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In this work, a dynamically loaded hydrodynamic journal bearing test rig is developed and introduced. The rig is a novel design, using a hydraulic actuator with fast acting spool valves to apply load to a connecting rod. This force is transmitted through the connecting rod to the large end bearing which is mounted on a spinning shaft. The hydraulic actuator allows for fully variable control and can be used to apply either static load in compression or tension, or dynamic loading to simulate engine operation. A variable speed electric motor controls shaft speed and is synchronized to the hydraulic actuator to accurately simulate loading to represent all four engine strokes. A high precision torque meter enables direct measurements of friction torque, while shaft position is measured via a high precision encoder.

Increasingly stringent fuel economy and emissions regulations around the world have forced the further optimization of nearly all vehicle systems. Many technologies exist to improve fuel economy; however, only a smaller sub-set are commercially feasible due to the cost of implementation. One system that can provide a small but significant improvement in fuel economy is the lubrication system of an internal combustion engine. Benefits in fuel economy may be realized by the reduction of engine oil viscosity and the addition of friction modifying additives. In both cases, advanced engine oils allow for a reduction of engine friction. Because of differences in engine design and architecture, some engines respond more to changes in oil viscosity or friction modification than others. For example, an engine that is designed for an SAE 0W-16 oil may experience an increase in fuel economy if an SAE 0W-8 is used.

Chassis dynamometer tests are often used to determine vehicle fuel economy (FE). Since the entire vehicle is used, these methods are generally accepted to be more representative of ‘real-world’ conditions than engine dynamometer tests or small-scale bench tests. Unfortunately, evaluating vehicle fuel economy via this means introduces significant variability that can readily be mitigated with engine dynamometer and bench tests. Recently, improvements to controls and procedures have led to drastically improved test precision in chassis dynamometer testing. Described herein are chassis dynamometer results from five fully formulated engine oils (utilizing improved testing protocols on the Federal Test Procedure (FTP-75) and Highway Fuel Economy Test (HwFET) cycles) which not only show statistically significant FE changes across viscosity grades but also meaningful FE differentiation within a viscosity grade where additive systems have been modified.

There are numerous off-road diesel engine applications. In some applications there is more focus on metrics such as initial cost, packaging and transient response and less emphasis on fuel economy. In this paper a combustion concept is presented that may be well suited to these applications. The novel combustion concept operates in two distinct operation modes: lean operation at light engine loads and stoichiometric operation at intermediate and high engine loads. One advantage to the two mode approach is the ability to simplify the aftertreatment and reduce cost. The simplified aftertreatment system utilizes a non-catalyzed diesel particulate filter (DPF) and a relatively small lean NOx trap (LNT). Under stoichiometric operation the LNT has the ability to act as a three way catalyst (TWC) for excellent control of hydrocarbons (HC), carbon monoxide (CO) and nitrogen oxides (NOx).

For the US market, an abundant supply of natural gas (NG) coupled with recent green-house gas (GHG) regulations have spurred renewed interest in dual-fuel combustion regimes. This paper explores the potential of co-direct injection to improve the efficiency and reduce the methane emissions versus equivalent fumigated dual-fuel combustion systems. Using the Westport HPDI engine as the experimental test platform, the paper reports the results obtained using both diffusion controlled (HPDI) combustion strategy as well as a partially-premixed combustion strategy (DI2). The DI2 combustion strategy shows good promise, as it has been found to improve the engine efficiency by over two brake thermal efficiency (BTE) points (% fuel energy) compared to the diffusion controlled combustion strategy (HPDI) while at the same time reducing the engine-out methane emissions by 75% compared to an equivalent fumigated dual-fuel combustion system.

Increasingly stringent emissions regulations require that modern diesel aftertreatment systems must warm up and begin controlling emissions shortly after startup. While several new aftertreatment technologies have been introduced that focus on lowering the aftertreatment activation temperature, the engine system still needs to provide thermal energy to the exhaust for cold start. A study was conducted to evaluate several engine technologies that focus on improving the thermal energy that the engine system provides to the aftertreatment system while minimizing the impact on fuel economy and emissions. Studies were conducted on a modern common rail 3L diesel engine with a custom dual loop EGR system. The engine was calibrated for low engine-out NOx using various combustion strategies depending on the speed/load operating condition.

The CO2 advantage coupled with the low NOX and PM potential of natural gas (NG) makes it well-suited for meeting future greenhouse gas (GHG) and NOX regulations for on-road medium and heavy-duty engines. However, because NG is mostly methane, reduced combustion efficiency associated with traditional NG fueling strategies can result in significant levels of methane emissions which offset the CO2 advantage due to reduced efficiency and the high global warming potential of methane. To address this issue, the unique co-direct injection capability of the Westport HPDI fuel system was leveraged to obtain a partially-premixed fuel charge by injecting NG during the compression stroke followed by diesel injection for ignition timing control. This combustion strategy, referred to as DI2, was found to improve thermal and combustion efficiencies over fumigated dual-fuel combustion modes.

The influence of nozzle geometry on spray and combustion of diesel continues to be a topic of great research interest. One area of promise, injector nozzles with micro-holes (i.e. down to 30 μm), still need further investigation. Reduction of nozzle orifice diameter and increased fuel injection pressure typically promotes air entrainment near-nozzle during start of injection. This leads to better premixing and consequently leaner combustion, hence lowering the formation of soot. Advances in numerical simulation have made it possible to study the effect of different nozzle diameters on the spray and combustion in great detail. In this study, a baseline model was developed for investigating the spray and combustion of diesel fuel at the Spray A condition (nozzle diameter of 90 μm) from the Engine Combustion Network (ECN) community.

As fuel economy becomes increasingly important in all markets, complete engine system optimization is required to meet future standards. In many applications, it is difficult to realize the optimum coolant or lubricant pump without first evaluating different sets of engine hardware and iterating on the flow and pressure requirements. For this study, a Heavy Duty Diesel (HDD) engine was run in a dynamometer test cell with full variability of the production coolant and lubricant pumps. Two test stands were developed to allow the engine coolant and lubricant pumps to be fully mapped during engine operation. The pumps were removed from the engine and powered by electric motors with inline torque meters. Each fluid circuit was instrumented with volume flow meters and pressure measurements at multiple locations. After development of the pump stands, research efforts were focused on hardware changes to reduce coolant and lubricant flow requirements of the HDD engine.

The engine power cylinder is comprised of the piston, piston rings, and cylinder. It accounts for a significant amount of total engine friction within reciprocating, internal combustion engines. Reducing power cylinder friction is key to the development of efficient internal combustion engines. However, isolating individual power cylinder tribocouples for detailed analysis can be challenging. In this work, a new reciprocating liner test rig is developed and introduced. The rig design is novel, using a stationary piston and a reciprocating cylinder liner. Friction is calculated from the force measured in the connecting rod which supports the piston. The rig allows for independent control of peak cylinder pressure, speed, and lubricant temperature. Using the newly developed test rig, several technologies for friction reduction are evaluated and compared.

Modern agriculture has evolved dramatically over the past half century. To be profitable, farms need to significantly increase their crop yields, and thus there are amplified demands on farming equipment. Equipment duty cycles have been raised in scope and duration, as the required output of the agricultural industry to sustain a growing population has stimulated the need for further advances in effective productivity gains on the farm. The mainstay mechanical assistant to the farmer, the tractor, has also evolved with the changes in modern agriculture to meet the requirements of these newer tasks. Larger, more capable vehicles have been introduced to help farmers efficiently meet these demands. At the same time, the current generation of tractor diesel engine lubricants has facilitated high levels of performance in the agricultural equipment market for many years. This is a testament to the role modern lubricants play in productivity in such a critical industry.

To meet increasingly stringent emissions and fuel economy regulations, many Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) have recently developed and deployed small, high power density engines. Turbocharging, coupled with gasoline direct injection (GDI) has enabled a rapid engine downsizing trend. While these turbocharged GDI (TGDI) engines have indeed allowed for better fuel economy in many light duty vehicles, TGDI technology has also led to some unintended consequences. The most notable of these is an abnormal combustion phenomenon known as low speed pre-ignition (LSPI). LSPI is an uncontrolled combustion event that takes place prior to spark ignition, often resulting in knock, and has been known to cause catastrophic engine damage. LSPI propensity depends on a number of factors including engine design, calibration, fuel properties and engine oil formulation. Several engine tests have been developed within the industry to better understand the phenomenon of LSPI.

Diesel engines are facing increased competition from gasoline engines in the light-duty and small non-road segments, primarily due to the high relative cost of emissions control systems for lean-burn diesel engines. Advancements in gasoline engine technology have decreased the operating cost advantage of diesels and the relatively high initial-cost disadvantage is now too large to sustain a strong business position. SwRI has focused several years of research efforts toward enabling diesel engine combustion systems to operate at stoichiometric conditions, which allows the application of a low-cost three-way catalyst emission control system which has been well developed for gasoline spark-ignited engines. One of the main barriers of this combustion concept is the result of high smoke emissions from poor fuel/air mixing.

In this study, a high-efficiency heavy-duty diesel engine platform was used to evaluate gasoline compression ignition (GCI) operation. The experiment was carried out using a single-cylinder engine (SCE) of a high compression ratio (22:1). Pump-grade gasoline fuel 87 research octane number (RON) was used throughout engine testing. Injection strategy was established including double and triple injection schemes to optimize both engine efficiency and emissions. Both low-temperature heat release (LTHR) and high-temperature heat release (HTHR) were seen from a two-stage combustion event resulting from the interaction of pilot and main injections. At low load conditions, besides fuel stratification level by pilot/main injection strategy, higher in-cylinder pressure can greatly improve the ignition of 1st stage combustion. As engine load increases, spray-wall interaction becomes more critical on engine efficiency and emissions performance.

It has long been understood that the piston assembly of the internal combustion engine accounts for a significant proportion of total engine friction. Modern engines are required to have better fuel economy without sacrificing durability. The pursuit of better fuel economy drives trends like downsizing, turbocharging and direct injection fuelling systems that increase cylinder pressures and create a more arduous operating environment for the piston ring / cylinder bore tribocouple. The power-cylinder lubricant is therefore put under increased stress as modern engine technology continues to evolve. The conventional approach to investigating fundamental power-cylinder tribology employs bench-tests founded on assumptions which allow for simplification of experimental conditions.

Numerous studies have characterized the impact of high injection pressure and small nozzle holes on spray quality and the subsequent impact on combustion. Higher injection pressure or smaller nozzle diameter usually reduce soot emissions owing to better atomization quality and fuel-air mixing enhancement. The influence of nozzle geometry on spray and combustion of diesel continues to be a topic of great research interest. An alternate approach impacting spray quality is investigated in this paper, specifically the impact of non-circular nozzles. The concept was explored experimentally in an optically accessible constant-volume combustion chamber (CVCC). Non-reacting spray evaluations were conducted at various ambient densities (14.8, 22.8, 30 kg/m3) under inert gas of Nitrogen (N2) while injection pressure was kept at 100 MPa. Shadowgraph imaging was used to obtain macroscopic spray characteristics such as spray structure, spray penetration, and the spray cone angle.

Fluid-Structure Interaction (FSI) simulation approach can be used to simulate a turbocharger. However, this predictive 3D simulation encounters the challenge of a long computational time. The impeller speed can be above 100,000 rpm, and generally a CFD solver limits the maximum movement of the impeller surface per time step. The maximum movement must be a fraction (~0.3) of the cell length, thus the time step will be very small. A Multiple Reference Frame (MRF) approach can reduce computational time by eliminating the need to regenerate the mesh at each time-step to accommodate the moving geometry. A static local reference zone encompassing the impeller is created and the impact of the impeller movement is modeled via a momentum source. However, the MRF approach is not a predictive simulation because the impeller speed must be given by the User. A new simulation approach was introduced that coupled the FSI and MRF approach.

As an alternative fuel, renewable diesel (RD) could improve the performance of conventional internal combustion engines (ICE) because of its difference in fuel properties. With almost no aromatic content in the fuel, RD produces less soot emissions than diesel. The higher cetane number (CN) of RD also promotes ignition of the fuel, which is critical, especially under low load, and low reactivity conditions. This study tested RD fuel in a heavy-duty single-cylinder engine (SCE) under compression-ignition (CI) operation. Test condition includes low and high load points with change in exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) and start of injection (SOI). Measurements and analysis are provided to study combustion and emissions, including particulate matters (PM) mass and particle number (PN). It was found that while the combustion of RD and diesel are very similar, PM and PN emissions of RD were reduced substantially compared to diesel.

Downsized gasoline engines, coupled with gasoline direct injection (GDI) and turbocharging, have provided an effective means to meet both emissions standards and customers’ drivability expectations. As a result, these engines have become more and more common in the passenger vehicle marketplace over the past 10 years. To maximize fuel economy, these engines are commonly calibrated to operate at low speeds and high engine loads – well into the traditional ‘knock-limited’ region. Advanced engine controls and GDI have effectively suppressed knock and allowed the engines to operate in this high efficiency region more often than was historically possible. Unfortunately, many of these downsized, boosted engines have experienced a different type of uncontrolled combustion. This combustion occurs when the engine is operating under high load and low speed conditions and has been named Low Speed Pre-Ignition (LSPI). LSPI has shown to be very damaging to engine hardware.

According to the Annual Energy Outlook 2022 (AEO2022) report, almost 30% of the transport sector will still use internal combustion engines (ICE) until 2050. The transportation sector has been actively seeking different methods to reduce the CO2 emissions footprint of fossil fuels. The use of lower carbon-intensity fuels such as Renewable Diesel (RD) can enable a pathway to decarbonize the transport industry. This suggests the need for experimental or advanced numerical studies of RD to gain an understanding of its combustion and emissions performance. This work presents a numerical modeling approach to study the combustion and emissions of RD. The numerical model utilized the development of a reduced chemical kinetic mechanism for RD’s fuel chemistry. The final reduced mechanism for RD consists of 139 species and 721 reactions, which significantly shortened the computational time from using the detailed mechanism.