Search Results

As emissions regulations around the world become more stringent, emerging markets are seeking alternative strategies that align with local infrastructures and conditions. A Lean NOx Catalyst (LNC) is developed that achieves up to 60% NOx reduction with ULSD as its reductant and ≻95% with ethanol-based fuel reductants. Opportunities exist in countries that already have an ethanol-based fuel infrastructure, such as Brazil, improving emissions reduction penetration rates without costs and complexities of establishing urea infrastructures. The LNC performance competes with urea SCR NOx reduction, catalyst volume, reductant consumption, and cost, plus it is proven to be durable, passing stationary test cycles and adequately recovering from sulfur poisoning. Controls are developed and applied on a 7.2L engine, an inline 6-cylinder non-EGR turbo diesel.

The low-NOx standard for heavy-duty trucks proposed by the California Air Resources Board will require rapid warm-up of the aftertreatment system (ATS). Several different aftertreatment architectures and technologies, all based on selective catalytic reduction (SCR), are being considered to meet this need. One of these architectures, the close-coupled SCR (ccSCR), was evaluated in this study using two different physics-based, 1D models; the simulations focused on the first 300 seconds of the cold-start Federal Test Procedure (FTP). The first model, describing a real, EuroVI-compliant engine equipped with series turbochargers, was used to evaluate a ccSCR located either i) immediately downstream of the low-pressure turbine, ii) in between the two turbines, or iii) in a by-pass around the high pressure turbine.

After the realization of very low exhaust gas emissions and corresponding OBD requirements to fulfill Euro VI and Tier 4 legislation, the focus in heavy-duty powertrain development is on the reduction of fuel consumption and thus CO₂ emissions again. Besides this, the total vehicle operation costs play another major role. A holistic view of the overall powertrain system including the combustion process, exhaust gas aftertreatment, energy recuperation and energy storage is necessary in order to obtain the best possible system for a given application. A management system coordinating the energy flow between the different subsystems while guaranteeing low exhaust emissions plays a major part in operating such complex architectures under optimal conditions.

To meet the ever increasing requirements in the areas of performance, fuel economy and emission, more and more subsystems and control functions are being added to modern engines. This leads to a quick increase in the number of control parameters and consequently dramatic time and cost increase for engine calibration. To deal with this problem, the automotive industry has turned to model-based calibration for a solution. Model-based calibration is a method that uses modern Design of Experiments (DoE), statistical modeling and optimization techniques to efficiently produce high quality calibrations for engines. There are two major enablers for carrying out this method - fully automated engine control and measurement system, and advanced mathematical tools for DoE, modeling and optimization.

This paper presents the results of using Computer-Aided Calibration (CAC) methods for engine torque mapping. Mapping was done in three modes: stoichometric, power enrichment and catalyst protection. The spark advance and air/fuel ratio were optimized to find the minimum values for best torque. The optimized variables were subject to the limits of the catalyst temperature and engine knocking. CAC methods are not limited to engine torque mapping calibration; they can be applied to on-line verification, parameter tuning and off-line analysis.

A lean-rich hydrothermal aging was used to study the deactivation of Cu-zeolite SCR catalyst that has enhanced stability. Impact of DOC upstream on the SCR catalyst during the lean-rich aging was also investigated. The LR hydrothermal aging was conducted with the presence of hydrocarbon, CO and H₂ at different O₂ levels. It was found that the SCR catalyst was active for the oxidation of CO, H₂ and hydrocarbon, resulting in significant exotherm across the catalyst. In addition to hydrothermal aging, reductive aging, especially the presence of H₂ in the aging gas stream without O₂ presence during the L-R aging, might also contribute to the Cu/zeolite SCR catalyst deactivation. The impacts of DOC upstream on Cu/zeolite SCR catalysts depended on the aging temperatures. At lower aging temperature, the uncompleted oxidation of hydrocarbon and CO on the DOC might cause steam reforming and water-gas shift reactions on the DOC to form reductive gas stream.

Fuel cell systems emerge as a new technology, which is expected to play an important role for future powertrain applications. To enable this technology's entrance into the market, new developments to improve robustness, cost efficiency and maintainability are necessary. Besides the stack itself, several subsystems are required to operate a fuel cell system. The technical challenges for developing and optimizing these subsystems are comparable to the challenges in the stack development itself. The air delivery system is considered to have a major impact, subject to overall efficiency, noise emissions and costs. These properties are determined not only by the system hardware, but also by the chosen control strategy. This paper describes an intelligent model based control strategy, which enables the system to use optimal operation points of compressor and motor. The quantities to be controlled are air mass flow and pressure.

In recent years, automated code generation has become popular, particularly in rapid prototyping. Currently we see these tools moving from being utilized in prototyping only into software development processes for mass production. If these tools can take over most of the code generation and actually fill the gap between algorithm design and the executable file, the development process could be sped up dramatically. IAV has been using autocode generation tools for several years in medium and large-scale projects, and is experienced in all aspects of using them. This includes also the integration of an RTOS and of BIOS and legacy code written in C. In this paper we focus on three tools: ETAS ASCET-SD, dSPACE TargetLink and Realtime Workshop/Embedded Coder from The MathWorks. The tools have been used to generate complete application layer code for two Engine-Management systems and a Fuel Cell Application.

The software design of this new engine control unit is based on a unique and homogenous torque structure. All input signals are converted into torque equivalents and a torque coordinator determines their influence on the final torque delivered to the powertrain. The basic torque structure is independent on the type of fuel and can be used for gasoline, diesel, or CNG injection systems. This allows better use of custom specific algorithms and facilitates reusability, which is supported by the graphical design tool that creates all modules using automatic code generation. Injection specific algorithms can be linked to the software by simply setting a software switch.