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Powertrain electrification is becoming increasingly common in the transportation sector to address the challenges of global warming and deteriorating air quality. This paper introduces a novel “Build Your Hybrid” approach to experience and test various hybrid powertrain concepts. This approach is applied to the light commercial vehicles (LCV) segment due to the attractive combination of a Diesel engine and a partly electrified powertrain. For this purpose, a demonstrator vehicle has been set up with a flexible P02 hybrid topology and a prototype Hybrid Control Unit (HCU). Based on user input, the HCU software modifies the control functions and simulation models to emulate different sub-topologies and levels of hybridization in the demonstrator vehicle. Three powertrain concepts are considered for LCVs: HV P2, 48V P2 and 48V P0 hybrid. Dedicated hybrid control strategies are developed to take full advantage of the synergies of the electrical system and reduce CO2 and NOx emissions.

This paper describes an approach to reduce development costs and time by frontloading of engineering tasks and even starting calibration tasks already in the early component conception phases of a vehicle development program. To realize this, the application of a consistent and parallel virtual development and calibration methodology is required. The interaction between vehicle subcomponents physically available and those only virtually available at that time, is achieved with the introduction of highly accurate real-time models on closed-loop co-simulation platforms (HiL-simulators) which provide the appropriate response of the hardware components. This paper presents results of a heterogeneous testing scenario containing a real internal combustion engine on a test facility and a purely virtual vehicle using two different automatic transmission calibration and hardware setups.

New combustion processes require an understanding of the highly three-dimensional flow field to effectively decrease fuel consumption and pollutant emission. Due to the complex spatial character of the flow the knowledge of the development of the flow in an extended volume is necessary. Previous investigations were able to visualize the discrete three-dimensional flow field through multi-plane stereoscopic PIV. In this study, cycle resolved tomographic particle-image velocimetry measurement have been performed to obtain a fully resolved representation of the three-dimensional flow structures at each instant. The analysis is based on the measurements at 80°, 160°, and 240° after top dead center(atdc) such that the velocity distributions at the intake, the end of the intake, and the compression stroke at an engine speed of 1,500 rpm are discussed in detail.

In this paper compatibility studies of biofuel candidates and similar liquids with the elastomeric materials nitrile butadiene rubber and fluoroelastomer are presented. The results gained with defined reference elastomers are compared to results gained with the materials used in the technical application. For this purpose test specimens are prepared from fuel hoses and the material used for shaft seals of fuel pumps. The experimental results are subsequently used to evaluate prediction approaches based on the HSP- and QSPR-method. Finally a comparison of these two approaches is given.

Fuels derived from biomass will most likely contain oxygen due to the high amount of hydrogen needed to remove oxygen in the production process. Today, alcohol fuels (e. g. ethanol) are well understood for spark ignition engines. The Institute for Combustion Engines at RWTH Aachen University carried out a fuel investigation program to explore the potential of alcohol fuels as candidates for future compression ignition engines to reduce engine-out emissions while maintaining engine efficiency and an acceptable noise level. The soot formation and oxidation process when using alcohol fuels in diesel engines is not yet sufficiently understood. Depending on the chain length, alcohol fuels vary in cetane number and boiling temperature. Decanol possesses a diesel-like cetane number and a boiling point in the range of the diesel boiling curve. Thus, decanol was selected as an alcohol representative to investigate the influence of the oxygen content of an alcohol on the combustion performance.

Targeted fuel blending is a known method to improve the performance of an automotive engine. Two candidates for a biofuel blend are the linear C8H18O isomers 1-octanol and di-n-butyl ether (DNBE). Both fuels feature an increased amount of oxygen that reduces soot emissions. However, physical properties of both fuels differ significantly and thus, a different type of spray mixing and combustion is expected: The low reactivity of 1-octanol causes a long ignition delay enabling a better mixture homogenization, but also causes HC and CO emissions. DNBE in contrary is highly volatile, has a short ignition time and thus can act as an ignition booster for 1-octanol without losing positive effects concerning emissions. In this work a spray study is performed for blends of 1-octanol and DNBE. Measurements are conducted under diesel-like engine conditions with an 8-hole piezo injector. High-speed Schlieren and Mie scattering techniques are used for spray visualizations.

This article discusses highly flexible and accurate physics-based mean value modeling (MVM) for internal combustion engines and its wide applicability towards virtual vehicle calibration. The requirement to fulfill the challenging Real Driving Emissions (RDE) standards has significantly increased the demand for precise engine models, especially models regarding pollutant emissions and fuel economy. This has led to a large increase in effort required for precise engine modeling and robust model calibration. Two best-practice engine modeling approaches will be introduced here to satisfy these requirements. These are the exclusive MVM approach, and a combination of MVM and a Design of Experiments (DOE) model for heterogeneous multi-domain engine systems.

The continuously strengthened requirements regarding air quality and pollutant reduction as well as GHG emissions further complicate the compliance with legal standards. Especially in view of cost-sensitive applications this demand strongly collides with the EMS set-up and the sensor requirements with still increasing overall system complexity. The paper in hand describes a novel air path control approach, which offers the potential for a flexible use of multiple EGR routes to meet upcoming legislations more robustly, while providing a significant reduction of calibration effort and sensor content at the same time. By using a direct emission based cylinder charge control, also alterations in operational ambient conditions are covered with system reactions according to physical-based rules to enhance the engine-out emission performance without need for tuning of corrections of any air path set point.

Ethanol currently remains the leading biofuel in the transportation sector, with special focus on spark ignition engines, as a pure as well as a blend component. In order to provide reliable numerical simulations of gasoline combustion processes under the influence of ethanol for modern engine research, it is mandatory to develop well validated detailed kinetic combustion models. One key parameter for the numerical simulation is the laminar burning velocity. Under the aspect of minimizing the general simulation effort for burning velocities, well-validated models have to be reduced. As a base kinetic mechanism for the reduction and optimisation process with respect to burning velocity calculations, a detailed model presented by Zhao et al. (Int. J. Chem. Kin. 40 (1) (2007) 1-18) is chosen. The model has been extensively validated against shock tube, rapid compression machine and burning velocity data. The detailed model consists of 55 species and 290 reactions.

Plug-In Hybrid Vehicles (PHEV) have been of significant importance recently to comply with future CO2 and pollutant emissions limit. However, performance of these vehicles is closely related to the energy management strategy (EMS) used to ensure minimum fuel consumption and maximize electric driving range. While conventional EMS concepts are developed to operate in wide range of scenarios, this approach could potentially compromise the fuel consumption benefit due to the omission of route and traffic information. With the advancements in the availability of real-time traffic, navigation and driving route information, the EMS can be further optimized to extract the complete potential of a PHEV. In this context, this paper presents application of predictive energy management (PEM) functionalities combined with information such as live traffic data to reduce the fuel consumption for a P1/P3 configuration PHEV vehicle.

Knock control is one of the most vital functions for safe and fuel-efficient operation of gasoline engines. However, all knock control strategies rely on accurate knock detection to operate the engine close to the optimal set point. Knock detection is usually calibrated on the engine test bench, requiring the engine to run with knocking combustion in a time-consuming multi-stage campaign. Model-based calibration significantly reduces calibration loops on the test bench. However, this method requires a large effort in building and validating the model, which is often limited by the lack of function documentation, available measurements or hardware representation. As the software models are often not available, function structures vary between manufacturers and sub model functions are often documented as black boxes. Hence, using the model-based approach is not always possible.

Pre-ignition in a boosted spark-ignition engine can be triggered by several mechanisms, including oil-fuel droplets, deposits, overheated engine components and gas-phase autoignition of the fuel-air mixture. A high pre-ignition resistance of the fuel used mitigates the risk of engine damage, since pre-ignition can evolve into super-knock. This paper presents the pre-ignition propensities of 11 RON 89-100+ gasoline fuel blends in a single-cylinder research engine. Albeit the addition of two high-octane components (methanol and reformate) to a toluene primary reference fuel improved the pre-ignition resistance, one high-RON fuel experienced runaway pre-ignition at relatively low boost pressure levels. A comparison of RON 96 blends showed that the fuel composition can affect pre-ignition resistance at constant RON.

On the way to emission-free mobility, future fuels must be CO2 neutral. To achieve this, synthetic fuels are being developed. In order to better assess the effects of the new fuels on the engine process, simulation models are being developed that reproduce the chemical and physical properties of these fuels. In this paper, the fuel DMC+ is examined. DMC+ (a mixture of dimethyl carbonate (DMC) and methyl formate (MeFo) mainly, characterized by the lack of C-C Bonds and high oxygen content) offers advantages with regard to evaporation heat, demand of oxygen and knock resistance. Furthermore, its combustion is almost particle free. With the aid of modern 0D/1D simulation methods, an assessment of the potential of DMC+ can be made. It is shown that the simulative conversion of a state-of-the-art gasoline engine to DMC+ fuel offers advantages in terms of efficiency in many operating points even if the engine design is not altered.

Modeling combustion of transportation fuels remains a difficult task due to the extremely large number of species constituting commercial gasoline and diesel. However, for this purpose, multi-component surrogate fuel models with a reduced number of key species and dedicated reaction subsets can be used to reproduce the physical and chemical traits of diesel and gasoline, also allowing to perform CFD calculations. Recently, a detailed surrogate fuel kinetic model, named C3 mechanism, was developed by merging high-fidelity sub-mechanisms from different research groups, i.e. C0-C4 chemistry (NUI Galway), linear C6-C7 and iso-octane chemistry (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory), and monocyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (MAHs) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) (ITV-RWTH Aachen and CRECK modelling Lab-Politecnico di Milano).

If fuels that are more resistant to auto-ignition are injected near TDC in compression ignition engines, they ignite much later than diesel fuel and combustion occurs when the fuel and air have had more chance to mix. This helps to reduce NOX and smoke emissions at much lower injection pressures compared to a diesel fuel. However, PPCI (Partially Premixed Compression Ignition) operation also leads to higher CO and HC at low loads and higher heat release rates at high loads. These problems can be significantly alleviated by managing the mixing through injector design (e.g. nozzle size and centreline spray angle) and changing CR (Compression Ratio). This work describes results of running a single-cylinder diesel engine on fuel blends by using three different nozzle design (nozzle size: 0.13 mm and 0.17 mm, centreline spray angle: 153° and 120°) and two different CRs (15.9:1 and 18:1).

Future Diesel engines must meet extended requirements regarding air-fuel ratio, exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) capability, and tailored exhaust gas temperatures in the complete engine map to comply with the future pollutant emission standards. In this respect, parallel turbines combined with two separate exhaust manifolds have the potential to increase the exhaust gas temperature upstream of the exhaust aftertreatment system and reduce the catalyst light-off time. Furthermore, variable exhaust valve (EV) lifts enable new control strategies of the boosting system without additional actuators. Therefore, hardware robustness can be improved. This article focuses on the parallel-sequential boosting concept (PSBC) for a high-performance four-cylinder Diesel engine with separated exhaust manifolds combined with EV deactivation. One EV per cylinder is connected to one of the separated exhaust manifolds and, thus, connected to one of the turbines.

In order to thoroughly investigate and improve the path from biofuel production to combustion, the Cluster of Excellence “Tailor-Made Fuels from Biomass” was installed at RWTH Aachen University in 2007. Since then, a variety of fuel candidates have been investigated. In particular, 2-methyl tetrahydrofurane (2-MTHF) has shown excellent performance w.r.t. the particulate (PM) / NOx trade-off [1]. Unfortunately, the long ignition delay results in increased HC-, CO- and noise emissions. To overcome this problem, the addition of di-n-butylether (DNBE, CN ∼ 100) to 2-MTHF was analyzed. By blending these two in different volumetric shares, the effects of the different mixture formation and combustion characteristics, especially on the HC-, CO- and noise emissions, have been carefully analyzed. In addition, the overall emission performance has been compared to EN590 diesel.

A regular flex-fuel engine can operate on any blend of fuel between pure gasoline and E85. Flex-fuel engines have relatively low efficiency on E85 because the hardware is optimized for gasoline. If instead the engine is optimized for neat ethanol, the efficiency may be much higher, as demonstrated in this paper. The studied two-liter engine was modified with a much higher compression ratio than suitable for gasoline, two-stage turbocharging and direct injection with piezo-actuated outwards-opening injectors, a stratified combustion system and custom in-house control system. The research engine exhibited a wide-open throttle performance similar to that of a naturally aspirated v8, while offering a part-load efficiency comparable to a state-of-the-art two-liter naturally aspirated engine. NOx will be handled by a lean NOx trap. Combustion characteristics were compared between gasoline and neat ethanol.

The finite nature and instability of fossil fuel supply has led to an increasing and enduring investigation demand of alternative and regenerative fuels. An investigation program is carried out to explore the potential of tailor made fuels to reduce engine-out emissions while maintaining engine efficiency and an acceptable noise level. In this paper, fundamental results of the Diesel engine relevant combustion are presented. To enable optimum engine performance a range of different reference fuels have been investigated. The fundamental effects of different physical and chemical properties on emission formation and engine performance are investigated using a thermodynamic diesel single cylinder research engine and an optically-accessible combustion vessel. Depending on the chain length and molecular structure, fuel compounds vary in cetane number, boiling temperature etc. Therefore, different hydrocarbons including n-heptane, n-dodecane, and l-decanol were investigated.

Multiple-injection strategies are widely used in DI diesel engines. However, the interaction of the injection pulses is not yet fully understood. In this work, a split injection into a combustion vessel is studied by multiple optical imaging diagnostics. The vessel provides quiescent high-temperature, high-pressure ambient conditions. A common-rail injector which is equipped with a three-hole nozzle is used. The spray is visualized by Mie scattering. First and second stage of ignition are probed by formaldehyde laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) and OH* chemiluminescence imaging, respectively. In addition formation of soot is characterized by both laser-induced incandescence (LII) and natural luminosity imaging, showing that low-sooting conditions are established. These qualitative diagnostics yield ensemble-averaged, two-dimensional, time-resolved distributions of the corresponding quantities.