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Hydrogen fuel is a future energy to solve the problems of energy crisis and environmental pollution. Hydrogen internal combustion engines can combine the advantage of hydrogen without carbon pollution and the main basic structure of the traditional engines. However, the power of the port fuel injection hydrogen engines is smaller than the same volume gasoline engine because the hydrogen occupies the volume of the cylinder and reduces the air mass flow. The turbocharger can increase the power of hydrogen engines but also increase the NOx emission. Hence, a comprehensive controlling strategy to solve the contradiction of the power, BTE and NOx emission is important to improve the performance of hydrogen engines. This paper shows the controlling strategy for a four-stroke, 2.3L hydrogen engine with a turbocharger. The controlling strategy divides the operating conditions of the hydrogen engine into six parts according to the engine speeds and loads.

Camless actuation offers programmable flexibility in controlling engine valve events. However, a full range of engine benefits will only be available, if the actuation system can control lift profile characteristics within a particular lift event. Control of the peak value of valve lift is a first step in controlling the profile. The paper presents an adaptive feedback control of valve lift for a springless electrohydraulic valvetrain. The adaptive control maintains peak value of lift in presence of variations in engine speed, hydraulic fluid temperature and manufacturing variability of valve assemblies. The control design includes a reduced-order model of the system dynamics. Experimental results show dynamic behavior under various operating and environmental conditions and demonstrate advantages of adaptive control over the non-adaptive type.

This paper describes and discusses a computer model that can be used to predict the hydraulic pump requirements of an excavator necessary to meet the specified productivity levels for a given set of design conditions. The model predicts the hydraulic cylinder flow rates, pressures, and power necessary to sustain a given work cycle. The study compares the results from a simulation of the excavator with actual test data obtained from a test vehicle taken during a typical work cycle.

Laser diagnostics of fuel sprays are often hampered by multiple scattering effects. Planar laser-induced exciplex fluorescence (PLIEF) and Mie scattering images of a spray are presented, and the effects of multiple signal scattering are explored. A hollow-cone spray is cut in half with a spray cutter, and then imaged from either side. In one set, signal passes through the spray to the camera (back-cut images), and in the other set it does not (front-cut images), showing the effect of passing the signal through the spray to the camera. The cut spray is characterized with a phase Doppler anemometer (PDA) and Sauter Mean Diameter (SMD) is seen to range from 10-30 μm. Operational guidelines for using the cutter are presented. It was determined that a film forms on the cutter face 3-5 ms after the start of injection (ASOI) depending on the cutter temperature. Stripped droplets from this film increase droplet concentration and SMD in the center of the spray if the cutter is used improperly.

A prediction model for hand prehensile movements was developed and validated. The model is based on a new approach that blends forward dynamics and a simple parametric control scheme. In the development phase, model parameters were first estimated using a set of hand grasping movement data, and then statistically analyzed. In the validation phase, the model was applied to novel conditions created by varying the subject group and size of the object grasped. The model performance was evaluated by the prediction errors under various novel conditions as compared to the benchmark values with no extrapolation. Analyses of the model parameters led to insights into human movement production and control. The resulting model also offers computational simplicity and efficiency, a much desired attribute for digital applications.

Site-Specific Crop Management (SSCM) involves use of automated seeders and chemical applicators to make spatially-variable applications to agricultural fields. Soil productivity is spatially variable and thus, SSCM provides an opportunity to reduce total applications of seed and fertilizer without reducing crop yields. Also, more complete crop use of fertilizers with SSCM could reduce the potential for environmental contamination. A key element in SSCM is a Field Information System (FIS) for preparing application maps to control application rates.

This paper describes a numerical study on air/fuel preparation process in a direct-injected spark-ignition engine under partial load stratified conditions. The fuel is represented as a mixture of four components with a distillation curve similar to that of actual gasoline, and its vaporization processes are simulated by two recently formulated multicomponent vaporization models for droplet and film, respectively. The models include major mechanisms such as non-ideal behavior in high-pressure environments, preferential vaporization, internal circulation, surface regression, and finite diffusion in the liquid phase. A spray/wall impingement model with the effect of surface roughness is used to represent the interaction between the fuel spray and the solid wall. Computations of single droplet and film on a flat plate were first performed to study the impact of fuel representation and vaporization model on the droplet and film vaporization processes.

Air flow through the passages of a Chrysler LH platform ventilated brake rotor is measured. Modifications to the production rotor's vent inlet geometry are prototyped and measured in addition to the production rotor. Vent passage air flow is compared to existing correlations. The inlet modifications show significantly improved vent air flow, over the production rotor. The result improvement in heat transfer and rotor cooling is reported. These benefits in performance should be attainable at very low increases in production cost.

A dynamic model for the springless electrohydraulic valvetrain has been developed. The model speeds up the valvetrain development process by simulating effects of parameter changes, thus minimizing the number of hardware variations. It includes dynamic characteristics of check valves that enable energy recovery, hydraulic snubbers that limit seating velocity of the engine valves, and leakage in the control solenoids. A good match of the experimental data has been obtained for a single valve system, and the model calibration and validation have been completed. The known parameters are used together with some unknown calibration constants which have been tuned to match the experimental data. The simulation results for a twin valve system are also presented. The model applications for system performance analysis and for the closed-loop control of the engine valve lift are described. The cyclic variability of the experimental data is also discussed.

The development of automated guidance for agricultural tractors has addressed several basic and applied issues of agricultural equipment automation. Basic analyses have included the dynamics of steering systems and posture sensors for guidance. Applied issues have evaluated the potential of several commercial sensing systems and a commercial mechanical guidance system. A research platform has been developed based on a Case 7220 Magnum1 2-wheel drive agricultural tractor. An electrohydraulic steering system was used and characterized in support of automated guidance control. Posture sensing methods were developed using GPS, geomagnetic direction sensors (GDS), inertial, and machine vision sensing systems. Sensor fusion of GPS-inertial-machine vision and GPS-GDS-machine vision provided the most flexible and accurate guidance and capable for operation under dynamically changing field conditions.

This paper presents system identification methods of using both frequency and time domain analyses to estimate system parameters for a nonlinear electrohydraulic (E/H) tractor steering system. The frequency domain method identified parameters of the system using a linear model with a nonlinear gain function. The time domain method identified those parameters using a discrete time expression. A method of multiple models was used to represent the nonlinear system for both frequency and time domain analyses. Simulation and test results showed that the modified identification method could satisfactorily identify the parameters of the nonlinear E/H tractor steering system.

Cavitation plays a significant role in the spray characteristics and the subsequent mixing and combustion process in engines. Cavitation has beneficial effects on the development of the fuel sprays by improving injection velocity and promoting primary break-up. On the other hand, intense pressure peaks induced by the vapor collapse may lead to erosion damage and severe degradation of the injector performance. In the present paper, the transient cavitating flow in the injector-like geometry was investigated using the modified turbulence model and cavitation criterion. A local density correction was used in the Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes turbulence model to reduce the turbulent viscosity, which facilitates the cavitation development. The turbulent stress was also considered in the cavitation inception stage. The modified model is capable of reproducing the cavitating flow with an affordable computational cost.