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The growing complexity of powertrain control strategies, software, and hardware is proving to be a significant challenge to the engineering community with regard to managing effective optimization to meet the desired performance. With an increased emphasis on shorter development time and the use of additional sensors and actuators becoming common, the increased dependence on physical models and use of complex interdependent control systems demands a thorough system understanding. This also encourages the use of process improvement tools to assist in an effective engineering process. In this paper, such a tool is discussed in its second phase of development. The Micro-HiL system will be discussed over a wide scope that focuses on the interests of the calibration and development community. The purpose of this paper is to provide an update on the Phase 2 activity of Micro-HiL development; Phase 1 was discussed in-depth at the 2011 SAE World Congress [2011-01-0703].

Turbocharged DISI engines with four cylinders have established in the market and provide a performance comparable to larger six-cylinder engines in the smaller compartment of a four-cylinder engine. In the Japanese market, also turbo gasoline engines with 500 - 660 cm₃ displacement have a long tradition in Kei-Cars. However, those engines show a lower specific performance as would be required for propelling typical small or compact vehicles in Europe. Recently, two-cylinder turbo engines have come to market, which are found attractive with respect to sound, package, and also enable low vehicle fuel consumption in NEDC test. The paper presents a turbocharger layout study on 2- and 3-cylinder engines. It discusses the influence of cylinder displacement volume on the sizing of turbines and compressors, and how specific flow phenomena in the turbine can be captured in the simulation model.

The problem with traditional drive cycle fuel economy analysis is that kinematic (backward looking) models do not account for transient differences in charge air handling systems. Therefore, dynamic (forward looking) 1D performance simulation models were created to predict drive cycle fuel economy which encompass all the transient elements of fully detailed engine and vehicle models. The transient-capable technology of primary interest was mechanical supercharging which has the benefit of improved boost response and "time to torque." The benefits of a supercharger clutch have also been evaluated. The current US class 6-8 commercial vehicle market exclusively uses turbocharged diesel engines. Three vehicles and baseline powertrains were selected based on a high-level review of vehicle sales and the used truck marketplace. Fuel economy over drive cycles was the principal output of the simulation work. All powertrains are based on EPA 2010 emission regulations.

Measures for reducing engine friction within the powertrain are assessed in this paper. The included measures work in combination with several new technologies such as new combustion technologies, downsizing and alternative fuels. The friction reduction measures are discussed for a typical gasoline vehicle. If powertrain friction could be eliminated completely, a reduction of 15% in CO2 emissions could be achieved. In order to comply with more demanding CO2 legislations, new technologies have to be considered to meet these targets. The additional cost for friction reduction measures are often lower than those of other new technologies. Therefore, these measures are worth following up in detail.

Downsized direct-injected boosted gasoline engines with high specific power and torque output are leading the way to reduce fuel consumption in passenger car vehicles while maintaining the same performance when compared to applications with larger naturally aspirated engines. These downsized engines reach brake mean effective pressure levels which are in excess of 20 bar. When targeting high output levels at low engine speeds, undesired combustion events called pre-ignition can occur. These pre-ignition events are typically accompanied by very high cylinder peak pressures which can lead to severe damage if the engine is not designed to withstand these high cylinder pressures. Although these pre-ignition events have been reported by numerous other authors, it seems that their occurrence is rather erratic which makes it difficult to investigate or reliably exclude them.

The main goal in the development of new automobile SI engines is to significantly reduce fuel consumption. To this end both, variable valve actuation and direct gasoline injection, are being pursued as new engine concepts. Both approaches appear to offer approximately the same potential to reduce fuel consumption. The development so far is creating the impression of two competing technical concepts with no obvious way to combine them [1]. The two engine concepts, however, can be combined, although it is often objected that their combination would only yield marginal additional potential. That is true to the extent that the advantages of dethrottling offered by both of the concepts can only be counted once in terms of overall potential. But there is a number of additional effects to be taken into account. This Paper represents an analysis of the individual potential of the two approaches as well as an estimation of their combined potential.

When considered along with Phase 2 Greenhouse Gas (GHG) requirements, the proposed Air Resource Board (ARB) nitrogen oxide (NOx) emission limit of 0.02 g/bhp-hr will be very challenging to achieve as the trade-off between fuel consumption and NOx emissions is not favorable. To meet any future ultra-low NOx emission regulation, the NOx conversion efficiency during the cold start of the emission test cycles needs to be improved. In such a scenario, apart from changes in aftertreatment layout and formulation, additional heating measures will be required. In this article, a physics-based model for an advanced aftertreatment system comprising of a diesel oxidation catalyst (DOC), an SCR-catalyzed diesel particulate filter (SDPF), a stand-alone selective catalytic reduction (SCR), and an ammonia slip catalyst (ASC) was calibrated against experimental data.

During the past years, there has been an increasing tendency to seriously question and break up old and ingrained structures in combustion engine testing. The reason for this is the continuously increasing number of engine and vehicle variants and a variety of applications resulting from it, which significantly push up development costs and times when carrying out the classical testing patterns. The following article by FEV Motorentechnik GmbH introduces a comprehensive test methodology for purposeful endurance testing of modern drive units (in particular from the fields of passenger cars and commercial vehicles). The procedure and the testing philosophy are explained in detail, illustrated by a concrete development example.

The sound quality and performance of an automotive engine are both significantly influenced by the “air-to-air” system, i.e., the intake system, the exhaust system, and the engine gas dynamics. Only a full systems approach can result in an optimized air-to-air system, which fulfills engine performance requirements, overall sound pressure level targets for airborne vehicle noise, as well as sound quality demands. This paper describes an approach, which considers the intake system, engine, and exhaust system within one CAE model that can be utilized for engine performance calculations as well as acoustic simulations. Examples comparing simulated and measured sound are discussed. Finally, the simulated sound (e.g., at the tailpipe of the exhaust system) is combined with an interior noise simulation technique to evaluate its influence inside the vehicle's interior.

Due to today's demands to reduce cost and product time to market, engineering procedures are increasingly using more sophisticated simulation techniques, instead of validation testing. Early implementation of CAE methods yield higher quality products, even with first prototypes, reducing the design iterations required to reach production quality. The strategy is to conduct specific evaluations of a realistic representation of the product while focusing on the key boundary conditions necessary to extract fatigue effects. Discussed in this paper are adequate CAE methods for early identification, evaluation and removal of conceptual and local structural weaknesses. Possible solutions gained from a computational optimization process are discussed for highly loaded HSDI diesel cylinder heads as a representative example.

Due to increasing demand for environment friendly vehicles with better fuel economy and strict legislations on greenhouse gas emissions, lightweight design has become one of the most important issues concerning the automobile industry. Within the scope of this work lightweight design potentials that a conventional single cylinder engine crankshaft offers are researched through utilization of structural optimization techniques. The objective of the study is to reduce mass and moment of inertia of the crankshaft with the least possible effect on the stiffness and strength. For precise definition of boundary conditions and loading scenarios multi body simulations are integrated into the optimization process. The loading conditions are updated at the beginning of each optimization loop, in which a multi body simulation of the output structure from the previous optimization loop is carried out.

Since the 1990's regulatory requirements for On-Board-Diagnostics (OBD) have continuously evolved with an increasing application of advanced electronics and control systems that have been adopted for automotive applications. The current and future demands on emissions and performance requirements are pushing the envelope with respect to management of complex control software strategies, hardware components and their interactions. This further challenges the implementation of OBD. In order to build a robust monitor for a complex system which has minimum risk of false detection, a thorough understanding of both system and components is required. In this paper, several methods will be presented that can be utilized to achieve a successful and robust diagnostic system implementation. Implementation begins with a discussion of the major challenges to achieve consistent performance in the base system control.

It is the objective of this work to characterize mixture formation in the sprays emanating from Multi-Layer (ML) nozzles under approximately engine-like conditions by quantitative, spatially, and temporally resolved fuel-air ratio and temperature measurements. ML nozzles are cluster nozzles which have more than one circle of orifices. They were introduced previously, in order to overcome the limitations of conventional nozzles. In particular, the ML design yields the potential of variable spray interaction, so that mixture formation could be controlled according to the operating condition. In general, it was also a primary aim of the cluster-nozzle concepts to combine the enhanced atomization and pre-mixing of small nozzle holes with the longer spray penetration lengths of large holes. The applied diagnostic, which is based on 1d spontaneous Raman scattering, yields the quantitative stoichiometric ratio and the temperature in the vapor phase.

Calculating the bearing reliability and behavior is one of the primary tasks which have to be performed to define the main dimensions of the cranktrain of an internal combustion engine. Since the bearing results are essential for the pre-layout of the cranktrain, the conclusion on the bearing safety should be met as early as possible. Therefore detailed simulations like T-EHD or EHD analysis may not be applied to define the dimensions in such an early development phase. In the frame of this study a prediction methodology, based on a HD bearing approach, for bearing reliability of inline-4 crankshafts of passenger cars is proposed. In this way not only the design phase is shortened but also achieving the optimal solution is simplified. Moreover the requirement of a CAD model is eliminated for the preliminary design phase. The influencing parameters on the bearing behavior are first selected and divided into two groups: geometry and loading.

In this paper a new approach is presented to evaluate the combustion behaviour of homogeneous gasoline engines by predicting burn delay and -duration in a way which can be obtained under the time constraints of the development process. This is accomplished by means of pure in-cylinder flow simulations without a classical combustion model. The burn delay model is based on the local distribution of the turbulent flow near the spark plug. It features also a methodology to compare different designs regarding combustion stability. The correlation for burn duration uses a turbulent characteristic number that is obtained from the turbulent flow in the combustion chamber together with a model for the turbulent burning velocity. The results show good agreement with the combustion process of the analyzed engines.

Tier 4 emissions legislation is emerging as a clear pre-cursor for widespread adoption of exhaust aftertreatment in off-highway applications. Large bore engine manufacturers are faced with the significant challenge of packaging a multitude of catalyst technologies in essentially the same design envelope as their pre-Tier 4 manifestations, while contending with the fuel consumption consequences of the increased back pressure, as well as the incremental cost and weight associated with the aftertreatment equipment. This paper discusses the use of robust metallic catalysts upstream of the exhaust gas turbine, as an effective means to reduce catalyst volume and hence the weight and cost of the entire aftertreatment package. The primarily steady-state operation of many large bore engine applications reduces the complication of overcoming pre-turbine catalyst thermal inertia under transient operation.

For turbocharged engines high specific power and torque output as well as a fast transient response are mandatory. This conflict of aims can be solved by different charging systems, for example 2-stage charging or variable turbine geometry. At the Institute for Combustion Engines (VKA) at RWTH Aachen University another alternative, the variable compressor pre swirl, was investigated for solving this conflict of aims. Based on theoretical fundamentals the potentials of a variable compressor pre swirl for transient response, low end torque, specific power output and fuel consumption were presented. These theoretical potentials were explored on turbocharger -, engine - and vehicle test bench. An extended compressor map with partial higher compressor efficiency of up to 2% was detected. The outcome of this is an increase of up to 6% in low end torque, found on engine test bench. This effect could also be validated in 1D simulation.

Based on the TurboDISI engine presented earlier [1], [2], a new Spray Guided Turbo (SGT) concept with enhanced engine performance was developed. The turbocharged engine was modified towards utilizing a spray-guided combustion system with a central piezo injector location. Higher specific power and torque levels were achieved by applying specific design and cooling solutions. The engine was developed utilizing a state-of-the-art newly developed charge motion design (CMD) process in combination with single cylinder investigations. The engine control unit has a modular basis and is realized using rapid prototyping hardware. Additional fuel consumption potentials can be achieved with high load EGR, use of alternative fuels and a hybrid powertrain. The CO2 targets of the EU (120 g/km by 2012 in the NEDC) can be obtained with a mid-size vehicle applying the technologies presented within this paper.

Current progress in the development of diesel engines substantially contributes to the reduction of NOx and Particulate Matter (PM) emissions but will not succeed to eliminate the application of Diesel Particulate Filters (DPFs) in the future. In the past we have introduced a Multi-Functional Reactor (MFR) prototype, suitable for the abatement of the gaseous and PM emissions of the Low Temperature Combustion (LTC) engine operation. In this work the performance of MFR prototypes under both conventional and advanced combustion engine operating conditions is presented. The effect of the MFR on the fuel penalty associated to the filter regeneration is assessed via simulation. Special focus is placed on presenting the performance assessment in combination with the existing differences in the morphology and reactivity of the soot particles between the different modes of diesel engine operation (conventional and advanced). The effect of aging on the MFR performance is also presented.

Due to the complex powertrain layout in hybrid vehicles, different configurations concerning internal combustion engine, electric motor and transmission can be combined - as is demonstrated by currently produced hybrid vehicles ([1], [2]). At the Institute for Combustion Engines (VKA) at RWTH Aachen University a combination of simulation, Design of Experiments (DoE) and numerical optimization methods was used to optimize the combustion engine, the powertrain configuration and the operation strategy in hybrid powertrains. A parametric description allows a variation of the main hybrid parameters. Parallel as well as power-split hybrid powertrain configurations were optimized with regard to minimum fuel consumption in the New European Driving Cycle (NEDC). Besides the definition of the optimum configuration for engine, powertrain and operation strategy this approach offers the possibility to predict the fuel consumption for any modifications of the hybrid powertrains.