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The use of a diesel oxidation catalyst (DOC) in conjunction with a diesel particulate filter (DPF) is now a well-established aftertreatment system design for on-road heavy duty diesel. For non-road applications, the DOC must respond to the need for performance under more diverse and less favorable conditions, such as operation at low loads in cold weather. To choose a DOC technology for such applications, one must have practical and meaningful tests that address the specific catalytic functions of interest such as hydrocarbon oxidation to produce heat for regenerating DPF. This paper describes the development of an engine test protocol that focuses on resistance to the phenomenon known as quenching, the cessation of hydrocarbon (HC) oxidation that occurs when the exhaust temperature decreases below the light-off temperature of the catalyst. During development, the sensitivity and repeatability of the test were carefully scrutinized.

Alternative and renewable fuels show tremendous promise for addressing concerns of energy security, energy supply, and CO₂ emissions. However, the new fuels have the potential to produce non-regulated exhaust components that may be as detrimental or worse, than currently regulated emissions components. For the 2009 SAE Clean Snowmobile Challenge (CSC), a commercially available Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectrometer was used to sample raw exhaust from eight student teams' snowmobiles for comparative analysis with a conventional emissions bench. The levels of CO₂, CO, NO , O₂, and THC were compared for the five operating modes, which included both gasoline- and diesel-powered snowmobiles. The fuel was either an ethanol blend for spark-ignition engines or a biodiesel for compression-ignition engines. Final emissions result scores varied by less than 2% between the conventional emissions bench and the FTIR.

An operational scheme with fuel-lean and exhaust gas dilution in spark-ignited engines increases thermal efficiency and decreases NOx emission, while these operations inherently induce combustion instability and thus large cycle-to-cycle variation in engine. In order to stabilize combustion variations, the development of an advanced ignition system is becoming critical. To quantify the impact of spark-ignition discharge, ignitability tests were conducted in an optically accessible combustion vessel to characterize the flame kernel development of lean methane-air mixture with CO₂ simulating exhaust diluent. A shrouded fan was used to generate turbulence in the vicinity of J-gap spark plug and a Variable Output Ignition System (VOIS) capable of producing a varied set of spark discharge patterns was developed and used as an ignition source. The main feature of the VOIS is to vary the secondary current during glow discharge including naturally decaying and truncated with multiple strikes.

HiSiMo cast irons are frequently used as material for high temperature components in engines as e.g. exhaust manifolds and turbo chargers. These components must withstand severe cyclic mechanical and thermal loads throughout their life cycle. The combination of thermal transients with mechanical load cycles results in a complex evolution of damage, leading to thermomechanical fatigue (TMF) of the material and, after a certain number of loading cycles, to failure of the component. In Part I of the paper, a fracture mechanics model for TMF life prediction was developed based on results of uniaxial tests. In this paper (Part II), the model is formulated for three-dimensional stress states, so that it can be applied in a post-processing step of a finite-element analysis. To obtain reliable stresses and (time dependent plastic) strains in the finite-element calculation, a time and temperature dependent plasticity model is applied which takes non-linear kinematic hardening into account.

HiSiMo cast irons are frequently used as material for high temperature components in engines as e.g. exhaust manifolds and turbo chargers. These components must withstand severe cyclic mechanical and thermal loads throughout their service life. The combination of thermal transients with mechanical load cycles results in a complex evolution of damage, leading to thermomechanical fatigue (TMF) of the material and, after a certain number of loading cycles, to failure of the component. In this paper (Part I), the low-cycle fatigue (LCF) and TMF properties of HiSiMo are investigated in uniaxial tests and the damage mechanisms are addressed. On the basis of the experimental results a fatigue life model is developed which is based on elastic, plastic and creep fracture mechanics results of short cracks, so that time and temperature dependent effects on damage are taken into account.

The winter of 2013-2014 provided an opportunity to operate off-road vehicles in cold weather for extended time as part of a vehicle/tier 4 diesel engine validation program. An unexpected area of study was the performance of high efficiency, on engine, fuel filters during continuous vehicle operation in cold weather. During the program we observed unexpected premature fuel filter plugging as indicated by an increase in pressure drop across the filter while in service. Field and laboratory testing was completed at John Deere and Donaldson to understand the cause of filter plugging. Although conditions were found where winter fuel additives could cause plugging of high efficiency filters, premature filter plugging occurred even when testing with #1 diesel fuel. This fuel contained no additives and was used at temperatures well above its cloud point.

An aqueous urea solution is used as the source of ammonia for selective catalytic reduction (SCR) of NOx to reduce the emissions of NOx in the exhaust of diesel vehicles. However, the decomposition of urea into ammonia is not always complete, resulting in solid urea deposit formation in the decomposition tube or on the SCR catalyst. These solid deposits can impede the flow of the exhaust gases (and uniformity of NH3 supply) and reduce SCR catalyst performance over time. To minimize the formation of urea deposit and to meet EPA NOx emission regulations, it is important to understand the chemistry of formation or removal of the deposit in the decomposition tube and SCR catalyst. In this report, IR spectroscopy, UV-visible spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analysis and elemental analysis have been used to determine the chemical composition of the solid urea deposits formed by the thermal decomposition of urea.

This paper studies the bi-directional power flow control between Plug-in Electric Vehicles (PEVs) and an electrical grid. A grid-tied charging system that enables both Grid-to-Vehicle (G2V) and Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) charging/discharging is modeled using SimPowerSystems in Matlab/Simulink environment. A bi-directional AC-DC converter and a bi-directional DC-DC buck-boost converter are integrated to charge and discharge PEV batteries. For AC-DC converter control, Predictive Current Control (PCC) strategy is employed to enable grid current to reach a reference current after one modulation period. In addition, Phase Lock Loop (PLL) and a band-stop filter are designed to lock the grid voltage phase and reduce harmonics. Bi-directional power flow is realized by controlling the mode of the DC-DC converter. Simulation tests are conducted to evaluate the performance of this bi-directional charging system.

Interest in natural gas as an alternative fuel source to petroleum fuels for light-duty vehicle applications has increased due to its domestic availability and stable price compared to gasoline. With its higher hydrogen-to-carbon ratio, natural gas has the potential to reduce engine out carbon dioxide emissions, which has shown to be a strong greenhouse gas contributor. For part-load conditions, the lower flame speeds of natural gas can lead to an increased duration in the inflammation process with traditional port-injection. Direct-injection of natural gas can increase in-cylinder turbulence and has the potential to reduce problems typically associated with port-injection of natural gas, such as lower flame speeds and poor dilution tolerance. A study was designed and executed to investigate the effects of direct-injection of natural gas at part-load conditions.

In a Spark-Ignited engine, there will come a point, as load is increased, where the unburned air-fuel mixture undergoes auto-ignition (knock). The onset of knock represents the upper limit of engine output, and limits the extent of engine downsizing / boosting that can be implemented for a given application. Although effective at mitigating knock, requiring high octane fuel is not an option for most markets. Retarding spark timing can extend the high load limit incrementally, but is still bounded by limits for exhaust gas temperature, and spark retard results in a notable loss of efficiency. Likewise, enriching the air-fuel mixture also decreases efficiency, and has profound negative impacts on engine out emissions. In this current work, a Direct-Injected, Boosted, Spark-Ignited engine with Variable Valve Timing was tested under steady state high load operation. Comparisons were made among three fuels; an 87 AKI, a 91 AKI, and a 110 AKI off-road only race fuel.

The vehicle driving cycles affect the performance of a hybrid vehicle control strategy, as a result, the overall performance of the vehicle, such as fuel consumption and emission. By identifying the driving cycles of a vehicle, the control system is able to dynamically change the control strategy (or parameters) to the best one to adapt to the changes of vehicle driving patterns. This paper studies the supervised driving cycle recognition using pattern recognition approach. With pattern recognition method, a driving cycle is represented by feature vectors that are formed by a set of parameters to which the driving cycle is sensitive. The on-line driving pattern recognition is achieved by calculating the feature vectors and classifying these feature vectors to one of the driving patterns in the reference database. To establish reference driving cycle database, the representative feature vectors for four federal driving cycles are generated using feature extraction method.

One of the factors preventing widespread use of Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition or HCCI is the challenge of controlling the process under transient conditions. Current engine control technology does not have the ability to accurately control the individual cylinder states needed for consistent HCCI combustion. The material presented here is a new approach to engine control using a physics-based individual cylinder real time model to calculate the engine states and then controlling the engine with this state information. The model parameters and engine state information calculated within the engine controller can be used to calculate the required actuator positions so that the desired mass of air, fuel, and residual exhaust gas are achieved for each cylinder event. This approach offers a solution to the transient control problem that works with existing sensors and actuators.

Diesel combustion and emissions formation is spray and mixing controlled and understanding spray parameters is key to determining the impact of fuel injector operation and nozzle design on combustion and emissions. In this study, both spray visualization and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling were undertaken to investigate key mechanisms for liquid length fluctuations. For the experimental portion of this study a common rail piezoelectric injector was tested in an optically accessible constant volume combustion vessel. Liquid penetration of the spray was determined via processing of images acquired from Mie back scattering under vaporizing conditions by injecting into a charge gas at elevated temperature with a 0% oxygen environment. Tests were undertaken at a gas density of 34.8 kg/m₃, 2000 bar injection pressure, and at ambient temperatures of 900, 1100, and 1300 K.

An investigation has been carried out to examine the influence of up to 300 MPa injection pressure on engine performance and emissions. Experiments were performed on a 4 cylinder, 4 valve / cylinder, 4.5 liter John Deere diesel engine using the Ricardo Twin Vortex Combustion System (TVCS). The study was conducted by varying the injection pressure, Start of Injection (SOI), Variable Geometry Turbine (VGT) vane position and a wide range of EGR rates covering engine out NOx levels between 0.3 g/kWh to 2.5 g/kWh. A structured Design of Experiment approach was used to set up the experiments, develop empirical models and predict the optimum results for a range of different scenarios. Substantial fuel consumption benefits were found at the lowest NOx levels using 300 MPa injection pressure. At higher NOx levels the impact was nonexistent. In a separate investigation a Cambustion DMS-500 fast particle spectrometer, was used to sample and analyze the exhaust gas.

An experimental and modeling study was conducted to study the passive regeneration of a catalyzed particulate filter (CPF) by the oxidation of particulate matter (PM) via thermal and Nitrogen dioxide/temperature-assisted means. Emissions data in the exhaust of a John Deere 6.8 liter, turbocharged and after-cooled engine with a low-pressure loop EGR and a diesel oxidation catalyst (DOC) - catalyzed particulate filter (CPF) in the exhaust system was measured and used for this study. A series of experiments was conducted to evaluate the performance of the DOC, CPF and DOC+CPF configurations at various engine speeds and loads.

Recent increases in emissions regulations within the snowmobile industry have led to significant advancements in fuel, exhaust, and control systems on snowmobiles. However, particulate matter is currently an unregulated exhaust component of snowmobile engines. The measurement of dry soot as well as particulate matter from snowmobiles is the focus of this paper. Two industry-representative snowmobiles were chosen for this research which included a 2006 Yamaha Nytro carbureted four-stroke and a 2009 Ski-Doo MX-Z direct-injected two-stroke. Measurements for each snowmobile included gaseous emissions (CO₂, CO, NOx, O₂, and THC), particulate matter collected on quartz filters, and dry soot measured using an AVL Micro Soot Sensor. Each snowmobile was tested over the industry-standard five-mode emissions certification test cycle to determine the emissions, dry soot, and particulate matter levels from idle to wide open throttle (full-load).

This paper describes the advantage of the integrated simulation platform and presents the results of performance simulations and the feed-forward air-fuel ratio (AFR) controller design of a new concept stoichiometric compression ignition (SCI) engine based on this platform. In this integrated simulation environment, the SCI engine was modeled in GT-Power and a simplified production engine control module (ECM) is implemented in Simulink/Matlab for the performance simulation and AFR control. The integrated engine and controller model was used to investigate constant-speed load-acceptance (CSLA) performance. During performance simulation, searching for operating conditions is difficult but critical for performance analysis. Trial and error method would require a long time to do. Based on the integrated simulation, a proportional-integral (PI) controller was designed to find the accurate operating conditions.

Reactivity Controlled Compression Ignition (RCCI) is a promising dual-fuel Low Temperature Combustion (LTC) mode with significant potential for reducing NOx and particulate emissions while improving or maintaining thermal efficiency compared to Conventional Diesel Combustion (CDC) engines. The large reactivity difference between diesel and Natural Gas (NG) fuels provides a strong control variable for phasing and shaping combustion heat release. In this work, the Brake Thermal Efficiencies (BTE), emissions and combustion characteristics of a light duty 1.9L, four-cylinder diesel engine operating in single fuel diesel mode and in Diesel-NG RCCI mode are investigated and compared. The engine was operated at speeds of 1300 to 2500 RPM and loads of 1 to 7 bar BMEP. Operation was limited to 10 bar/deg Maximum Pressure Rise Rate (MPRR) and 6% Coefficient of Variation (COV) of IMEP.

Low Temperature Combustion (LTC) engines are promising to improve powertrain fuel economy and reduce NOx and soot emissions by improving the in-cylinder combustion process. However, the narrow operating range of LTC engines limits the use of these engines in conventional powertrains. Extended range electric vehicles (EREVs), by decoupling the engine from the drivetrain, allows the engine to operate in a limited operating range; thus, EREVs offer an ideal platform for realizing the advantages of LTC engines. In this study, the global optimum fuel economy improvement of an experimentally developed 2-liter multi-mode LTC engine in a series EREV is investigated. The engine operation modes include Homogeneous-Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI), Reactivity Controlled Compression Ignition (RCCI), and conventional Spark Ignition (SI).

The medium and heavy duty vehicle industry has fostered an increase in emissions research with the aim of reducing NOx while maintaining power output and thermal efficiency. This research describes a proof-of-concept numerical study conducted on a Caterpillar single-cylinder research engine. The target of the study is to reduce NOx by taking a unique approach to combustion air handling and utilizing enriched nitrogen and oxygen gas streams provided by Air Separation Membranes. A large set of test cases were initially carried out for closed-cycle situations to determine an appropriate set of operating conditions that are conducive for NOx reduction and gas diffusion properties. Several parameters - experimental and numerical, were considered. Experimental aspects, such as engine RPM, fuel injection pressure, start of injection, spray inclusion angle, and valve timings were considered for the parametric study.