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In August of 2011, the US Environmental Protection Agency issued new Green House Gas (GHG) emissions regulations for heavy duty vehicles. These regulations included new procedures for the evaluation of hybrid powertrains and vehicles. One of the hybrid options allows for the evaluation of an engine plus a hybrid transmission (a powertrain). For this type of testing, EPA has proposed simulating a vehicle following the hybrid vehicle test procedures, including the use of the vehicle cycles and the A to B comparison testing - as required for the full vehicle evaluation option. This paper proposes an alternative approach by defining a powertrain cycle. The powertrain cycle is based on the heavy duty engine emissions cycle - the transient FTP cycle. Simulation and test results are presented showing similar performance over the engine and vehicle cycles. This approach offers several advantages as compared to the procedure described in EPA's GHG rule.

In this work fuel dilution of engine oil, and the impact of biodiesel fuel on dilution, were examined. New emissions requirements have driven the adoption of a range of aftertreatment systems for diesel engines. These aftertreatment devices in many cases have specific requirements for exhaust composition and temperature. Meeting these requirements can lead to fuel dilution of the engine oil. Measurement of fuel dilution of engine oil can be challenging, and in this study a new strategy for utilizing Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) was examined. A synthetic component of aviation oil, pentaerythritol ester (PE), was found to be a very useful tracer for measuring dilution with ultra low sulfur diesel (ULSD), but not useful for measuring dilution with B20. Fuel dilution and evaporation rates were measured for both ULSD and for a blend of biodiesel and ULSD (B20).