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The DESTA project, funded by the European Commission under the FCH JU program, is a collaborative effort of AVL List GmbH, Eberspächer Climate Control Systems, Topsoe Fuel Cell (TOFC), Volvo and Forschungszentrum Jülich to bring fuel cell based auxiliary power units (APU) for heavy duty truck idling elimination closer to the market. Within this project Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) technology is used, which enables the use of conventional diesel fuel. During the project the technology is significantly optimized and around 10 APU systems are thoroughly tested. In 2014 a vehicle demonstration on board of a US type Volvo class 8 truck will be performed.

For nearly twenty years, DiMethyl Ether has been known to be an outstanding fuel for combustion in diesel cycle engines. Not only does it have a high Cetane number, it burns absolutely soot free and produces lower NOx exhaust emissions than the equivalent diesel. However, the physical properties of DME such as its low viscosity, lubricity and bulk modulus have negative effects for the fuel injection system, which have both limited the achievable injection pressures to about 500 bar and DME's introduction into the market. To overcome some of these effects, a common rail fuel injection system was adapted to operate with DME and produce injection pressures of up to 1000 bar. To understand the effect of the high injection pressure, tests were carried out using 2D optically accessed nozzles. This allowed the impact of the high vapour pressure of DME on the onset of cavitation in the nozzle hole to be assessed and improve the flow characteristics.

India is the market with the highest sales of agricultural tractors and the market with the highest number of agricultural tractor park, as well. Even though taking into account the lower average power of Indian agricultural tractors compared to regions with considerably larger field sizes, their cumulated diesel fuel consumption reaches a significant size. The possible use of alternative powertrains like battery-electric, especially considering the lower power of the Indian tractor market, seems feasible, but might be struggling with challenges in terms of charging infrastructure and the possibly resulting lower productivity due to required charging times. Therefore AVL proposes to investigate the use of alternative fuels for internal combustion engines, a topic which is also being discussed by other global tractor OEMs. In that context the focus is typically on higher tractor powers due to current storage limitations of battery-electric systems and other alternatives.

The advent of digitalization opens up new avenues for advances in large internal combustion engine technology. Key engine components are becoming "intelligent" through advanced instrumentation and data analytics. By generating value-added data, they provide deeper insight into processes related to the components. An intelligent common rail diesel fuel injection valve for large engine applications in combination with machine learning allows reliable prediction of key combustion parameters such as maximum cylinder pressure, combustion phasing and indicated mean effective pressure. However, fault-related changes to the injection valve also have to be considered. Based on experiments on a medium-speed four-stroke single-cylinder research engine with a displacement of approximately 15.7 liter, this study investigates the extent to which the intelligent injection valve can improve the reliability of combustion parameter predictions in the presence of injection valve faults.