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Due to the advantages of low weight, low emissions and good fuel economy, downsized turbocharged gasoline direct injection (GDI) engines are widely-applied nowadays. However, Low-Speed Pre-Ignition (LSPI) phenomenon observed in these engines restricts their improvement of performance. Some researchers have shown that auto-ignition of lubricant in the combustion chamber has a great effect on the LSPI frequency. To study the auto-ignition characteristics of lubricant, an innovative single droplet auto-ignition test system for lubricant and its mixture is designed and developed, with better accuracy and effectiveness. The experiments are carried out by hanging lubricant droplets on the thermocouple node under active thermo-atmosphere provided by a small “Dibble burner”. The auto-ignition process of lubricant droplets is recorded by a high-speed camera.

The present work proposed to implement oxy-fuel combustion mode into a homogeneous charge compression ignition engine to reduce complexity in engine emissions after-treatment and lower carbon dioxide emission. The combination of oxy-fuel combustion mode with homogeneous charge compression ignition engine can be further optimized by the utilization of direct high temperature and pressure water injection to improve cycle performance. A retrofitted conventional diesel engine coupled with port fuel injection and direct water injection is utilized in this study. A self-designed oxygen and carbon dioxide mixture intake system with flexible oxygen fraction adjustment ability is implemented in the test bench to simulate the adoption of exhaust gas recirculation. Water injection system is directly installed in the combustion chamber with a modified high speed solenoid diesel injector.

By changing the top-land radial clearance, this paper presents the effect of the piston crevice on the transient HC emissions of the first firing cycle at cold start on an LPG SI Engine. A fast-response flame ionization detector (FFID) was employed to measure transient HC emissions of the first firing cycle. At the same time, the transient cylinder pressure and instantaneous crankshaft speed of the engine were measured and recorded. The results show that increasing 50% crevice volume leads to 25% increase of HC emissions in the lean region and 18% increase of HC emissions in the rich region, however, the 50% increase of crevice volume contributes to 32% decease of HC emissions in the stable combustion region. For LPG SI engine, the HC emissions of the first firing cycle during cold start are relatively low in a wide range of the excess air ratio.

The effectiveness of after-treatment systems depends on the exhaust gas temperature, which is low during cold-start. As a result, Euro III, Euro IV and FTP75 require that the emissions tests include exhaust from the beginning of cold start. It is proved that 50%∼80% of HC and CO emissions are emitted during the cold start and the amount of unburned fuel from the crevices during starting is much higher than that under warmed engine conditions. The piston crevices is the most part of combustion chamber crevices, and results of mathematical simulations show that the piston crevice contribution to HC emissions is expected to increase during cold engine operation. Based on the transient HC test data and the double zone combustion model, this paper presents the study of the crevice HC Mechanism of the first firing cycle at cold start on an LPG SI Engine. A fast-response flame ionization detector (FFID) was employed to measure transient HC emissions of the first firing cycle.

For an innovative opposed-piston diesel engine (OPE) with two-stroke operation mode, it attracted even more attentions than ever in some developed countries all around the world, attributed to the unique advantages of higher power density that conducive to downsize IC engine, as well as the potential of further reducing fuel consumption for outstanding thermal efficiency. To achieve fast practical application and ensure the feasibility in concept design stage, the performance characteristic of OPE crankshaft system was investigated, and thus a theoretical analytic model of crankshaft system in an OP2S (Opposed-piston two stroke) engine was established. The effects of all structural design variables on averaged output torque of OPE crankshaft were analyzed, respectively. It was found that the initial crank angle difference between inner crank web and outer crank web was considered as a most critical contributor to boost the averaged torque output than other design variables.

For an in-line diesel engine with four cylinder operating in four-stroke mode, the second-order reciprocating inertia forces generally cannot be well balanced with direct approach. The unbalanced second-order inertia forces are the main reason to cause vibration and noise in a diesel engine within low frequency range. The more superior tone quality for modern diesel engine has been expected even for bus application all the time, and there are tougher requirements for truck noise in developed countries, i.e. in Europe and USA. In present research a unique crankshaft system configuration was proposed, which including opposed piston, inner and outer connecting rod, and crankshaft but running in two-stroke mode, to eliminate the second-order inertia force considerably rather than by adding an extra balance shaft mechanism.

The present work aims at optimizing diesel engine combustion efficiency with optimized water injection strategy. The engine had been modified based on a two-cylinder mechanical pump diesel engine into common rail diesel engine with capability of direct water injection. The direct water injection system was designed and manufactured independently. An air-fluid booster was utilized to establish the water injection pressure up to 40MPa. Customized diesel injector was selected to be used as water injector in this study. Water injection strategy was optimized in detail with injection timing around TDC which ranges from 12°CA BTDC to -5°CA BTDC under 10 bar IMEP. The engine efficiency can be improved under selected water injection strategy due to the increment of work fluid in the combustion chamber. Moreover, the nitric oxides emissions show decrement around 10%.

The electromagnetic valve actuator (EMVA) is considered a technological solution for decoupling between crankshaft and camshaft to improve engine performance, emissions, and fuel efficiency. Conventional EMVA consists of two electromagnets, an armature, and two springs has been proved to have the drawbacks of fixed lift, impact noise, complex control method and large power consumption. This paper proposes a new type of EMVA that uses voice coil motor (VCM) as electromagnetic valve actuator. This new camless valvetrain (VEMA) is characterized by simple structure, flexible controllable and low actuating power. VCM provides an almost flat force versus stroke curve that is very useful for high precision trajectory control to achieve soft landing within simple control algorithm.

The First Firing Cycle (FFC) is very important at cold-start. Misfiring of the first firing cycle can lead to significant HC emissions and affect the subsequent cycles. This paper presents an investigation of characteristics of transient NO emissions in a small LPG SI engine with electronic gaseous injection system. To determine the optimal excess air coefficient ( λ=[A/F]/[A/F]stoic) of the first firing cycle, the emission of instantaneous NO was proposed as a useful criterion to judge if the combustion is occurred or not. A fast response NO detector- Cambustion fNOx400, based on the chemiluminescence's (CLD) method, has been employed to measure continuous, transient emissions of NO during the first firing cycle in the exhaust port of the engine. At the same time, the transient cylinder pressure, instantaneous crankshaft speed of the engine and engine-out HC emissions were measured and recorded.

It has been revealed by researches that lubricant properties have a great effect on the low-speed pre-ignition (LSPI) frequency in downsizing turbocharged direct-injection engines which are developed for better fuel economy. Droplets of lubricant or lubricant-gasoline mixture are considered to be the potential pre-ignition sources. Those droplets fly into the combustion chamber and ignite the gasoline-air mixture. To study lubricant droplets fundamentally, a novel set of droplet auto-ignition system is designed based on a Dibble Burner for this experiment. Influences of metallic additive contents, viscosities, lubricant diluted with gasoline and waste lubricant on the ignition delay of droplets are investigated by testing 12 groups of lubricants or lubricant-gasoline mixture. The equivalent diameter of each droplet generated by micro-syringes is around 2.1 mm. The co-flow temperature varies from 1123 K to 1223 K, and the experiments are carried out at atmospheric pressure.

The rapid development of automotive technology has promoted the application of higher efficiency engines, while also putting higher requirements on the control of crankshaft torsional vibration. The traditional clutch driven disc torsional vibration damper can no longer meet the current new vibration and noise reduction requirements. Under these circumstances adopting dual mass flywheel (DMF) could be an efficient measure to reduce powertrain torsional fluctuations. For the sake of studying the torsional characteristics of DMF, a dual mass flywheel with circumstance arc spring (DMF-CS) is taken as the research subject. Firstly, According to lumped mass model, a multi-degree of freedom torsional vibration model of DMF-CS is established, which takes the mutual conversion of dry friction and viscous friction into consideration. Then, the overall and partial torsion characteristics of dual mass flywheel are obtained through numerical analysis.

The nonlinear characteristics impact of multi-staged stiffness clutch damper on the vehicle creeping is investigated by using the lumped-parameter modeling method as a certain mass-production passenger sedan is taken as the research subject. Firstly, a quasi-transient engine model of an inline four-cylinder and four-stroke engine, based on measured data of cylinder gas pressure versus crankshaft angle, is derived. Effective output torque is acquired and as the input excitation to the driveline system. Secondly, a 12-DOF (Degree of Freedom) nonlinear and branched powertrain system and vehicle longitudinal dynamics model is established. The differential mechanism characteristics and dynamic tire property based on the LuGre tire model are considered. Then, for a traditional two-staged stiffness clutch damper in consideration of hysteresis characteristics, vehicle powertrain system responses in both the time and frequency domain are obtained.

Both ammonia and hydrogen, as zero-carbon fuels for internal combustion engines, are received growing attention. However, ammonia faces a challenge of low flame propagation velocity. Through injecting hydrogen into active pre-chamber, its jet flame ignition can accelerate the flame propagation velocity of ammonia. The influence of different pre-chamber structures on engine combustion characteristics is significant. In this paper, numerical studies were conducted to assess the impact of various pre-chamber structures and hydrogen injection strategy on the combustion characteristics of ammonia/hydrogen engines while maintaining the equivalent ratio of 1.0. The results indicate that the jet angle significantly affects the position of jet flame and the followed main combustion. The in-cylinder combustion pressure peaks at jet angle of 150°. Meanwhile, the combustion duration of 150° is shortened by 74.3% compared with that of 60°.