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Operation of flex fuel vehicles requires operation with a range of fuel properties. The significant differences in the heat of vaporization and energy density of E0-E100 fuels and the effect on spray development need to be fully comprehended when developing engine control strategies. Limited enthalpy for fuel vaporization needs to be accounted for when developing injection strategies for cold start, homogeneous and stratified operation. Spray imaging of multi-hole gasoline injectors with fuels ranging from E0 to E100 and environmental conditions that represent engine operating points from ambient cold start to hot conditions was performed in a spray chamber. Schlieren visualization technique was used to characterize the sprays and the results were compared with Laser Mie scattering and Back-lighting technique. Open chamber experiments were utilized to provide input and validation of a CFD model.

Effects of fuel cell material properties on water management were numerically investigated using Volume of Fluid (VOF) method in the FLUENT. The results show that the channel surface wettability is an important design variable for both serpentine and interdigitated flow channel configurations. In a serpentine air flow channel, hydrophilic surfaces could benefit the reactant transport to reaction sites by facilitating water transport along channel edges or on channel surfaces; however, the hydrophilic surfaces would also introduce significantly pressure drop as a penalty. For interdigitated air flow channel design, it is observable that liquid water exists only in the outlet channel; it is also observable that water distribution inside GDL is uneven due to the pressure distribution caused by interdigitated structure. An in-situ water measurement method, neutron imaging technique, was used to investigate the water behavior in a PEM fuel cell.

Hat sections made of steel are frequently encountered in automotive body structural components such as front rails. These components can absorb significant amount of impact energy during collisions thereby protecting occupants of vehicles from severe injury. In the initial phase of vehicle design, it will be prudent to incorporate the sectional details of such a component based on an engineering target such as peak load, mean load, energy absorption, or total crush, or a combination of these parameters. Such a goal can be accomplished if efficient and reliable data-based models are available for predicting the performance of a section of given geometry as alternatives to time-consuming and detailed engineering analysis typically based on the explicit finite element method.

Many approaches have been taken to determine the burning velocity in internal combustion engines. Experimentally, the burning velocity has been determined in optically accessible gasoline engines by tracking the propagation of the flame front from the spark plug to the end of the combustion chamber. These experiments are costly as they require special imaging techniques and major modifications in the engine structure. Another approach to determine the burning velocity is from 3D CFD simulation models. These models require basic information about the mechanisms of combustion which are not available for distillate fuels in addition to many assumptions that have to be made to determine the burning velocity. Such models take long periods of computational time for execution and have to be calibrated and validated through experimentation.

On-board fuel identification is important to ensure engine safe operation, similar power output, fuel economy and emissions levels when different fuels are used. Real-time detection of physical and chemical properties of the fuel requires the development of identifying techniques based on a simple, non-intrusive sensor. The measured crankshaft speed signal is already available on series engine and can be utilized to estimate at least one of the essential combustion parameters such as peak pressure and its location, rate of cylinder pressure rise and start of combustion, which are an indicative of the ignition properties of the fuel. Using a dynamic model of the crankshaft numerous methods have been previously developed to identify the fuel type but all with limited applications in terms of number of cylinders and computational resources for real time control.

The combustion engine will be the dominant drive for motor vehicles despite all the advances in the electrification of the drive train, for many years. The greater are the challenges for the automotive industry, especially in fuel consumption (CO2) and the environmental impacts of other emissions. From the fuel supply to the engine, up to the exhaust after treatment, new or improved functions are needed, which are integrated into increasingly powerful control electronics. This modern electronic engine management and powertrain controller will remain key components in the vehicle. As most of the micro controllers for future applications will be MultiCores, this paper gives an overview on how PowerSAR® supports this kind of architectures. It shows the concepts applied in the basic software area as well as for the applicative software. Further it will show the impact on the development process as well as the integration support for software delivered by the OEM.

The aim of this paper is the assessment of the possible impacts of eco-friendly fuels on injection systems by conducting tribological model tests. In this regard, lubricity (High-Frequency Reciprocating Rig, HFRR), scuffing load at different temperatures, and oxidation stability of different fuels B7, R33, pure HVO, and commercial-grade HVO diesel fuel have been deeply investigated. As a result of our study, the HFRR wear scar diameter (WSD) shows no distinct temperature dependence for both fossil-based diesel fuels (B7 and R33). In contrast, vegetable-based ones (pure HVO and commercially available HVO-based fuel) reveal lower lubricity with a trend to higher HFRR value when the temperature is increased. The commercial HVO fuel shows, compared to the pure HVO, better HFRR values at all tested temperatures. Nevertheless, all HFRR values still stay within the limits set by the relevant fuel standards EN 590 and ASTM D975.

It is well know that the internal flow field and nozzle geometry affected the spray behavior, but without high-speed microscopic visualization, it is difficult to characterize the spray structure in details. Single-hole diesel injectors have been used in fundamental spray research, while most direct-injection engines use multi-hole nozzle to tailor to the combustion chamber geometry. Recent engine trends also use smaller orifice and higher injection pressure. This paper discussed the quasi-steady near-nozzle diesel spray structures of an axisymmetric single-hole nozzle and a symmetric two-hole nozzle configuration, with a nominal nozzle size of 130 μm, and an attempt to correlate the observed structure to the internal flow structure using computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulation. The test conditions include variation of injection pressure from 30 to 100 MPa, using both diesel and biodiesel fuels, under atmospheric condition.

A series of designed experiments (DOE) was used to optimize the seat and orifice designs in a multi stream gasoline direct injector. The goal of the experiments was to minimize the effects of fuel deposits on the injector performance. Two different engines were used in the test campaign. One engine, a centrally injected turbocharged 1.6L four cylinder, was used to run a three factor full factorial DOE that tested the effects of SAC volume design, tip design and combustion seal position. Another, a centrally injected turbocharged 3.0L six cylinder, was used to run a three factor full factorial and a four factor half factorial DOE. The three factors in the full factorial were orifice hole divergence, orifice hole surface finish and the use of an inert amorphous silicon coating. A fourth factor, hydro erosive grinding of the orifice holes, was added to facilitate the calculation of a four factor half factorial DOE with only four additional engine tests.

The objective of this research is to investigate the effect of the blast load on the vehicle and occupant and identify the sensitivity of the vehicle parameters to the blast load, therefore figure out the design solution to protect the vehicle and occupant. CAE explicit commercial code, LSDYNA, is applied in this research with adopting CONWEP method for the blast load. The LSDYNA 95th percentile Hybrid III dummy model is used for occupant simulation. Seat, seat belt, and underbody and underbody armor are interested areas in the design to meet the survivability and weight target. The results show the protection can be effectively achieved through employing the new design method in three areas mentioned above.

Surrogates for JP-8 have been developed in the high temperature gas phase environment of gas turbines. In diesel engines, the fuel is introduced in the liquid phase where volatility plays a major role in the formation of the combustible mixture and autoignition reactions that occur at relatively lower temperatures. In this paper, the role of volatility on the combustion of JP-8 and five different surrogate fuels was investigated in the constant volume combustion chamber of the Ignition Quality Tester (IQT). IQT is used to determine the derived cetane number (DCN) of diesel engine fuels according to ASTM D6890. The surrogate fuels were formulated such that their DCNs matched that of JP-8, but with different volatilities. Tests were conducted to investigate the effect of volatility on the autoignition and combustion characteristics of the surrogates using a detailed analysis of the rate of heat release immediately after the start of injection.

This paper presents the results of an experimental investigation on a single cylinder engine to validate a two-component JP-8 surrogate. The two-component surrogate was chosen based on a previous investigation where the key properties, such as DCN, volatility, density, and lower heating value, of the surrogate were matched with those of the target JP-8. The matching of the auto-ignition, combustion, and emission characteristics of the surrogate with JP-8 was investigated in an actual diesel engine environment. The engine tests for the validation of the surrogate were conducted at an engine speed of 1500 rpm, a load of 3 bar, and different injection timings. The results for the cylinder gas pressure, ignition delay period, rate of heat release, and the CO, HC, and NOx emissions showed a good match between the surrogate and the target JP-8. However, the engine-out particulate matter for the surrogate was lower than that for the JP-8 at all tested conditions.

An experimental study was carried out to characterize the exhaust flow structure inside the closed-coupled catalytic converter, which is installed on a firing four-cylinder 12-valve passenger car gasoline engine. Simultaneous velocity and pressure measurements were taken using cycle-resolved Laser Doppler anemometer (LDA) technique and pressure transducer. A small fraction of titanium (IV) iso-propoxide was dissolved in gasoline to generate titanium dioxide during combustion as seeding particles for the LDA measurements. It was found that the velocity is highly fluctuating due to the pulsating nature of the engine exhaust flow, which strongly depends on the engine operating conditions and the measuring locations. The pressure oscillation is correlated with the transient exhaust flow characteristics. The main exhaust flow event from each cylinder can only be observed at the certain region in front of the monolith brick.

Beside the fuel consumption reduction the emission reduction is one of the main development objectives. The oncoming increasingly stringent emission limits demand improvements to the emission level especially in the cold start and engine warm-up phase when the catalyst is still inactivate. In this phase it is necessary to produce raw emissions on a very low level and to reach the catalyst light-off temperature as fast as possible using a suitable injection strategy. In this paper the potentials and risks of injection strategies for efficient catalyst heating (lean warm-up without secondary-air pump) with piezo and solenoid GDI combustion systems, in side and central mounting position, are introduced. The main emphasis is to obtain low HC emissions and high exhaust heat flow with acceptable engine smoothness by deriving suitable tuning parameters. During the investigations the various degrees of freedom of the applied GDI Engine were used in the best possible way.

The effect of biodiesel on the Particulate emissions is gaining significant attention particularly with the drive for the use of alternative fuels. The particulate matter (PM), especially having a diameter less than 50 nm called the Nanoparticles or Nucleation mode particles (NMPs), has been raising concerns about its effect on human health. To better understand the effect of biodiesel and its blends on particulate emissions, steady state tests were conducted on a small-bore single-cylinder high-speed direct-injection research diesel engine. The engine was fueled with Ultra-Low Sulfur Diesel (ULSD or B-00), a blend of 20% soy-derived biodiesel and 80% ULSD on volumetric basis (B-20), B-40, B-60, B-80 and 100% soy-derived biodiesel (B-100), equipped with a common rail injection system, EGR and swirl control systems at a load of 5 bar IMEP and constant engine speed of 1500 rpm.

By taking advantage of high-intensity and high-brilliance x-ray beams available at the Advanced Photon Source (APS), ultrafast (150 ps) propagation-based phase-enhanced imaging was developed to visualize high-pressure high-speed diesel sprays in the optically dense near-nozzle region. The sub-ns temporal and μm spatial resolution allows us to capture the morphology of the high-speed fuel sprays traveling at 500 m/s with a negligible motion blur. Both quality and quantitative information about the spray feature can be readily obtained. In the experiment, two types of single-hole nozzles have been used, one with a hydroground orifice inlet and the other with a sharp one. Within 3 mm from the nozzle, the sprays from these nozzles behave differently, ranging from laminar flow with surface instability waves to turbulent flow. The sprays are correlated with the nozzle internal geometry, which provides practical information for both nozzle design and supporting numerical simulation models.

The current study focused on the effects B20 fuel (20% soybean-based biodiesel) and SCR entrance shapes on a light-duty, high-speed, 2.8L common-rail 4-cylinder diesel engine, at different exhaust temperatures. The results indicate that B20 has less deNOX efficiency at low temperature than ULSD, and that N₂O emission need to be characterized as well as NH₃ slip. If a mixer and enough mixing length are used, longer divergence section does not improve the deNOX efficiency significantly under the speed ranges tested.

Self recirculation casing treatment has been showed to be an effective technique to extend the flow range of the compressor. However, the mechanism of its surge extension on turbocharger compressor is less understood. Investigation and comparison of internal flow filed will help to understand its impact on the compressor performance. In present study, experimentally validated CFD analysis was employed to study the mechanism of surge extension on the turbocharger compressor. Firstly a turbocharger compressor with replaceable inserts near the shroud of the impeller inlet was designed so that the overall performance of the compressor with and without self recirculation casing treatment could be tested and compared. Two different self recirculation casing treatments had been tested: one is conventional self recirculation casing treatment and the other one has deswirl vanes inside the casing treatment passage.

In modern passenger car diesel engines, multiple injection, MI, and rate shaping are measures, which in conjunction with others help to achieve the emissions legislation EU6 and US Tier2 Bin5. However, where hitherto mainly pollutant emissions where considered, CO2 output - i.e. fuel consumption - becomes increasingly important. Also, off cycle emissions may have to be regarded in the future. Additionally engine noise and drivability need consideration. The complexity and effect of an applied injection strategy is defined by the overall engine concept including the after treatment system, and also by the vehicle inertia. Additionally a modern fuel injection system not only has to allow for the necessary injection strategies but at the same time needs to offer robust performance over life time.

In modern passenger car diesel engines, multiple injection, MI, and rate shaping are measures, which in conjunction with others help to achieve the emissions legislation EU6 and US Tier2 Bin5. However, where hitherto mainly pollutant emissions where considered, CO2 output - i.e. fuel consumption - becomes increasingly important. Also, off cycle emissions may have to be regarded in the future. Additionally engine noise and drivability need consideration. The complexity and effect of an applied injection strategy is defined by the overall engine concept including the after treatment system, and also by the vehicle inertia. Additionally a modern fuel injection system not only has to allow for the necessary injection strategies but at the same time needs to offer robust performance over life time.