil derived from natural gas) fuels has been preliminarily evaluated by three different latest-generation diesel engines with different displacements. In addition, differences in combustion phenomena between the GTL fuels and baseline diesel fuel have been observed by means of a single cylinder engine with optical access. From these findings, one of the engines has been modified to improve both exhaust emissions and fuel consumption simultaneously, assuming the use of neat GTL fuels. The conversion efficiency of the NOx (oxides of nitrogen) reduction catalyst has also been improved.

Mechanical seals have been applied as a sealing device for an automotive air conditioning compressor. Sometimes, the leaking trouble occurs under the conditions such as excessive wear, blistering formation and cracking phenomena on the carbon-ring. This paper is concerned with the analysis of cracking phenomena based upon Finite Element Method (FEM) calculation and experimental investigation.

Mechanical seals have been applied as a sealing device for an automotive air conditioning compressor. However, the leaking trouble occurs under the conditions such as excessive wear, blistering formation and cracking phenomena on the carbon-rings. This paper is concerned with a study of carbon-cracking phenomena.

The turbo-charger of an automotive engine is commonly used for increasing its power characteristics. In this equipment, both sealing and lubricating conditions are important factors and face to difficult technical problems. This paper is concerned with sealing problem for the turbo-charger, and development of low frictional type mechanical seals with good performance and excellent reliability.

Mechanical seals have been applied as sealing devices for water pumps of automotive engines. The mechanical seal plays an important state. Therefore, there are many kinds of constructions. This paper is concerned with the FEM (Finite Element Method) analytical results for various water pump seal construction. It becomes clear that the property of heat transfer is closely related to the sealing durability.

Urea-SCR(selective catalytic reduction) system is widely used as a technology of NOx(Nitrogen Oxides) reduction from diesel engine exhaust gases. Emission regulations have becoming stricter all over the world, and high NOx reduction performance is necessary to meet the emission regulations. To get higher NOx reduction performance of the Urea-SCR system, it is important to understand detailed chemical reaction mechanisms of Urea-SCR catalysts. In this study, we focused on elucidation of the reaction mechanism of the Urea-SCR catalyst by numerical simulation approach. The chemical reaction models with detail chemical reactions were built for both Fe-catalyst and Cu-catalyst. Both of the catalytic reaction models can predict difference of the catalytic reaction performance between the Fe-catalyst and the Cu-catalyst. In addition, rate-determining reaction step of the Cu-catalyst was successfully identified by the numerical simulation results.

The new Diesel Particulate active Reduction (DPR) system was developed for a medium-duty commercial vehicle as a deNOx catalyst combined with the conventional DPR system to achieve the Japan Post New-Long-Term (JPNLT) emissions regulations. It consists of a catalyst converter named as the new DPR cleaner, a fuel dosing injector, NOx sensors, temperatures and pressure sensors. The new DPR cleaner was constructed from a Front Diesel Oxidation Catalyst (F-DOC), a catalyzed particulate Filter (Filter), and a Rear Diesel Oxidation Catalyst (R-DOC). A newly developed Hydrocarbon Selective Catalyst Reduction (HC-SCR) catalyst was employed for each catalyst aiming to reduce NOx emissions with diesel fuel supplied from the fuel dosing injector. While the total volume of the catalyst was increased, the compact and easy-to-install catalyst converter was realized through the optimization of the flow vector and flow distribution in it by means of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis.

A 2-LEG NOx Storage-Reduction (NSR) catalyst system is one of potential after-treatment technology to meet stringent NOx and PM emissions standards as Post New Long Term (Japanese 2009 regulation) and US'10. Concerning NOx reduction using NSR catalyst, a secondary fuel injection is necessary to make fuel-rich exhaust condition during the NOx reduction, and causes its fuel penalty. Since fuel injected in the high-temperature (∼250 degrees Celsius) exhaust instantly reacts with oxygen in common diesel exhaust, the proportion of fuel consumption to reduce the NOx stored on NSR catalyst is relatively small. A 2-LEG NSR catalyst system has the decreasing exhaust flow mechanism during NOx reduction, and the potential to improve the NOx reduction and fuel penalty. Therefore, this paper studies the 2-LEG NSR catalyst system. The after-treatment system consists of NSR catalysts, a secondary fuel injection system, flow controlled valves and a Catalyzed Diesel Particulate Filter (CDPF).

It is well known that the low-temperature test is successful for rating sealing characteristics of oil seals. Therefore, a compound with good thermal resistance to an ambient temperature range from -40 to +150°C is needed by the oil seal industry and should be developed. On the other hand, it is indicated that low temperature affects the sealing characteristics and the lip abrasion of oil seals. This paper examines the relation between temperature and the sealing characteristics of oil seals. It is clear that the condition of the rubbing surface is closely related to the sealing characteristics of oil seals, and that the lower the ambient temperature falls, the rougher their rubbing surfaces become. Moreover, the roughening condition of the rubbing surface is intimately related with the environmental temperature, the rubbing period, the lubricating condition, the lip design, and compounds.

In order to improve the reliability of seals for automotive application in practical use, it is considered that further basic investigations concerning sealing characteristics of seals are necessary. However, it has been found, from analyzing seals decided in the market as defective parts, that the troubles of seals in the market are mainly caused by both wrong handling for seals and the use under wrong operating condition which has not been expected by manufacturers of seals. Therefore, in order to improve the reliability of seals, it is important to investigate in detail troubles on functional characteristics of seals and their countermeasures. In this paper, on oil seals, O-rings, water pump seals and dust cover seals as seals for automotive application, the results of investigations are discussed.

For purpose of clarifying the effect of quantity of lubricating oil supplied to the seal lip portion on sealing characteristics of oil seals, relations between the typical constructional applications of the fitting portion for oil seals and the quantity of the lubricating oil supplied to the oil seals are discussed. Then the necessary minimum quantity of the lubricating oil for preventing the seal lip from wear is investigated. And it is clarified that the decrease in sealing characteristics occurs when the lubricating oil is supplied insufficiently to the seal lip portion and, finally, the countermeasure is discussed.

New type oil seals - nonwoven fabric secondary lip type oil seals are recently widely used for one of the sealing apparatus for automotive application. Basic improvement of this type of seals is in a secondary lip which prevents solid foreign matters such as dust and sand from entering into the rubbing portion between a primary lip of oil seals and a shaft. This secondary lip is superior in anti-dust property, wear resistance, following ability to the shaft eccentricity and air permeability to the conventional secondary lip of rubber. And the sealing performance of new type seals with the secondary lip made of special nonwoven fabrics is more stable than that of the conventional rubber seals.

It is clear that excessive lip wear is one of the origin of oil seal leakage in the market. In this paper, follows are discussed; Oil seals used for the rear side of automotive mission gear case have excessive lip wear as typical failure mode, and the sealing characteristics of oil seals is influenced by reciprocating motion of rotational shaft with rough surface.

According to the 1982 Japanese Engine Data Book, 249 automobile engine models are used, including gasoline and diesel engines. Among them, 87 models (approximately 60% of all 4-cycle gasoline engine models), are designed for small passenger car applications, with displacements between 1.51 and 2.00. This paper will highlight the area such as Seals for Automobile Engine Applications, Present Automotive Engine Seal Situation in Japan and Countermeasure Activity for Field Claims.

End-face type seals have been applied as sealing devices for the water pumps in the cooling systems of automotive engines. However, many troublesome problems have occurred for many years and the countermeasures have been investigated as many times. For examples, the problem of excessive abrasion of seal faces caused by foreign particles in liquid to be sealed was solved by using the sliding materials which had a hither thermal conductivity and a lower coefficient of thermal expansion. Furthermore, the noise problem of the ringing phenomena caused by the stick-slip between sliding surfaces was prevented by changing the carbon material whose lubrication characteristics had a negative slope as weak as possible in the Torque-Speed curve. As a result of these investigations, end face seals of this type have obtained the satisfactory sealing performance for many users' requirements in the present Japanese market.

Recently, use of superchargers has been popularized as a means of improving output of passenger car engines. Supercharging is not a new problem. Gottlieb Daimler published an idea to supercharge a gasoline engine by a mechanically driven superchager in 1885 in DRP 34926 (Ref. 1)*. Two types of supercharging are used currently; turbo supercharging and mechanical supercharging. Turbo superchargers (exhaust gas turbine superchargers) are used in most case, however, have a weak point that the supercharging effect at a low speed is very small. For low speed operation, mechanical superchargers which can improve, this weak point greatly, are rather preferable to be used. However, they have several disadvantages, such as, with an increase in speed, power loss increases, delivery air temperature rises, delivery air density lowers, and so on. For automotive engine superchargers, it is necessary to overcome these problems.

A C-shaped seals is used under severe conditions in which rubber gasket and o-ring can not be used. Furthermore, C-seals exhibit various advantage such as small fitting space and light weight, therefore widely used as sealing elements for rocket engines and automotive engines. And also particular advantage offered by C-seals is good springback, high level of sealing performance under high pressure condition, stretching of the flange bolts. This paper is concerned of the sealing mechanism of C-seal by experimental work and finite element stress analysis. As a result, the lead coated layer on a C-seal has an important function on the sealing performance. In the present paper we describe on an interesting results reached by experiments regarding correlation of helium leakage late and contact pressure.

The mechanical seal in automotive water pumps is critical to the performance and reliability of the engine, requiring consistent, effective sealing performance and long operating life. In recent years, the advent of maintenance free performance requirements and increasingly severe operating conditions have resulted in significant changes to the variety and concentration of additives in cooling systems. As a consequence of these changes to the additives, various types of premature seal leakage failures have occurred during service operation. These have been categorized into four types of failure modes and compared with seals providing normal service in order to establish simulated test conditions for engine coolants containing various additives. This paper reports on the various types of failure mechanisms that were found to occur during simulated performance testing and the corrective measures that will eliminate their occurrence

To reduce NOx and PM emissions in exhaust gas, after-treatment systems for low NOx emissions are being developed in combination with improvements of engine combustion. In recent years, the exhaust gas temperature has been dropping because of enhanced low-fuel consumption of the engine. Therefore, it is urgent to develop NOx reduction technologies that work at a low temperature under 200degC. Since NOx is reduced by reacting with ammonia supplied to the SCR catalyst, it is necessary to make the urea solution decompose into ammonia using the heat of the exhaust gas to supply sufficient ammonia to the SCR catalyst. However, both the decomposition reaction and hydrolysis reaction of the urea have insufficient exhaust heat, thus making it difficult for urea to decompose and hydrolyze to ammonia at a low temperature. To solve this problem, it focuses on forcibly decomposing the urea solution without depending on the exhaust gas temperature.

1 To meet the Japan Post New-Long-Term (Japan 2009) emissions regulation introduced in 2009, The Hydrocarbon Selective Catalytic Reduction (HC-SCR) system for the NOx emission with a diesel fuel was chosen among various deNOx after-treatment systems (the Urea-SCR, the NOx storage-Reduction Catalyst and so on). The HC-SCR was adopted, in addition to combustion modification of diesel engine (mainly cooled EGR) as the New DPR system. The New DPR system for medium and light duty vehicles was developed as a world's first technology by Hino Motors. Advantages of the New DPR are compact to easy-to-install catalyst converter and no urea solution (DEF) injection (regardless urea infrastructure) as compared the Urea-SCR system.