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Abstract This article serves as a proof-of-concept and feasibility analysis regarding a variable compression ratio (VCR) engine design utilizing an exhaust valve opening during the compression stroke to vary the compression ratio instead of the traditional method of changing the cylinder or piston geometry patented by Ford, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Peugeot, Gomecsys, et al. [1]. In this concept, an additional exhaust valve opening was used to reduce the virtual compression ratio of the engine, without geometric changes. A computational fluid dynamic model in ANSYS Forte was used to simulate a single-cylinder, cold flow, four-stroke, direct injection engine cycle. In this model, the engine was simulated at a compression ratio of 10:1. Then, the model was modified to a compression ratio of 17:1. Then, an additional valve opening at the end of the compression stroke was added to the 17:1 high compression model.

The objective of this research project was to compare B20 (20% biodiesel fuel) and ultra-low-sulfur (ULSD) diesel-fueled buses in terms of fuel economy, vehicle maintenance, engine performance, component wear, and lube oil performance. We examined 15 model year (MY) 2002 Gillig 40-foot transit buses equipped with MY 2002 Cummins ISM engines. The engines met 2004 U.S. emission standards and employed exhaust gas recirculation (EGR). For 18 months, eight of these buses operated exclusively on B20 and seven operated exclusively on ULSD. The B20 and ULSD study groups operated from different depots of the St. Louis (Missouri) Metro, with bus routes matched for duty cycle parity. The B20- and ULSD-fueled buses exhibited comparable fuel economy, reliability (as measured by miles between road calls), and total maintenance costs. Engine and fuel system maintenance costs were also the same for the two groups after correcting for the higher average mileage of the B20 group.

This paper presents a novel methodology to develop and validate fuel consumption models of Refuse Collecting Vehicles (RCVs). The model development is based on the improvement of the classic approach. The validation methodology is based on recording vehicle drive cycles by the use of a low cost data acquisition system and post processing them by the use of GPS and map data. The corrected data are used to feed the mathematical energy models and the fuel consumption is estimated. In order to validate the proposed system, the fuel consumption estimated from these models is compared with real filling station refueling records. This comparison shows that these models are accurate to within 5%.

Exhaust emission reduction and improvements in energy consumption will continuously determine future developments of on-road and off-road engines. Fuel flexibility by substituting Diesel with Natural Gas is becoming increasingly important. To meet these future requirements engines will get more complex. Additional and more advanced accessory systems for waste heat recovery (WHR), gaseous fuel supply, exhaust after-treatment and controls will be added to the base engine. This additional complexity will increase package size, weight and cost of the complete powertrain. Another critical element in future engine development is the optimization of the base engine. Fundamental questions are how much the base engine can contribute to meet the future exhaust emission standards, including CO2 and how much of the incremental size, weight and cost of the additional accessories can be compensated by optimizing the base engine.

Low temperature combustion through in-cylinder blending of fuels with different reactivity offers the potential to improve engine efficiency while yielding low engine-out NOx and soot emissions. A Navistar MaxxForce 13 heavy-duty compression ignition engine was modified to run with two separate fuel systems, aiming to utilize fuel reactivity to demonstrate a technical path towards high engine efficiency. The dual-fuel engine has a geometric compression ratio of 14 and uses sequential, multi-port-injection of a low reactivity fuel in combination with in-cylinder direct injection of diesel. Through control of in-cylinder charge reactivity and reactivity stratification, the engine combustion process can be tailored towards high efficiency and low engine-out emissions. Engine testing was conducted at 1200 rpm over a load sweep.

In recent years, trans-esterified vegetable oils have been widely applied to diesel engine in order to suppress greenhouse gas emissions. However, “neat” vegetable oils are expected to be directly used to resolve some difficulties faced in their use, such high viscosity and slightly high fuel consumption. In this study neat linseed oil has been investigated as a neat vegetable oil. It was found to show higher fuel consumption than diesel fuel, however at the same time it showed lower indicated fuel consumption than diesel fuel. These results suggest some increase in engine friction loss in a neat biofuel diesel engine. Studies have been extensively investigated the difference in friction loss and a newly developed “improved deceleration method” has been applied.

The DESTA project, funded by the European Commission under the FCH JU program, is a collaborative effort of AVL List GmbH, Eberspächer Climate Control Systems, Topsoe Fuel Cell (TOFC), Volvo and Forschungszentrum Jülich to bring fuel cell based auxiliary power units (APU) for heavy duty truck idling elimination closer to the market. Within this project Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) technology is used, which enables the use of conventional diesel fuel. During the project the technology is significantly optimized and around 10 APU systems are thoroughly tested. In 2014 a vehicle demonstration on board of a US type Volvo class 8 truck will be performed.

Catalysts and filters continue to be applied widely to meet particulate matter regulations across new and retrofit diesel engines. Soot management of the filter continues to be enhanced, including regeneration methodologies. Concerns regarding in-cylinder post-injection of fuel for active regeneration increases interests in directly injecting this fuel into the exhaust. Performance of secondary fuel injection layouts is discussed, and sensitivities on thermal uniformity are measured and analyzed, providing insight to packaging challenges and methods to characterize and improve application designs. Influences of end cone geometries, mixers, and injector mounting positions are quantified via thermal distribution at each substrate's outlet. A flow laboratory is applied for steady state characterization, repeated on an engine dynamometer, which also provides transient results across the NRTC.

High-speed OH chemiluminescence imaging is used to measure the lift-off length of diesel sprays in an optical heavy-duty diesel engine of 2 L displacement operated at 1200 rpm and 5 bar IMEP. Stereoscopic images are acquired at two different wavelengths (310 and 330 nm). Subtraction of pairwise images helps reducing the background coming from natural soot incandescence in the OH chemiluminescence images. Intake air temperature (343 to 403 K), motored top dead center density (18 to 22 kg/m3), fuel injection pressure (150 to 250 MPa), intake oxygen concentration (17 to 21 %vol) and nozzle diameter (0.1 and 0.14 mm) are varied and a nonlinear regression model is derived from the experimental results to describe stabilized lift-off length as function of the experimental factors. The lift-off length follows the general trends that are known from spray vessel investigations, but the strength of the dependence on certain variables deviates strongly from those studies.

Retaining the diesel combustion process but burning primarily natural gas offers diesel-like efficiencies from a natural-gas fuelled heavy-duty engine. This combustion event is limited by the injection pressure of the fuel, as this dictates the rate of mixing and hence of combustion. Typical late-cycle direct injection applications are limited to approximately 300 bar fuel pressure. The current work reports on tests for the first time at natural gas injection pressures up to 600 bar. The results show that significant efficiency and particulate matter reductions can be achieved at high loads, especially at higher speeds where the combustion is injection rate limited at conventional pressures. Increases in combustion noise and harshness are a drawback of higher pressures, but these can be mitigated by reducing the diameter of the nozzle gas holes to control the fuel injection rate.

New emission legislations applicable in the near future to sea-going vessels, off-road and off-highway vehicles require drastic nitric oxides emission reduction. A promising approach to achieve part of this decrease is charge air temperature reduction using Miller timing. However, it has been shown in literature that the reduction potential is limited, achieving a minimum in NOx emissions at a certain end-of-compression temperature. Further temperature reduction has shown to increase NOx emissions again. Some studies have shown that this increase is correlated to an increased amount of premixed combustion. In this work, the effects of pilot injection on engine out NOx emissions for very early intake valve closure (i.e. extreme Miller), high boost pressures and cold end-of-compression in-cylinder conditions are investigated. The experiments are carried out on a 3.96L single cylinder heavy-duty common-rail Diesel engine operating at 1000 rpm and at constant global air-to-fuel ratio.

An innovative Diffusive Air Jet (DAJ) Combustion Chamber concept has been introduced in the present work. The DAJ Combustion Chamber design is based on the study of rate of heat release (ROHR) curve and its correlation with emission generation. The objective is to lower the trade-off between NOx and soot without sacrificing fuel economy of Direct Injection (DI) diesel engine. DAJ Combustion Chamber modifies ROHR curve to the desired one so that it lowers engine out emissions. To study its effect, a large bore, six cylinder engine with mechanical fuel injection system has been used. Three dimensional simulation software is used for the model calibration of basic reentrant cavity. Local emissions and ROHR curve have been studied using reentrant cavity shape. It has been modified to DAJ Combustion Chamber using Air Jet Chambers (AJCs). AJCs are positioned in the three dimensional model in such a way that they affect local in-cylinder emissions.

Towards the effort of reducing pollutant emissions, especially soot and nitrogen oxides, from direct injection Diesel engines, engineers have proposed various solutions, one of which is the use of a gaseous fuel as a partial supplement for liquid Diesel fuel. These engines are known as dual fuel combustion engines. A dual fuel (Diesel-CNG) engine is a base diesel engine fitted with a dual fuel conversion kit to enable use of clean burning alternative fuel like compressed natural gas. In this engine diesel and natural gas are burned simultaneously. Natural gas is fed into the cylinder along with intake air; the amount of diesel injection is reduced accordingly. Dual fuel engines have number of potential advantages like fuel flexibility, higher compression ratio, and better efficiency and less modifications on existing diesel engines. It is an ecological friendly technology due to lower PM and smoke emissions and retains the efficiency of diesel combustion.

The presence of unsaturated methyl esters in biodiesel makes it susceptible to oxidation and fuel quality degradation upon long-term storage. In the present work, the effects of oxidation of Karanja biodiesel upon long-term storage on the combustion and emission characteristics of a heavy-duty truck diesel engine are studied. The Karanja biodiesel is stored for one year in a 200 litres steel barrel at room conditions to mimic commercial storage conditions. The results obtained show that compared to diesel, the start of injection of fresh and aged biodiesels are advanced by ~2-degree crank angle, and the ignition delay time is reduced. Aged biodiesel showed a slightly smaller ignition delay compares to fresh biodiesel. The fuel injection and combustion characteristics of fresh and aged biodiesels were similar at all the load conditions. Both fresh and aged biodiesels produced higher oxides of nitrogen (NOx) and lower smoke emissions compared to diesel.

Global warming due to exhaust emissions, rapid depletion of crude oil, and strict carbon control legislation has forced researchers to search biofuels as substitute for petroleum diesel fuels. Biodiesel is a renewable and oxygenated fuel. It is free from sulfur, non-toxic and a biodegradable. The different non-edible vegetable oils such as Algae, Karanja and Jatropha could be used to produce biodiesel. Biodiesel is a green fuel with an exception that it emits 15-20% more NOx as compared to diesel fuel. The emissions of nanoparticles are more hazardous to human health. The nanoparticles emission of biodiesel must be measured according to the new strict regulations. The engine performance and the lower emission characteristics, except for NOx emission, for Algae, Karanja and Jatropha oil biodiesels are similar to those of diesel fuel.

The EU recently decided to reduce CO2 emissions of commercial vehicle fleets by 30% until 2030. One possible way to achieve this target is to convert commercial vehicle diesel engines into stoichiometric natural gas engines. Based on this, a commercial vehicle single cylinder diesel engine with variable valve actuation and high-pressure EGR is converted into natural gas operation to increase efficiency and thus reduce CO2. Additionally, a water injection system is integrated. All three technologies are investigated on their own and in combination. To reduce longer combustion durations caused by Miller valve timing and charge dilution, a piston bowl with extra high turbulence generation is designed. Additionally, a swirl variation is carried out. The results show, that high swirl motion and high turbulence can lead to a disadvantage in efficiency despite faster combustion durations due to higher wall heat losses.

The evolution of engine technology has so far seen the most beneficial side of progress in the fields of transportation, agriculture, and mobility. With the advent of innovation, there is also an impact on our environment that needs to be balanced. This is where fuels like CNG, LPG, LNG, etc. outperform conventional fossil fuels in terms of pollution & operational cost. This paper enlightens on the use of innovative dual-fuel technology where diesel & CNG fuels are used for combustion simultaneously inside the combustion chamber. Dual fuel system adaptation for farm application ensures self-reliance of the farmer where he can generate Bio-CNG to use the renewable fuel for farming making him less dependent on conventional fossil fuel thus promoting a green economy. The dual-fuel system is adapted to the existing in-use diesel engine with minimum modifications. This makes it feasible to retrofit a CNG fuel system on an existing diesel engine to operate it on dual fuel mode.

Engine calibration involves the interaction of electronic components with various engine systems like intake system, exhaust system, ignition system, etc. Emissions are the by-products of combustion of fuel and air inside the combustion chamber. After-treatment systems generally take up the responsibility to scrape out harmful emissions from the engines. However, a good engine calibration will focus on emission reduction at source i.e., during the combustion itself. Thus, the intake of air and fuel in proper amount at each engine operating point is crucial for optimized engine performance and minimal emissions. The Intake system is an integral part of any internal combustion engine and it plays an important role to improve its performance and emission. Generally, for a SI engine, maintaining the stoichiometric A/F ratio is a challenging endeavour from an operational standpoint.

CNG has proven to be a concrete alternative to gasoline and diesel fuel for sustained mobility. Due to stringent emission norms and sanctions being imposed on diesel fuel vehicles, OEMs have shifted their attention towards natural gas as an efficient and green fuel. Newly implemented BS VI emission norms in India have stressed on the reduction of Nitrogen Oxides (NOx) from the exhaust by almost 85% as compared to BS IV emission norms. Also, Indian Automotive market is fuel economy cautious. This challenges to focus on improving fuel economy but without increase in NOx emissions. Exhaust Gas Recirculation (EGR) has the potential to reduce the NOx emissions by decreasing the in-cylinder temperature. The objective of the paper is to model a CNG TCIC engine using 1D simulation in order to optimize the NOx emissions and maintain exhaust temperatures under failsafe limits.

This paper discusses the development of an all speed governed diesel-natural gas dual fuel engine for agricultural farm tractor. A 45 hp, 2.9 liters diesel-natural gas dual fuel engine with a novel closed loop secondary fuel injection system was developed. A frugal approach without any modification of the base mechanical diesel fuel injection system was followed. This approach helped to minimize the cost impact, while meeting performance and emissions at par with neat diesel operation. Additional cost on gas injection system is redeemed by cost savings on diesel fuel. The dual fuel technology developed by Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd., substitutes on an average approximately 40% of diesel with compressed natural gas, meeting the TREM III A emission norms for dual fuel while meeting all application requirements. The governing performance of the tractor was found to be superior than base diesel tractor.