Search Results

The effects of spray/wall interaction on diesel combustion and soot formation in a two-dimensional piston cavity were studied with a high speed color video camera in a constant volume combustion vessel. The two-dimensional piston cavity was applied to generate the impinging spray flame. In the cavity, the flat surface which plays a role as the cylinder head has a 13.5 degree angle with the injector axis and the impinging point was located 30 mm away from the nozzle tip. Three injection pressures of 100, 150, and 200 MPa and a single hole diesel injector (hole diameter: 0.133mm) were selected. The flame structure and combustion process were examined by using the color luminosity images. Two-color pyrometry was used to measure the line-of sight soot temperature and concentration by using the R and B channels of the color images. The soot mass generated by impinging spray flame is higher than that of the free spray flame.

The rotary engine provides high power density compared to piston engine, but one of its downside is higher oil consumption. A model of the oil seals is developed to calculate internal oil consumption (oil leakage from the crankcase through the oil seals) as a function of engine geometry and operating conditions. The deformation of the oil seals trying to conform to housing distortion is calculated to balance spring force, O-ring and groove friction, and asperity contact and hydrodynamic pressure at the interface. A control volume approach is used to track the oil over a cycle on the seals, the rotor and the housing as the seals are moving following the eccentric rotation of the rotor. The dominant cause of internal oil consumption is the non-conformability of the oil seals to the housing distortion generating net outward scraping, particularly next to the intake and exhaust port where the housing distortion valleys are deep and narrow.

The rotary engine provides high power density compared to piston engine, but one of its downside is higher oil consumption. In order to better understand oil transport, a laser induced fluorescence technique is used to visualize oil motion on the side of the rotor during engine operation. Oil transport from both metered oil and internal oil is observed. Starting from inside, oil accumulates in the rotor land during inward motion of the rotor created by its eccentric motion. Oil seals are then scraping the oil outward due to seal-housing clearance asymmetry between inward and outward motion. Cut-off seal does not provide an additional barrier to internal oil consumption. Internal oil then mixes with metered oil brought to the side of the rotor by gas leakage. Oil is finally pushed outward by centrifugal force, passes the side seals, and is thrown off in the combustion chamber.

This study simulates soot formation processes in diesel combustion using a large eddy simulation (LES) model, based on a one-equation subgrid turbulent kinetic energy model. This approach was implemented in the KIVA4 code, and used to model diesel spray combustion within a constant volume chamber. The combustion model uses a direct integration approach with a fast explicit ordinary differential equation (ODE) solver, and is additionally parallelized using OpenMP. The soot mass production within each computation cell was determined using a phenomenological soot formation model developed by Waseda University. This model was combined with the LES code mentioned above, and included the following important steps: particle inception during which acenaphthylene (A2R5) grows irreversibly to form soot; surface growth with driven by reactions with C2H2; surface oxidation by OH radical and O2 attack; and particle coagulation.

Owing to the small size of engines and high injection pressures, it is difficult to avoid the fuel spray impingement on the combustion cylinder wall and piston head in Direct Injection Spark Ignition (DISI) engine, which is a possible source of hydrocarbons and soot emission. As a result, the droplets size and distribution are significantly important to evaluate the atomization and predict the impingement behaviors, such as stick, spread or splash. However, the microscopic behaviors of droplets are seldom reported due to the high density of small droplets, especially under high pressure conditions. In order to solve this problem, a “spray slicer” was designed to cut the spray before impingement as a sheet one to observe the droplets clearly. The experiment was performed in a constant volume chamber under non-evaporation condition, and a mini-sac injector with single hole was used.

It has been required recently that diesel engines for passenger cars meet various requirements, such as low noise, low fuel consumption, low emissions and high power. The key to improve the noise is to reduce a combustion noise known as “Diesel knock noise”. Conventional approaches to reduce the diesel knock are decreasing combustion excitation force due to pilot/pre fuel injection, adding ribs to engine blocks or improving noise transfer characteristics by using insulation covers. However, these approaches have negative effects, such as deterioration in fuel economy and increase in cost/weight. Therefore, modification of engine structures is required to reduce it. We analyzed noise transfer paths from a piston, a connecting rod, a crank shaft to an engine block and vibration behavior during engine operation experimentally, and identified that piston resonance was a noise source.

Internal combustion engines still play a vital role in realizing the low carbon society. For spark ignition engines, further improvement in thermal efficiency can be achieved by increasing both compression and specific heat ratios. In the current work, the authors developed practical technologies to prevent output power loss due to knocking at full load, which is a critical issue for increasing compression ratio. These new technologies allowed to increase the compression ratio significantly and provide an equivalent torque level as a conventional engine. As a result, thermal efficiency has been improved at partial load.

Biomass is one of the attractive alternative fuels, which exists dispersively. Small size gas engine power generation with gasification biomass gas is one of the efficient methods. However, since its calorific value is lower and its composition can be affected by gasifying conditions, it is difficult to stabilize and achieve high thermal efficiency engine operation. This study aims to develop a small size gas engine system with biomass gas by modifying the control system of a conventional spark ignition engine. In this paper, effect of fuel composition on combustion was clarified experimentally to get guideline for the engine control system.

This study aims to develop a small size gas engine system with biomass gas by modifying the control system of a conventional spark ignition engine. In this paper, combustion characteristics of typical biomass gas assuming the wood chip pyrolysis gas, whose lower heating value was about 1/6 of the city gas in Japan, were investigated. Engine control system for biomass gas was also examined. It was confirmed that simulated biomass gas could achieve high thermal efficiency and stable combustion for wide range equivalence ratio without knocking and at low emissions. Automatic engine operation with real time in-cylinder gas pressure analysis was also tried under fuel composition change.

The Variable Orifice Nozzle (VON), has been developed to improve diesel combustion by changing the cross-sectional area of the injection hole. The area of the nozzle orifice is continuously controlled by the rotary valve, one component of the VON. The discharge coefficient of the VON was increased by simulating an internal flow in the nozzle tip. The VON performances were evaluated by its rate of injection, injection pressure, spray droplet diameter and instantaneous photographs taken by a high speed camera. These results show that, injection characteristics and spray patterns respond to the nozzle orifice area which is changed by the rotary valve from larger to smaller. The orifice area controlled nozzle provides higher maximum pressure and a longer injection duration than the conventional hole nozzle without full-load point of the injection pump. A smaller nozzle orifice has a wider spray angle compared with larger nozzle orifice.

This paper describes a calculating method to predict the quasi-static collapsing behaviors of spot-welded closed-hat section curved beams under axial compression. The overall deformat ions and the local buckling modes of beams were calculated using a geometrical model. Force-displacement relations were predicted by a elastic-plastic structural analysis method using the ‘plastic hinge’ concept. Collapsing tests were made on beams which are differenting section size, rotation angle, and metal sheet thickness. Comparisons between the calculated and experimental results of deformed shapes of beams, the local buckling modes and the force displacement relations are discussed.

Spot friction welding (SFW) is a cost-effective spot joining technology for aluminum sheets compared with resistance spot welding (RSW) [1]. In this study, coated mild steel was spot friction welded to 6000 series aluminum using a tool with shoulder diameter of 10 mm and welding conditions of 1500-2000 rpm and time of 5 s. Testing showed that tensile shear strength increased as the solidus temperature of the coating on the steel decreased. Microstructure characterizations of steel/Al joint interfaces showed that zinc from the coatings was incorporated into the stir nuggets and that intermetallic phases may have formed but not in continuous layers. Some Al-Zn oxides that appeared to be amorphous were also found in the joint interfaces.

Aldehydes are the cause of sick house syndrome or chemical sensitivity and have harmful influences for human beings. In the cabin of vehicle, aldehydes which are included in the volatilization gas from the interior materials, DE emission gas in intake air, cigarette smoke and so on spoil the comfortableness. Active carbon, which has been used as an adsorbent, shows an excellent removal efficiency for most of the gas components by physical adsorption. But for aldehydes, it has difficulty because aldehydes are hard to be adsorbed physically. We have developed new aldehydes adsorbent undergoing addition reaction with gaseous aldehydes on its surface. Aldehydes capture material (ACM) make use of the chemical reaction using a resorcin as a reagent and an H-type zeolite as a water-containing support, and active hydrogen is used as a catalyst to promote the reaction. In addition, we have applied ACM to cabin air filter (CAF) of vehicle.

Supercharging system is obviously a necessary technology for heavy duty vehicular diesel to meet future stringent emission regulation as well as to improve fuel consumption characteristics. Although the conventional exhaust turbocharger system improves fuel consumption, there are some problems such as having a difficulty in improving starting acceleration and smoke emission characteristic because the response of an exhaust supercharger is not enough. On the other hand, the conventional mechanical supercharging system seems to be a quite effective aid for acceleration ability. However, it does not satisfy demand for low fuel consumption characteristic.

In recent years, improving fuel efficiency and collision safety are important issue. We have worked on a new construction method to develop body structure which is light weight and strong/stiff. We adopt multi type Tailor-Welded Blanks (TWB) which is formed after welding several steel sheets for ATENZA (MAZDA 6), NEW DEMIO (MAZDA 2), and RX-8. This is a technology to consistently improve of such product properties and to reduce costs. Laser welding is a common TWB welding method, but for further equipment cost reductions and productivity improvements, we have developed a higher welding speed and robust plasma welding and introduced this to mass production. We introduce this activity and results in this report.

In order to clarify the effects of fuel properties on the mixture formation under the stratified-charge combustion condition in a direct-injection gasoline engine, fuel concentration measurement in the vicinity of the ignition plug was established using a fast response flame Ionization detector (FID). A single-cylinder direct-injection gasoline engine, for which a Toyota D-4 engine was modified, was used. Paraffin, olefin, naphthene and ether having a boiling point of approximately 50°C, and paraffin, olefin and an aromatic compound having a boiling point of approximately 100°C were used as candidate fuels. As a result, the effect of boiling point on the mixture formation was clarified.

The objective of this study is to improve the ignition quality of LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) in order to utilize LPG as a diesel fuel. First, the relationship between the cetane numbers and ignition delay periods of primary standard fuels (mixtures of n-cetane and heptamethylnonane) and diesel fuels were investigated by measuring the ignition delay periods using a constant volume combustion chamber. As a result, it was found that a good relationship between the cetane numbers and ignition delay periods could be obtained for a 550°C combustion chamber temperature and 4MPa pressure. Also, the cetane number estimation equation was established using the ignition delay data of n-paraffins. Next, the constant volume combustion chamber was modified to evaluate the ignition delay period of LPG with a cetane number improver, and these cetane numbers were then estimated.

In order to study alternate methods of Air Fuel ratio (A/F) perturbation for maximizing three-way catalyst conversion efficiency, two methods for measuring the Oxygen Storage Capacity (OSC) of Catalyst were developed on an engine test bench. The first is to measure just the break-through Perturbing Oxygen Quantity (POQ, which is defined as the product of A/F amplitude, perturbation period and gas flow), and the second is to measure the response delay of the rear A/F sensor, which has been improved to be very similar to the former. Then, the OSC values of many catalysts were investigated with different perturbation parameters. The results show that OSC would not be affected by amplitude, period of perturbation and gas flow, and that the best conversion efficiency is obtained when the value of POQ is about 1/2 of the value for OSC. These results suggest that the best way to control perturbation is to keep POQ at 1/2 of OSC by setting perturbation parameters.

The effects of fuel injection rate shaping and injection pressure on flame temperature and soot production in intermittent spray combustion were investigated. Two-color technique was applied to the luminous image of free spray flame captured by an ICCD camera to evaluate the 2-D temperature and soot distributions in flame. In addition to the experiments, CFD calculations using KIVA-3V code were carried out and compared with the experimental data. The experimental and computational results showed that fuel injection rate shaping affected the temporal change of flame temperature and the emission of NOx. The optimal mode of injection rate shaping, in terms of NOx reduction, varied according to injection pressure. Concerning the soot production, fuel injection rate shaping affected the regions of soot production and the injection pressure affected soot oxidation especially in the latter stage of combustion.

Many papers have published techniques for estimating SEA parameters using Finite Element Methods (FEM). We have also developed a technique for virtual prototyping of an automotive vehicle body using FEM. In our technique, FEM models are used to derive parameters for an SEA model. The technique does not require a FEM model of the whole system, but uses extracted FEM models that include subsystems sharing a single junction. The subsystem energies and power inputs are calculated by frequency response analysis in FEM. The determination of loss factors is based on the Power Injection Method (PIM). The objective of this work is the construction of an SEA model of a passenger car body-in-white. The model has only structural subsystems. In order to develop a model with high accuracy, the subdivision of the tested body-in-white is first evaluated using the Initial Slope Ratio (ISR) indicator that shows the coupling strength between subsystems.