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Gasoline turbocharged direct injection (GTDI) engines, such as EcoBoost™ from Ford, are becoming established as a high value technology solution to improve passenger car and light truck fuel economy. Due to their high specific performance and excellent low-speed torque, improved fuel economy can be realized due to downsizing and downspeeding without sacrificing performance and driveability while meeting the most stringent future emissions standards with an inexpensive three-way catalyst. A logical and synergistic extension of the EcoBoost™ strategy is the use of E85 (approximately 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline) for knock mitigation. Direct injection of E85 is very effective in suppressing knock due to ethanol's high heat of vaporization - which increases the charge cooling benefit of direct injection - and inherently high octane rating. As a result, higher boost levels can be achieved while maintaining optimal combustion phasing giving high thermal efficiency.

Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) combustion has the potential to produce low NOx and low particulate matter (PM) emissions while providing high efficiency. In HCCI combustion, the start of auto-ignition of premixed fuel and air depends on temperature, pressure, concentration history during the compression stroke, and the unique reaction kinetics of the fuel/air mixture. For these reasons, the choice of fuel has a significant impact on both engine design and control strategies. In this paper, ten (10) gasoline-like testing fuels, statistically representative of blends of four blending streams that spanned the ranges of selected fuel properties, were tested in a single cylinder engine equipped with a hydraulic variable valve train (VVT) and gasoline direct injection (GDI) system.

Beside the traditional prediction of stresses and verification by mechanical testing the optimization of cylinder liner bore distortion is one of today's most important topics in crankcase structure development. Low bore distortion opens up potentials for optimizing the piston group. As the piston rings achieve better sealing characteristics in a low deformation cylinder liner, oil consumption and blow-by are reduced. For unchanged oil consumption and blow-by demands, engine friction and subsequently, fuel consumption could be reduced by decreasing the pre-tension of the piston rings. From the acoustical point of view an optimization of piston-slap noise is often based on an optimized bore distortion behavior. Apart from basics to the behavior of liner bore distortion the paper presents advanced analytical and empirical methods for detailed prediction, verification and optimization of bore distortion taking into account the effective engine operation conditions.

Like all technical fluids, lubricants are able to solve gases. While solved gas is a neutral part of the lubricant, dissolved gas has an influence especially on the compressibility behavior. The effects of oil aeration on engine drive causes malfunctions of several components. A successful optimization of the oil circulation concerning the oil aeration presupposes a safe and reproducible measuring procedure. The FEV has developed a measurement apparatus according to the principle of the volume measurement which allows a simple but efficient oil aeration measurement.

The main function of an engine's lubrication system is to supply the different engine components with sufficient oil under all operating conditions. The demand of modern engines regarding the necessary oil pressure and flow of the individual components is influenced by the engine speeds and the accelerations due to the vehicle driving conditions. In addition to that, the lubrication system effects the following topics: The drive power of the oil pump which is influenced by the oil pump capacity, the oil pressure and mechanical losses of the oil pump. The oil mass which is supplied to the engine oil consumers and flows back via the oil return system to the crankcase and the oil pan. In the crankcase ventilation system, oil and gas have to be separated. The oil aeration due to the oil mass in the crankcase and the moving parts. The ventilation losses in the crankcase which are influenced by the axial ventilation areas and the moved oil mass.

The paper is based on the premise that the sole purpose of combustion in piston engines is to generate pressure for pushing the expansion process away from the compression process (both expressed in terms of appropriate polytropes) to create a work producing cycle. This essential process, referred to as the dynamic stage of combustion, is carved out of the cycle and its salient properties deduced from the measured pressure profile, as a solution of an inverse problem: deduction of information on an action from its outcome. An analytical technique, construed for this purpose, is first presented and, then, applied to a direct injection, spark-ignition, methanol fueled four-stroke engine.

The sole purpose of combustion in a piston engine is to generate pressure in order to push the piston and produce work. Pressure diagnostics provides means to deduce data on the execution of the exothermic process of combustion in an engine cylinder from a measured pressure profile. Its task is that of an inverse problem: evaluation of the mechanism of a system from its measured output. The dynamic properties of the closed system in a piston engine are expressed in terms of a dynamic stage - the transition between the processes of compression and expansion. All the phenomena taking place in its course were analyzed in the predecessor of this paper, SAE 2002-01-0998. Here, on one hand, its concept is restricted to the purely dynamic effects, while on the other, the transformation of system components, taking place in the course of the exothermic chemical reaction to raise pressure, are taken into account by the exothermic stage.

In recent years, more attention has been focused on environment pollution and energy source issues. As a result, increasingly stringent fuel consumption and emission legislations have been implemented all over the world. For automakers, enhancing engine’s efficiency as a must contributes to lower vehicle fuel consumption. To reach this goal, Geely auto started the development of a 3-cylinder 1.0L turbocharged direct injection (TGDI) gasoline engine to achieve a challenging fuel economy target while maintaining fun-to-drive and NVH performance. Demanding development targets for performance (specific torque 205Nm/L and specific power 100kW/L) and excellent part-load BSFC were defined, which lead to a major challenge for the design of engine systems, especially for combustion system.

In recent years, more attention has been focused on environment pollution and energy source issues. As a result, increasingly stringent fuel consumption and emission legislations have been implemented all over the world. For automakers, enhancing engine’s efficiency as a must contributes to lower vehicle fuel consumption. To reach this goal, Geely auto started the development of a 3-cylinder 1.0L turbocharged direct injection (TGDI) gasoline engine to achieve a challenging fuel economy target while maintaining fun-to-drive and NVH performance. Demanding development targets for performance (specific torque 205Nm/L and specific power 100kW/L) and excellent part-load BSFC were defined, which lead to a major challenge for the design of the combustion system. Considering air/fuel mixture, fuel wall impingement and even future potential for lean burn combustion, a symmetrical layout and a central position for the injector with 200bar injection pressure was determined.

In order to meet increasingly stringent emission regulations and reduce fuel consumption, development of modern powertrain is becoming more complicated, combining many advanced technologies. Gasoline engine downsizing is already established as a proven technology to reduce vehicle fleet CO2 emissions. Compressed natural gas (CNG) offers increased potential to further reduce both tailpipe CO2 and other regulated exhaust gas emissions without compromising driving performance. In this study, a turbocharged CNG port fuel injection (PFI) engine was developed based on gasoline version. Making most use of positive fuel properties of CNG, the paper quantifies the performance characteristics of downsized CNG engine considering reduced knock sensitivity, adaption of compression ratio and combustion efficiency. While peak cylinder pressure was controlled below 120 bar, peak torque 180Nm, same level as gasoline variant, was realized from 3000rpm.

This research was concerned with the use of Exhaust Gas Recirculation (EGR) improving the fuel economy over a wide operating range in a downsized boosted gasoline engine. The experiments were performed in a 1.3-Litre turbocharged PFI gasoline engine, equipped with a Low Pressure (LP) water-cooled EGR system. The operating conditions varied from 1500rpm to 4000rpm and BMEP from 2bar to 17bar. Meanwhile, the engine’s typical operating points in NEDC cycle were tested separately. The compression ratio was also changed from 9.5 to 10.5 to pursue a higher thermal efficiency. A pre-compressor throttle was used in the experiment working together with the EGR loop to keep enough EGR rate over a large area of the engine speed and load map. The results indicated that, combined with a higher compression ratio, the LP-EGR could help to reduce the BSFC by 9∼12% at high-load region and 3∼5% at low-load region.

Intake charge preparation has strong effects on HCCI combustion, especially on the start of ignition. In this paper, the influence of different intake charge preparation modes on HCCI combustion in a single cylinder engine equipped with a hydraulic variable valve train (VVT) and gasoline direct injection (GDI) system is studied. By using VVT and GDI, three different intake charge preparation modes are implemented: re-compression early injection (RCEI), re-compression split injection (RCSI), and re-breathing early injection (RBEI). For each intake charge preparation mode, three engine operating conditions are investigated: 1.5 bar IMEP at 1000 rpm, 3 bar IMEP at 2000 rpm, and 6 bar/deg of maximum rate of pressure rise at 3000 rpm (IMEP's very near 3 bar). For all engine operating conditions and intake charge preparation modes, the combustion phasing, represented by the 50% mass fraction burned location (CA50), were fixed at 5 degrees after top dead center.

To meet more stringent emission regulations for diesel engines, diesel particulate filters (DPF) have been widely used for diesel engines. However, the DPF regeneration is a great challenge for fuel economy. In this paper, a mathematical model characterizing the microwave regeneration process of a wall-flow particulate filter is introduced to better understand the process. Based on this model, important parameters such as evolutions of the energy stream densities of microwaves, wall temperature, regeneration efficiency and the pressure drop in the filters, both cordierite and SiC, are investigated. These results can provide an important theoretical guide for optimizing and controlling the microwave regeneration process.

Numerical simulation has been widely used in the engine development process to improve the development quality, especially in the area of in-cylinder flow and fuel evaporation. In this paper, a fuel spray model for a gasoline direct injection (GDI) engine, calibrated against spray visualization in a spray bomb, is developed to characterize the fuel spray atomization, vaporization, and interaction with in-cylinder air flow. With this model, fuel atomization and fuel-air mixing process are thoroughly analyzed at full load operating conditions at both low and high speeds. It is shown that fuel spray at high speed is deflected towards intake side, leading to limited wall wetting, piston wetting, and good vaporization, due to intensive tumble flow and high temperature. The results from the numerical simulation provide important guideline for the development of a GDI engine.

Extensive experimental and numerical investigations with respect to mass balance unit (MBU) were reported to improve the vibration and acoustic performance for inline 4-cylinder engine due to unbalanced inherent secondary order inertial forces. Design of gear-driven MBU with two parallel shafts and two gear pairs which was positioned beneath the crankshaft would be described in the paper. For the sake of compact package and reliable design, the driving gear ring of the system was shrink fitted onto the crankweb, and issues such as lubrication, strength, assembly were taken into account during design process. As a result, 93.66% of 2nd order mass force balance was achieved and2nd vibration level of engine was decreased remarkably. However, acoustical behavior was deteriorated due to gear impact and rattle at the engagement. Extra efforts were paid to solve the unpleasant noise through internal and external excitation optimizations.

Modern passenger car engines are designed to operate at increasingly higher rated engine speeds with higher thermal loads. To reduce engine weight and length, the engines are usually siamesed without a cooling path between the cylinder liners. This leads to high temperatures in the siamesed area and to an increase in liner deformation. The distortion of the cylinder liners of internal combustion engines has a significant affect on engine operation. It can affect the oil consumption, the blow-by, the wear behavior and, due to friction, the fuel consumption. In order to achieve future requirements regarding exhaust emissions and fuel consumption, the development of low distortion engine blocks will play a significant role.

Because of increasing stresses in combustion engines and critical comfort requirements of engine warm-up behavior, FEV has placed a special emphasis on solving cooling system problems. In addition to 3D-CFD calculations and special FEV measurement techniques - such as fiber optical cavitation detection, instationary heat balance measurements during warm-up, etc. - FEV has developed a 1D computer code, known as ‘COOL’, to optimize cooling systems already during the engine design phase or to analyse and eliminate weaknesses in the coolant circuit of existing engines. Beside the algorithm and structure of COOL the paper mainly presents the analysis capabilities of the code. In this connection the emphasis is placed on examples to the current OEMs problem: transient warm-up of DI-diesel engines. The COOL-code is so far a unique CAE tool which exclusively has been applied to projects conducted by FEV. Because of the increasing demand it is planned to commercialize the code in 1998.

The connecting rod big-end bearing is one of the most heavily loaded components of the lubrication system of high speed combustion engines. The bearing's oil supply has to be designed consciantious in order to ensure an immaculate reliability in operation. The supply oil flow has to pass the main bearing and the rotating crankshaft before entering the connecting rod bearing. It is common knowledge that the centrifugal forces due to the crankshaft rotation influence the oil flow through the also rotating supply bore. The centrifugal forces effect a parabolic pressure profile along the supply bore. The oil pump has to ensure a certain pressure level in the main oil gallery (depending on the engine speed and the spherical positioning of the rotating bore) to overcome these centrifugal forces. If the oil pressure is lower than this certain level the bearing's oil supply will be interrupted - bearing damage is the consequence.

Fuel consumption of a modern combustion engine is significantly influenced by the mechanical friction losses. Particularly in typical city driving, the reduction of the engine friction losses offers a remarkable potential in emission and fuel consumption reduction. The analysis of the engine friction distribution of modern engines shows that the piston group has a high share at total engine friction. This offers a high potential to optimize piston group friction. The paper presents results of recent research and development work in the field of the tribological system piston/piston ring/cylinder bore.