Search Results

Fork system is a primary component for motorcycles because it assures the contact between tires and road, therefore the safety and the driving feeling. Usually fork optimization and tuning are experimentally made involving the generation of a high large number of prototypes and an expensive experimental campaign. To reduce the design and the tuning phases of a generic damper system, the numerical simulation should be considered. In this paper, a one-dimensional (1D) model of fore-carriage forks for road applications is presented. The model was built-up in AMESim code. In particular, the authors’ attention was focused on the detection and analysis of cavitation phenomenon inside the fork. As well known, the cavitation is a complex three-dimensional (3D) phenomenon that implies the phase transition.

The optimization of turbocharging systems for automotive applications has become crucial in order to increase engine performance and meet the requirements for pollutant emissions and fuel consumption reduction. Unfortunately, performing an optimal turbocharging system control is very difficult, mainly due to the fact that the flow through compressor and turbine is highly unsteady, while only steady flow maps are usually provided by the manufacturer. For these reasons, one of the most important quantities to be used onboard for optimal turbocharger system control is the rotational speed fluctuation, since it provides information both on turbocharger operating point and on the energy of the unsteady flow in the intake and exhaust circuits. This work presents a methodology that allows determining the instantaneous turbocharger rotational speed through a proper frequency processing of the signal coming from one accelerometer mounted on the turbocharger compressor.

The recent advance in the development of various hybrid vehicle technologies comes along with the need of establishing optimal energy management strategies, in order to minimize both fuel economy and pollutant emissions, while taking into account an increasing number of state and control variables, depending on the adopted hybrid architecture. One of the objectives of this research was to establish benchmarking performance, in terms of fuel economy, for real time on-board management strategies, such as ECMS (Equivalent Consumption Minimization Strategy), whose structure has been implemented in a SIMULINK model for different hybrid vehicle concepts.

Internal combustion engines are the primary transportation mover for today society and they will likely continue to be for decades to come. Hybridization is the most common solution to reduce the petrol-fuels consumption and to respect the new raw emission limits. The gasoline engines designed for running together with an electric motor need to have a very high thermal efficiency because they must work at high loads, where engine thermal efficiency is close to the maximum one. Therefore, the technical solutions bringing to thermal efficiency enhancement were adopted on HVs (Hybrid Vehicles) prior to conventional vehicles. In these days, these solutions are going to be adopted on conventional vehicles too. The purpose of this work was to trace development guidelines useful for engine designers, based on the target power and focused on the maximization of the engine thermal efficiency, following the engine rightsizing concept.

Modern turbo-charged downsized engines reach high values of specific power, causing a significant increase of the exhaust gas temperature. Such parameter plays a key role in the overall powertrain environmental impact because it strongly affects both the catalyst efficiency and the turbine durability. In fact, common techniques to properly manage the turbine inlet gas temperature are based on mixture enrichment, which causes both a steep increase in specific fuel consumption and a decrease of catalyst efficiency. At the test bench, exhaust gas temperature is typically measured using thermocouples that are not available for on-board application, and such information is processed to calibrate open-loop look-up-tables. A real-time, reliable, and accurate exhaust temperature model would then represent a strategic tool for improving the performance of the engine control system.

In the field of passenger car engines, recent research advances have proven the effectiveness of downsized, turbocharged and direct injection concepts, applied to gasoline combustion systems, to reduce the overall fuel consumption while respecting particularly stringent exhaust emissions limits. Knock and turbocharger control are two of the most critical factors that influence the achievement of maximum efficiency and satisfactory drivability, for this new generation of engines. The sound emitted from an engine encloses many information related to its operating condition. In particular, the turbocharger whistle and the knock clink are unmistakable sounds. This paper presents the development of real-time control functions, based on direct measurement of the engine acoustic emission, captured by an innovative and low cost acoustic sensor, implemented on a platform suitable for on-board application.

The paper presents possible solutions for developing fast and reliable turbocharger models, to be used mainly for control applications. This issue is of particular interest today for SI engines since, due to the search for consistent CO2 reduction, extreme downsizing concepts require highly boosted air charge solutions to compensate for power and torque de-rating. For engines presenting at least four in-line cylinders, twin-entry turbines offer the ability of maximizing the overall energy conversion efficiency, and therefore such solutions are actually widely adopted. This work presents a critical review of the most promising (and recent) modeling approaches for automotive turbochargers, highlighting the main open issues especially in the field of turbine models, and proposing possible improvements.

The next steps of the current European and US legislation, EURO 6c and LEV III, and the incoming new test cycles will impose more severe restrictions on pollutant emissions for Gasoline Direct Injection (GDI) engines. In particular, soot emission limits will represent a challenge for the development of this kind of engine concept, if injection and after-treatment systems costs are to be minimized at the same time. The paper illustrates the results obtained by means of a numerical and experimental approach, in terms of soot emissions and combustion stability assessment and control, especially during catalyst-heating conditions, where the main soot quantity in the test cycle is produced. A number of injector configurations has been designed by means of a CAD geometrical analysis, considering the main effects of the spray target on wall impingement.

Upcoming more stringent emission regulations throughout the world pose a real challenge, especially in regard to Diesel systems for passenger cars, where the need of additional after-treatment has a big impact in terms of additional system costs and available packaging space. Therefore, the need for strategies that allow managing combustion towards lower emissions, that require a precise control of the combustion outputs, is definitely increasing. Acoustic emission of internal combustion engines contains a large amount of information related to engine behavior and working conditions. Mechanical noise and combustion noise are usually the main contributions to the noise produced by an engine. In particular, recent research from the same authors of this paper demonstrated that combustion noise can be used as an indicator of the combustion that is taking place inside the combustion chamber and therefore as a reference for the control strategy.

This work focuses on the effects of cooled Low Pressure EGR and Water Injection observed by conducting experimental tests consisting mainly of Spark Advance sweeps at different cooled LP-EGR and WI rates. The implications on combustion and main engine performance indexes are then analysed and modelled with a control-oriented approach, showing that combustion duration and phase and exhaust gas temperature are the main affected parameters. Results show that cooled LP-EGR and WI have similar effects, being the associated combustion speed decrease the main cause of exhaust gas temperature reduction. Experimental data is used to identify control-oriented polynomial models able to capture the effects of LP-EGR and WI on both these aspects. The limitations of LP-EGR are also explored, identifying maximum compressor volumetric flow and combustion stability as the main ones.

The most recent European regulations for two- and three-wheelers (Euro 5) are imposing an enhanced combustion control in motorcycle engines to respect tighter emission limits, and Air-Fuel Ratio (AFR) closed-loop control has become a key function of the engine management system also for this type of applications. In a multi-cylinder engine, typically only one oxygen sensor is installed on each bank, so that the mean AFR of two or more cylinders rather than the single cylinder one is actually controlled. The installation of one sensor per cylinder is normally avoided due to cost, layout and reliability issues. In the last years, several studies were presented to demonstrate the feasibility of an individual AFR controller based on a single sensor. These solutions are based on the mathematical modelling of the engine air path dynamics, or on the frequency analysis of the lambda probe signal.

Pre-ignition combustions are extremely harmful and undesired, but the recent search for extremely efficient spark-ignition engines has implied a great increase of the in-cylinder pressure and temperature levels, forcing engine operation to conditions that may trigger this type of anomalous combustion much more frequently. For this reason, an accurate on-board diagnosis system is required to adopt protective measures, preventing engine damage. Ion current signal provides relevant information about the combustion process, and it results in a good compromise between cost, durability and information quality (signal to noise ratio levels). The GDI turbocharged engine used for this study was equipped with a production ion current sensing system, while in-cylinder pressure sensors were installed for research purposes, to better understand the pre-ignition phenomenon characteristics, and to support the development of an on-board diagnostic system solely based on ion current measurements.

Combustion control is one of the key factors to obtain better performance and lower pollutants emissions, for diesel, spark ignition and HCCI engines. This paper describes a real-time indicating system based on commercially available hardware and software, which allows the real-time evaluation of Indicated Mean Effective Pressure (IMEP) and Rate of Heat Release (ROHR) related parameters, such as 50%MFB, cylinder by cylinder, cycle by cycle. This kind of information is crucial for engine mapping and can be very important also for rapid control prototyping purposes. The project objective is to create a system able to process in-cylinder pressure signals in the angular domain without the need for crankshaft encoder, for example using as angular reference the signal coming from a standard equipment sensor wheel. This feature can be useful both for test bench and on-board tests.

The paper presents the main reasons for the increasing market share of vehicles with the capacity to run on random bio fuel blends. It describes the philosophy and basic layout of current integral flex mixture preparation systems. The paper demonstrates the necessity to introduce a series of new high-performance analysis tools for further improvement of the mixture preparation system and in particular the fuel injector performance. The paper continues with a discussion of the basic structure of the interactive Virtual Engine Model approach applied to fuel injector atomizer optimization. Test results obtained by application of the new tools to two different series production flex engines are presented. The impact of the improved spray formation capability of the optimized fuel injector atomizers is explained and experimental vehicle FTP-cycle data are reported and discussed.

This paper documents an extensive study aimed at a better understanding of the peculiarities and performance of crankshaft mounted gerotor pumps for IC engines lubrication. At different extents, the modelling, simulation and testing of a specific unit are all considered. More emphasis, at the modelling phase, is dedicated to the physical and mathematical description of the flow losses mechanisms; the often intricate aspects of kinematics being deliberately left aside. The pressure relief valve is analysed at a considerable extent as is the modelling of the working fluid, a typically aerated subsystem in such applications. Simulation is grounded on AMESim, a relatively novel tool in the fluid power domain, that proves effective and compliant with user deeds and objectives. Testing, at steady-state conditions, forms the basis for the pro!gressive tuning of the simulation model and provides significant insight into this type of volumetric pump.

A unique differential assembly was needed for the Lawrence Technological University (LTU) SAE Formula race car. Specifically, a differential was required that had torque sensing capabilities, perfect reliability, high strength, light weight, the ability to withstand inertia and shock loading, a small package, no leaks, the ability to support numerous components. In that regard, an existing differential was selected that had the torque sensing capabilities, but had deficiencies that needed to be fixed. Those deficiencies included the following: Differential unit was over 4 kg unmounted, with no housing. This was considered too heavy, when housed properly. Bearing surface was provided on only one end of the carrier. This design provides insufficient bearing surface to support either the differential housing or half-shafts The internal drive splines integral to the case are not optimized for a perpendicular drive/axle arrangement, such as, a chain drive.

Shock absorbers and damper systems are important parts of automobiles and motorcycles because they have effects on safety, ride comfort, and handling. In particular, for vehicle safety, shock absorber system plays a fundamental role in maintaining the contact between tire and road. Generally, to assure the best trade-off between safety and ride comfort, a fine experimental tuning on all shock absorber components is necessary. Inside a common damper system the presence of several conjugated actions made by springs, oil and pressurized air requires a significant experimental support and a great number of prototypes and test. Aimed to reduce the design and tuning phases of a damper system, it is necessary to join these phases together with a numerical modelling phase. The aim of this paper is to present the development of a mono-dimensional (1D) model for simulating dynamic behaviour of damper system.

Specific power and efficiency of gasoline engines are influenced by factors such as compression ratio and Spark Advance (SA) regulation. These factors influence the combustion development over the crank angle: the trade-off between performance and the risk of irreversible damages is still a key element in the design of both high-performance (racing) and low-consumption engines. This paper presents a novel approach to the problem, with the objective of defining a damage-related and operating conditions-independent index. The methodology is based on the combined analysis of indicating parameters, such as Cumulated Heat Release (CHR), Indicated Mean Effective Pressure (IMEP) and 50% Mass Fraction Burned (MFB50), and typical knock detection parameters, estimated by means of the in-cylinder pressure sensor signal. Knocking combustions have several consequences, therefore they can be detected in many ways.

This paper shows how Rapid Control Prototyping (RCP) and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) techniques have been applied to design and implement an engine control system for a common rail diesel engine. The project aim is to setup a high performance engine in order to participate to the Italian Tractor Pulling Championship (Prostock category). The original engine is a John Deere 6081 Tier2 model, already equipped with a common rail system. Engine performance is substantially determined by the control system, which is in charge of limiting engine speed, boost pressure and Air to Fuel Ratio (AFR). Given that typically the information and equipment needed to change control parameters are not accessible to customers, the first step of the project has been to replace the original control system, while maintaining injectors and pumps. This solution can guarantee the best performance, but it requires time to design the new control system, both in terms of hardware and software.

Proper design of the combustion phase has always been crucial for Diesel engine control systems. Modern engine control strategies' growing complexity, mainly due to the increasing request to reduce pollutant emissions, requires on-board estimation of a growing number of quantities. In order to feedback a control strategy for optimal combustion positioning, one of the most important parameters to estimate on-board is the angular position where 50% of fuel mass burned over an engine cycle is reached (MFB50), because it provides important information about combustion effectiveness (a key factor, for example, in HCCI combustion control). In modern Diesel engines, injection patterns are designed with many degrees of freedom, such as the position and the duration of each injection, rail pressure or EGR rate. In this work a model of the combustion process has been developed in order to evaluate the energy release within the cylinder as a function of the injection parameters.