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A compression ignition direct injection (CIDI) engine was used to evaluate the engine-out emissions from four advanced CIDI fuels that define a broad range of properties. The fuels include a market-averaged California fuel (designated CARB) to serve as a benchmark, a petroleum-based low sulfur, low aromatic hydrocracked fuel (LSHC), the LSHC fuel blended with 15% dimethoxy methane (DMM15), and a neat Fischer-Tropsch fuel (FT100). Engine-out particulate matter (PM), oxides of nitrogen (NOx), and performance data were collected at 5 steady-state operating conditions. The engine calibration was optimized for each fuel and operating condition. Fuel injection timing was optimized for best fuel economy and the injection pressure was optimized for minimum smoke. The PM-NOx trade-off for EGR dilution was established for each fuel and operating condition with the optimum injection timing and pressure.

The future of diesel-engine-powered passenger cars and light-duty vehicles in the United States depends on their ability to meet Federal Tier 2 and California LEV2 tailpipe emission standards. The experimental purpose of this work was to examine the potential role of fuels; specifically, to determine the sensitivity of engine-out NOx and particulate matter (PM) to gross changes in fuel formulation. The fuels studied were a market-average California baseline fuel and three advanced low sulfur fuels (<2 ppm). The advanced fuels were a low-sulfur-highly-hydrocracked diesel (LSHC), a neat (100%) Fischer-Tropsch (FT100) and 15% DMM (dimethoxy methane) blended into LSHC (DMM15). The fuels were tested on modern, turbocharged, common-rail, direct-injection diesel engines at DaimlerChrysler, Ford and General Motors. The engines were tested at five speed/load conditions with injection timing set to minimize fuel consumption.

Improved cylinder-to-cylinder distribution of EGR in a 2-L Direct-Injection (DI) Diesel engine has been identified as one enabler to help reach more stringent emission standards. Through a combined effort of modeling, design, and experiment, two manifolds were developed that improve EGR distribution over the original manifold while minimizing design changes to engine components or interfering with the many varied vehicle platform installations. One of the modified manifolds, an elevated EGR entry (EEE) approach, provided a useful improvement over the original design that meet Euro-II emission standards, and has been put into production as it enabled meeting the Euro III emissions requirements a year early. The second revision, the distributed EGR entry (DEE) design, showed potential for further improvement in EGR distribution. This design has two EGR outlets rather than the one used in the original and EEE manifolds, and was first identified by modeling to be a promising concept.

Degreening is crucial in obtaining a stable catalyst prior to assessing its performance characteristics. This paper characterizes the light-off behavior and conversion efficiency of a Diesel Oxidation Catalyst (DOC) during the degreening process. A platinum DOC is degreened for 16 hours in the presence of actual diesel engine exhaust at 650°C and 10% water (H2O) concentration. The DOC's activity for carbon monoxide (CO) and for total hydrocarbons (THC) conversion is checked at 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, and 16 hours of degreening. Pre-and post-catalyst hydrocarbon species are analyzed via gas chromatography at 0, 4, 8, and 16 hours of degreening. It is found that both light-off temperature and species-resolved conversion efficiencies change rapidly during the first 8 hours of degreening and then stabilize to a large degree. T50, the temperature where the catalyst is 50% active towards a particular species, increases by 14°C for CO and by 11°C for THC through the degreening process.

Present-day implementations of premixed compression ignition low temperature (PCI) combustion in diesel engines use higher levels of exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) than conventional diesel combustion. Two common devices that can be used to achieve high levels of EGR are an intake throttle and a variable geometry turbocharger (VGT). Because the two techniques affect the engine air system in different ways, local combustion conditions differ between the two in spite of, in some cases, having similar burn patterns in the form of heat release. The following study has developed from this and other observations; observations which necessitate a deeper understanding of emissions formation within the PCI combustion regime. This paper explains, through the use of fundamental phenomenological observations, differences in ignition delay and emission indices of particulate matter (EI-PM) and nitric oxides (EI-NOx) from PCI combustion attained via the two different techniques to flow EGR.

Simultaneous reduction of nitric oxides (NOx) and particulate matter (PM) emissions is possible in a diesel engine by employing a Partially Premixed Compression Ignition (PPCI) strategy. PPCI combustion is attainable with advanced injection timings and heavy exhaust gas recirculation rates. However, over-advanced injection timing can result in the fuel spray missing the combustion bowl, thus dramatically elevating PM emissions. The present study investigates whether the use of narrow spray cone angle injector nozzles can extend the limits of early injection timings, allowing for PPCI combustion realization. It is shown that a low flow rate, 60-degree spray cone angle injector nozzle, along with optimized EGR rate and split injection strategy, can reduce engine-out NOx by 82% and PM by 39%, at the expense of a modest increase (4.5%) in fuel consumption.

The present study is an experimental investigation on the influence of engine operational parameters on the temperature history of intake valves. During the initial stage of the warm-up process, the temperature history of the intake valve followed an exponential behavior with a time constant that ranged from about 23 to 39 s for the test conditions examined. In contrast, the temperature history of the coolant varied linearly with time suggesting that the net heat input to the coolant is roughly constant during the initial stage of the engine warm-up process. After the initial transient phase that lasted about one minute, the temperature rise of the intake valve was quasi-steady. During this latter period, the measured intake valve temperature was predicted by the steady-state temperature correlation developed in an earlier study.