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High-voltage battery system plays a critical role in eco-friendly vehicles due to its effect on the cost and the electric driving range of eco-friendly vehicles. In order to secure the customer pool and the competitiveness of eco-vehicle technology, vehicle electrification requires lowering the battery cost and satisfying the customer needs when driving the vehicles in the real roads, for example, maximizing powers for fun drive, increasing battery capacities for achieving appropriate trip distances, etc. Because these vehicle specifications have a critical effect on the high-voltage battery specification, the key technology of the vehicle electrification is the appropriate decision on the specification of the high-voltage battery system, such as battery capacity and power. These factors affect the size of battery system and vehicle under floor design and also the profitability of the eco-friendly vehicles.

In order to understand the automotive PEM fuel cell system, mathematical system modeling is conducted and the model is implemented and simulated by using the Matlab®/Simulink®. The components such as fuel cell stack, air supplier, and radiator are modeled individually and integrated into a system level. The PEM fuel cell system operation control includes thermal management, air supply control, hydrogen supply control, fuel cell stack protection control, and load following control. In the thermal management, the inlet and outlet temperature of coolant are controlled to operate the fuel cell stack in desired temperature range and to prevent flooding inside the fuel cell stack. In air supply control and hydrogen supply control, the flow rates of air and hydrogen are controlled not to starve the fuel cell stack according to the output current. A control structure for the system is developed and confirmed by using the developed simulation model.

As the current and future emission regulations become stringent, the research on exhaust manifold with CCC (Close Coupled Catalyst) has been the interesting and remarkable subject. To design of exhaust manifold with CCC is a difficult task due to the complexity of the flow distribution caused by the pulsating flows that are emitted at the exhaust ports. This study is concerned with the theoretical and experimental approach to improve catalyst flow uniformity through the basic understanding of exhaust flow characteristics. Computational and experimental approach to the flow for exhaust manifold of conventional cast type, stainless steel bending type with 900 cell CCC system in a 4-cylinder gasoline engine was performed to investigate the flow distribution of exhaust gases.

A study for improving the resistance to fretting corrosion of SCr 420 pinion gear was conducted. Fretting is the damage to contacting surfaces experiencing slight relative reciprocating sliding motion of low amplitude. Fretting corrosion is the fretting damage to unlubricated contacting surfaces accompanied by corrosion, mostly oxidation that occurs if the fretting occurs in air. Two kinds of conventional heat treatment and a newly designed one suggested for improving the resistance to the fretting corrosion of pinion gear were compared each other to find out what is the main factor for generating fretting corrosion phenomenon. Increased carbon potential at both the heating and diffusing zone and reduced time of tempering was found out to be a solution for improving the resistance to fretting corrosion of forged and heat treated gear steel. On the contrary, modified carbo-nitriding using ammonia gas has been getting worse the fretting corrosion problem.

As the use of diesel engines increases in the transportation industry and emission regulations tighten, the implementation of diesel particulate filter systems has expanded. There are many challenges associated with the design and development of these systems. Some of the key robustness parameters include regeneration, efficiency, fuel penalty, engine performance, and durability. One component of durability in a diesel particulate filter (DPF) system is the filter's ability to resist ring-off-cracking (ROC). ROC is described as a crack caused primarily by thermal gradients, differentials, and the resulting stresses within the DPF that exceed its internal strength. These cracks usually run perpendicular to the substrate flow axis and typically result in the breaking of the substrate into separate halves.

Diesel engines are the most commonly used power train of the freight and public transportations in the world. From the viewpoint of global warming restraint, however, reduction of exhaust emissions from the diesel engine is urgent demand. Stringent emission regulations are being proposed with growing concern on NOx, PM and CO2 emissions. Future emission regulations require advanced emission control technologies, such as SCR(Selective Catalytic Reduction), LNT(Lean NOx Trap) and EGR(Exhaust Gas Recirculation). The EGR is a commonly used technique to reduce emission. In this study, a LP-EGR(Low Pressure Exhaust Gas Recirculation) system was investigated to evaluate its potential on emission reduction and fuel economy improvement, especially for a passenger diesel engine. A 3.0ℓ diesel engine equipped with the LP-EGR system was tested using an in-house control algorithm.

Charge boosting strategy plays an essential role in improving the power density of diesel engines while meeting stringent emissions regulations. In downsized two-stage turbocharged engines, turbocharger matching is critical to achieve desired boost pressure while maintaining sufficiently fast transient response. A numerical simulation model is developed to evaluate the effect of two-stage turbocharger configurations on the perceived vehicle acceleration. The simulation model developed in GT-SUITE consists of engine, drivetrain, and vehicle dynamics sub-models. A model-based turbocharger control logic is developed in MATLAB using an analytical compressor model and a mean-value engine model. The components of the two-stage turbocharging system evaluated in this study include a variable geometry turbine in the high-pressure stage, a compressor bypass valve in the low-pressure stage and an electrically assisted turbocharger in the low-pressure stage.

The success of improved fuel economy is the proper integration of thermal management components which are appropriately performed to reduce friction and wasted energy. The thermal management systems of vehicle are able to balance the multiple needs such as heating, cooling, or appropriate operation within specified temperature ranges of propulsion systems. Since the propulsion systems of vehicle have changed from a single energy source based on conventional internal combustion engine to hybrid system including more electrical system such as full type of hybrid electric vehicle or plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, a new transition associated with vehicle thermal management arises. More efficient thermal management systems are required to improve the fuel economy in the hybrid electric vehicles because of the driving of electric traction motor and the increase of engine off time. The decrease of engine operation time may not sustain the proper temperature ranges of engine and gearbox.

Emissions regulations are becoming more severe, and they remain a principal issue for vehicle manufacturers. Many engine subsystems and control technologies have been introduced to meet the demands of these regulations. For diesel engines, combustion control is one of the most effective approaches to reducing not only engine exhaust emissions but also cylinder-by-cylinder variation. However, the high cost of the pressure sensor and the complex engine head design for the extra equipment are stressful for the manufacturers. In this paper, a cylinder-pressure-based engine control logic is introduced for a multi-cylinder high speed direct injection (HSDI) diesel engine. The time for 50% of the mass fraction to burn (MFB50) and the IMEP are valuable for identifying combustion status. These two in-cylinder quantities are measured and applied to the engine control logic.

As environmental problems such as global warming are emerging, regulations on automobile exhaust gas are strengthened and various exhaust gas reduction technologies are being developed in various countries in order to satisfy exhaust emission regulations. Exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) technology is a very effective way to reduce nitrogen oxides (NOx) at high combustion temperatures by using EGR coolers to lower the combustion temperature. This EGR cooler has been mass-produced in stainless steel, but it is expensive and heavy. Recently, high efficiency and compactness are required for the EGR cooler to meet the new emission regulation. If aluminum material is applied to the EGR cooler, heat transfer efficiency and light weight can be improved due to high heat transfer coefficient of aluminum compared to conventional stainless steel, but durability is insufficient. Therefore, the aluminum EGR cooler has been developed to enhance performance and durability.

In terms of reducing the gear noise of automatic transmission, improvement of heat treatment distortion of the annulus gear is very important, because annulus gear is very sensitive heat treatment due to thin walled ring-like shape. Nitriding is very effective method to meet the both requirements for heat treatment distortion and durability of the annulus gear, as compared with conventional carburizing. However, conventional nitriding has problems to be applied for annulus gear, such as brittleness of compound layer and low adhesion strength between compound layer and matrix. In this research, we developed the high toughness nitriding and greatly improved the problems as mentioned above, by controlling gas pressure and temperature.

A fractional recirculation of cabin air was proposed and studied to improve cabin air quality by reducing cabin particle concentrations. Vehicle tests were run with differing number of passengers (1, 2, 3, and 4), four fan speed settings and at 20, 40, and 70 mph. A manual control was installed for the recirculation flap door so different ratios of fresh air to recirculated air could be used. Full recirculation is the most efficient setting in terms of thermal management and particle concentration reduction, but this causes elevated CO₂ levels in the cabin. The study demonstrated cabin CO₂ concentrations could be controlled below a target level of 2000 ppm at various driving conditions and fan speeds with more than 85% of recirculation. The proposed fractional air recirculation method is a simple yet innovative way of improving cabin air quality. Some energy saving is also expected, especially with the air conditioning system.

In order to cope with new exhaust emission regulations, automotive industry is interested in research and development of HSDI (High Speed Direct Injection) diesel engines with common rail systems. Since HSDI diesel engine operates under highly loaded condition due to increased power output, cylinder head of HSDI diesel engine is susceptible to high cycle fatigue cracks. In this study, FE analysis was used to find the mechanism of high cycle fatigue crack in the HSDI diesel cylinder head. In order to improve the durability of HSDI diesel cylinder head, the modifications of cylinder head and head bolt pre-load were investigated. Experiments were performed to prove the existence of residual stress created during the heat treatment of cylinder head. The results of experiments showed that residual stress can affect the durability of HSDI diesel cylinder head.

Environmental standards concerning Suspended Particulate Matter (SPM) are continuously becoming stricter. The light-duty diesel passenger car market is rapidly increasing due to performance improvements and the economic advantages of the diesel engine. To meet EURO 4 diesel passenger car emission regulations, regeneration experiments of a catalyzed particulate filter (CPF) system have been performed with 2.0L common-rail diesel engine. For effective regeneration of the CPF system, we investigated the effects of various regeneration conditions on the system. Conditions such as exhaust gas temperature, oxygen/hydrocarbon concentrations, gas compositions, etc. were investigated. We found that the regeneration efficiency was improved when the exhaust gas temperature increased to more than 700°C during CPF regeneration using engine post injection. An additional amount of post injection increased the exhaust gas temperature and residual hydrocarbon content.

In order to align with net-zero CO2 ambitions, automotive OEMs have been developing increasingly sophisticated strategies to minimise the impact that combustion engines have on the environment. Intelligent thermal management systems to actively control coolant flow around the engine have a positive impact on friction generated in the power cylinder by improving the warmup rate of cylinder liners and heads. This increase in temperature results in an improved frictional performance and cycle averaged fuel consumption, but also increases the piston to liner clearances due to rapid warm up of the upper part of the cylinder head. These increased clearances can introduce piston slap noise and substantially degrade the NVH quality to unacceptable levels, particularly during warmup after soak at low ambient temperatures. Using analytical techniques, it is possible to model the thermo-structural and NVH response of the power cylinder with different warm up strategies.

As the markets require a more environmentally friendly and high fuel consumption vehicle, we have to satisfy bilateral target. Though many new after-treatment techniques like LNT, SCR are investigated to meet both strong emission regulations and low fuel consumption, high cost of these techniques should be solved to adopt widely. This paper describes how to optimize the dual loop EGR as a tool to reduce CO₂ emission of a HSDI diesel engine in the passenger car application. Focus is not only on the optimization to obtain the maximum CO₂ reduction but also on how to assess and overcome various side effects. As a result of careful optimization, as much as 6% CO₂ reduction was achieved by introduction of low pressure EGR loop, maintaining the same boundary conditions as those with high pressure EGR loop only.

Recently, automobile manufacturers are interested in the development of battery electric vehicle (BEV) having a longer mileage to satisfy customer needs. The BEV with high efficiency depends on the temperature of the electric components. Hence it is important to study the effect of the cooling system in electric vehicle in order to optimize efficiency and performance. In this study, we present a 1-D vehicle thermal management (VTM) simulation model. The individual vehicle subsystems were modeled including cooling, power electric (PE), mechanical, and control components. Each component was integrated into a single VTM model and it would be used to calculate energy transfer among electrical, thermal, and mechanical energy. As a result, this simulation model predicts a plenty of information including the state of each component such as temperature, energy consumption, and operating point about electric vehicle depending on driving cycles and environmental conditions.

In diesel engine development, the new technology is coming out to meet the stringent exhaust emission regulation. The regulation demands more eco-friendly vehicles. Euro6c demands to meet not only WLTP mode, but also RDE(Real Driving Emission). In order to satisfy RDE mode, the new technology to reduce emissions should cover all operating areas including High Load & High Speed. It is a big challenge to reduce NOx on the RDE mode and a lot of DeNOx technologies are being developed. So the new DeNOx technology is needed to cover widened operating area and strict acceleration / deacceleration. The existing LNT(Lean NOx Trap) and Urea SCR(Selective Catalytic Reduction) is necessary to meet the typical NEDC or WLTP, but the RDE mode demands the powerful DeNOx technology. Therefore, the LNT & Urea SCR on DPF was developed through this study.

As global emission standards are becoming more stringent, it is necessary to increase thermal efficiency through the high compression ratio in spark-ignited engines. Various studies are being conducted to mitigate knocking caused by an increased compression ratio, which requires an understanding of the combustion phenomena inside the combustion chamber. In particular, the in-cylinder flow is a major factor affecting the entire combustion process from the generation to the propagation of flames. In the field of spark-ignited engine research, where interest in the concept of lean combustion and the expansion of the EGR supply is increasing, flow analysis is essential to ensure a rapid flame propagation speed and stable combustion process. In this study, the flow around the spark plug was measured by the Laser Doppler Velocimetry system, and the correlation with combustion in spark-ignited engines was analyzed.

The integration of SCR catalyst into diesel-particulate filter (SDPF) may be one of most viable ways to meet upcoming stringent emission regulations with new test protocols such as Worldwide harmonized Light vehicles Test Cycles (WLTC) and Real Driving Emissions (RDE) requirements. The chabazite-structured SSZ-13-based catalysts enabled the wide implementation of urea-SCR technology for mobile applications due to their robust thermal stability up to 750°C compared to the thermally unstable ZSM-5-based technologies. However, the thermally stable Cu-SSZ-13 catalyst starts losing its initial activity with the increase of aging time at 850°C, where the SCR catalyst on SDPF can possibly be exposed during filter regeneration under a drop-to-idle (DTI) condition. Therefore, more durable SCR catalysts that survive under higher temperatures have been strongly desired in automotive industry. Recently, we found Cu-exchanged high silica LTA revealed an excellent hydrothermal stability.