Search Results

From the viewpoint of primary energy diversification and CO2 reduction, interests of using Biomass Fuel are rising. Some kinds of FAME (Fatty Acid Methyl Ester), which are obtained from oil fats like vegetable oil using transesterification reaction with methanol, are getting Palm Oilpular for bio-diesel recently. In this study, we have conducted many experiments of palm oil hydrogenations using our pilot plants, and checked the reactivity and the pattern of product yields. As a result, we figured out that the hydrocarbon oil equivalent to the conventional diesel fuel can be obtained from vegetable oils in good yield under mild hydrogenation conditions. Moreover, as a result of various evaluations for the hydrogenated palm oil (oxidation stability, lowtemperature flow property, LCA, etc.), we found that the hydrogenated palm oil by our technology has performances almost equivalent to conventional diesel fuel.

The paper describes a feasibility test program on a 2 liter, 4 cylinder DI/TCI passenger car engine operated on the new alternative fuel Dimethyl Ether (DME, CH3 - O - CH3) with the aim of demonstrating its potential of meeting ULEV emissions (0.2 g/mi NOx in the FTP 75 test cycle) when installed in a full size passenger car. Special attention is drawn to the fuel injection equipment (FIE) as well as combustion system requirements towards the reduction of NOx and combustion noise while keeping energetic fuel consumption at the level of the baseline DI/TCI diesel engine. FIE and combustion system parameters were optimized on the steady state dynamometer by variation of a number of parameters, such as rate of injection, number of nozzle holes, compression ratio, piston bowl shape and exhaust gas recirculation.

Over the last few years there has been much interest in DiMethyl Ether (DME) as an alternative fuel for diesel cycle engines. It combines the advantages of a high cetane number with soot free combustion, which makes it eminently suitable for compression ignition engines. However, due to the fact that it is a gas under ambient conditions, it requires special fuel handling and a specially designed fuel injection system, which until recently, was not available. The use of the digital hydraulic operating system (DHOS), combined with a fuel handling system designed to cope with the properties of DME, enables the fuel to be safely and conveniently handled, In addition, the flexibility of the injection system enables injection pressures to be chosen according to the needs of the combustion.

Recently, global warming and energy security have received significant attention. Thus an improvement of the vehicle fuel economy is strongly required. For engines, one effective way is to improve the engine thermal efficiency. Raising compression ratio [1] or turbo charging technologies have potential to achieve high thermal efficiency. However knock does not allow the high thermal efficiency. Knock depends on the fuel composition and the pressure and temperature history of unburnt end-gas [2-3]. For fuels, RON is well known for describing the anti knock quality. High RON fuels have high anti knock quality and result in higher thermal efficiency. This paper investigates the impact of high RON fuels on the thermal efficiency by using high compression ratio engine, turbo charged engine, and lean boosted engine [4]. Finally, it is shown that the high thermal efficiency can be approached with high RON gasoline and ethanol.

In an effort to reduce CO2 emissions, governments are increasingly mandating the use of various levels of biofuels. While this is strongly supported in principle within the energy and transportation industries, the impact of these mandates on the transport stock’s CO2 emissions and overall operating efficiency has yet to be fully explored. This paper provides information on studies to assess biodiesel influences and effects on engine performance, driveability, emissions and fuel consumption on state-of-the-art Euro IV compliant Toyota Avensis D4-D vehicles with DPNR aftertreatment systems. Two fuel matrices (Phases 1 & 2) were designed to look at the impact of fuel composition on vehicle operation using a wide range of critical parameters such as cetane number, density, distillation and biofuel (FAME) level and type, which can be found within the current global range of Diesel fuel qualities.

Since ethanol is a renewable source of energy and it contributes to lower CO2 emissions, ethanol produced from biomass is expected to increase in use as an alternative fuel. It is recognized that for spark ignition (SI) engines ethanol has advantages of high octane number and high combustion speed and has a disadvantage of difficult startability at low temperature. This paper investigates the influence of ethanol fuel on SI engine performance, thermal efficiency, and emissions. The combustion characteristics under cold engine conditions are also examined. Ethanol has high anti-knock quality due to its high octane number, and high latent heat of evaporation, which decreases the compressed gas temperature during the compression stroke. In addition to the effect of latent heat of evaporation, the difference of combustion products compared with gasoline further decreases combustion temperature, thereby reducing cooling heat loss.

Recently, the demands of vehicle owners have become more diversified. This is particularly true in the paint appearance of the vehicle. Responding to these demands Toyota has developed an ink jet painting system, Toyota Fantasy Print System. This system can illustrate practically any picture which the customer desires. The system utilized a subtractive method of paint mixture which mixes or piles up these four permeable inks. The development of durable ink as well as equipment which can efficiently and effectively apply the ink onto the required contoured surface.

In order to clarify the relationship between the chemical structure of PAG (polyalkylene glycol) and the performance characteristics as the refrigeration lubricants used for HFC134a, performance tests were conducted using PAGs with different end groups and alkylene oxide chains in the presence of HFC134a. Newly developed dimethyl ether capped PAGs having more than 70 mol.% PO (propylene oxide) to less than 30 mol.% EO (ethylene oxide) as a monomer ratio were the most preferable of all PAGs tested. The refrigeration lubricants using these PAGs have been successfully introduced into the market for mobile air conditioning systems with refrigerant HFC134a.

Engine oils normally contain calcium detergents and ZnDTPs to have detergency and antiwear performance. However, it has been recently understood that these additives could deteriorate filter performance in catalyst and DPF. In this background this paper explains the study and the development about new type of engine oil excluding metal detergents and phosphorus compounds. The developed engine oil shows good durability in several JASO engine tests and a fleet test by formulating newly developed additives as substitute for calcium detergents and ZnDTPs.

In order to determine the main factors causing the mileage-related increase in formaldehyde emission from methanol-fueled vehicles, mileage was accumulated on three types of vehicle, each of which had a different air-fuel calibration system. From exhaust emission data obtained during and after the mileage accumulation, it was found that lean burn operation resulted in by far the highest formaldehyde emission increase. An investigation into the reason for the rise in engine-out formaldehyde emission revealed that deposits in the combustion chamber emanating from the lubricating oil promotes formaldehyde formation. Furthermore it was learnt that an increase in engine-out NOx emissions promotes partial oxidation of unburned methanol in the catalyst, leading to a significant increase in catalyst-out formaldehyde emission.

DiMethyl Ether (DME) has been shown to be a very attractive fuel for low emission direct injection compression ignition (DICI) engines. It combines the advantages of the high efficiencies of diesel cycle engines with soot free combustion. However, its greatest drawback is the need to develop new fuel injection and handling systems. Previous approaches have been common rail type injection systems which have shown great potential in reducing harmful exhaust emissions and achieving good engine performance and efficiency due to good control of both the fuel injection characteristics and temperature. The concept also has proven benefits with respect to convenient and safe fuel handling. The logical evolution of this concept simplifies the fuel system and avoids special components for DME handling such as high pressure rail pumps while retaining all the benefits of the common rail principle.

Current and future engine technologies and fuels are mutually dependent. The increased use of alternative fuels has been linked to deterioration in performance of injectors, fuel filters and engines as a result of insoluble deposit formation. The present work aimed to study the impact of Diesel/biodiesel blends formulation (biodiesel feedstock and content) and temperature on the oxidation stability based on total acid number (TAN). The biofuels used in the fuel matrix were: rapeseed, soy and palm methyl esters (RME, SME and PME respectively). The Diesel/biodiesel blends were made with 0%v/v, 5%v/v, 10% v/v and 20%v/v of biodiesel blended with additive-free new Diesel. The oxidation stability of Diesel/biodiesel blends was to evaluate during 6 months fuels storage, under 20°C and 40°C, and fuels severe oxidation into a reactor vessel to better understand the parameters leading to fuel oxidation on-board.

The AVL Load Matrix is a systematic approach to optimize durability and reliability test programs. It is based on component-specific test acceleration factors and uses damage models as well as statistics. Using the Load Matrix approach helps to achieve complete test programs while avoiding unrealistic over-testing. The paper describes the Load Matrix concept and structure as well as the process of setting up the Load Matrix for a system or component. Examples are provided on damage models, and the procedure to estimate the acceleration factors is discussed.

Thermal load caused by engine combustion is one of the important issues for the engines such as high-boosted downsized engines and engines with high compression ratio. In particular, it is necessary to maintain the reliability and durability of exhaust valves which are subject to the biggest thermal impact. For this reason, sodium filled hollow valves are utilized in preference to solid valves in order to decrease the exhaust valve temperature. The most common method for detecting the valve temperature is to estimate the temperature by measuring hardness on valve surface (Hardness test). However, the hardness test is only applicable to the condition up to 800°C. Therefore, this paper presents new techniques for measuring the temperature for sodium-filled valve using infrared thermography and thermocouple as an alternative hardness test. The authors also examined the valve temperatures at a variety of engine speeds and cooling of the sodium-filled valve during engine operation.

The use of Automatic Transmission Fluids (ATFs) with lower viscosity and excellent anti-shudder durability for wet clutch system will be effective for improving fuel saving performance in automatic transmissions. In this study, two ATF formulation techniques were examined. The first trial formulation is to improve fatigue life in gear components even if a lower viscosity ATF is used. The second one is to improve anti-shudder durability for wet lock-up clutch system in AT units. As to fatigue life performance, the relation between molecular weight of Viscosity Index Improver (VII) and film formation property in EHL contact regions were experimentally investigated. ATFs containing VIIs with lower molecular weight tend to increasing EHL film thickness, resulting in a longer gear pitting fatigue life. Calcium detergents and ashless friction modifiers in ATFs were found to give a great impact on the anti-shudder performance.

The study of 10% ethanol blended gasoline (E10 gasoline) utilization has been conducted in the Japan Auto-Oil Program (JATOP). In order to clarify the impact of E10 gasoline on vehicle performances, exhaust emissions, evaporative emissions, driveability and material compatibility have been investigated by using domestic gasoline vehicles including mini motor vehicles which are particular to Japan. The test results reveal that E10 gasoline has no impact on exhaust emissions, engine startup time and acceleration period under the hot start condition, but a slight deterioration is observed in some test cases under the cold start condition using E10 gasolines with 50% distillation temperature (T50) level set to the upper limit of Japanese Industrial Standards (JIS) K 2202. Regarding evaporative emissions, the tested vehicles shows no remarkable increase in the hot soak loss (HSL), diurnal breathing loss (DBL) and running loss (RL) testing with E10 gasolines.

Biodiesel Fuel (BDF) Research Work Group works on identifying technological issues on the use of high biodiesel blends (over 5 mass%) in conventional diesel vehicles under the Japan Auto-Oil Program started in 2007. The Work Group conducts an analytical study on the issues to develop measures to be taken by fuel products and vehicle manufacturers, and to produce new technological findings that could contribute to the study of its introduction in Japan, including establishment of a national fuel quality standard covering high biodiesel blends. For evaluation of the impacts of high biodiesel blends on performance of diesel particulate filter system, a wide variety of biodiesel blendstocks were prepared, ranging from some kinds of fatty acid methyl esters (FAME) to another type of BDF such as hydrotreated biodiesel (HBD). Evaluation was mainly conducted on blend levels of 20% and 50%, but also conducted on 10% blends and neat FAME in some tests.

In Biodiesel Fuel Research Working Group(WG) of Japan Auto-Oil Program(JATOP), some impacts of high biodiesel blends have been investigated from the viewpoints of fuel properties, stability, emissions, exhaust aftertreatment systems, cold driveability, mixing in engine oils, durability/reliability and so on. In the impact on exhaust emissions, the impact of high biodiesel blends into diesel fuel on diesel emissions was evaluated. The wide variety of biodiesel blendstock, which included not only some kinds of fatty acid methyl esters(FAME) but also hydrofined biodiesel(HBD) and Fischer-Tropsch diesel fuel(FTD), were selected to evaluate. The main blend level evaluated was 5, 10 and 20% and the higher blend level over 20% was also evaluated in some tests. The main advanced technologies for exhaust aftertreatment systems were diesel particulate filter(DPF), Urea selective catalytic reduction (Urea-SCR) and the combination of DPF and NOx storage reduction catalyst(NSR).

We developed new microalloyed steels, containing about 0.05% sulfur, which have excellent as hot-forged toughness even when forged at the temperatures of about 1300°C(2375°F). We also estimated the various properties of the new microalloy steel in the as hot-forged condition, comparing them to quench and tempered SAE1055 steel used in the front axle of a small truck. The results showed the new steel has improved yield strength, fatigue strength, absorbed impact energy and machinability over the SAE1055 steel.

From the energy security and CO2 discharge reduction point of view, much attention has been paid to the usage of biofuel, ethanol, as an alternative source of energy in the transportation industry. Yet, the major drawback in applying highly concentrated ethanol in the spark ignited internal combustion engines is cold start instability. This is due to the characteristics of ethanol, large latent heat required to vaporize. This paper investigates necessary conditions for the engine cold start, using highly concentrated ethanol. Tests performed with varieties of ethanol fuel, a relationship between cold startability lower temperature limit and reid vapor pressure was observed. A method to boost the vaporization, intake valve timing control is introduced to obtain high compression peak temperature.