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The Premixed Charge Compression Ignition (PCCI) engine has the potential to reduce soot and NOx emissions while maintaining high thermal efficiency at part load conditions. However, several technical barriers must be overcome. Notably ways must be found to control ignition timing, expand its limited operation range and limit the rate of heat release. In this paper, comparing with single fuel injection, the superiority of multiple-pulse fuel injection in extending engine load, improve emissions and thermal efficiency trade-off using high exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) and boost in diesel PCCI combustion is studied by engine experiments and simulation study. It was found that EGR can delay the start of hot temperature reactions, reduce the reaction speed to avoid knock combustion in high load, is a very useful method to expand high load limit of PCCI. EGR can reduce the NOx emission to a very small value in PCCI.

It has been recognized that density, viscosity, surface tension, and volatility of liquid fuel are of great importance on the atomization and vaporization characteristics of biodiesel spray. This paper presents a comprehensive physical property prediction of biodiesel fuel for spray modeling with most recently developed property prediction models. The temperature-dependent properties of a soy methyl ester (SME) biodiesel were well predicted by the updated prediction methods. Then, the physical properties of the SME biodiesel were added into the KIVA-3V fuel library. By using the well predicted fuel properties, the spray behaviors of SME were successfully simulated by the KIVA-3V code under late-cycle post-injection, conventional diesel injection, and early-injection engine-relevant conditions. The simulation results agree reasonably well with the available experimental liquid penetrations under conditions of various ambient densities and temperatures.

Proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) is widely regarded as the most promising candidate for the next generation power source of automobile, after the pure battery electric vehicle. In this study, the gas and liquid two-phase flow in channels and porous electrodes inside PEMFC coupled with electrochemical reaction is simulated in detail, in which the anisotropic gas diffusion layer (GDL) is also considered. In the simulation, the inlet reactant gas molar concentration is calculated based on the real inlet pressure, which is more practical than specifying a constant value in previous simulation. Meanwhile, the effect of electro-osmotic drag on membrane water content distribution is treated to be a convection term in the conservation equation, instead of a source term as usually used.

PEMFC (proton exchange membrane or polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell) is a potential candidate as a future power source for automobile applications. Water and thermal management is important to PEMFC operation. Numerical models, which describe the transport and electrochemical phenomena occurring in PEMFCs, are important to the water and thermal management of fuel cells. 3D (three-dimensional) multi-scale CFD (computational fluid dynamics) models take into account the real geometry structure and thus are capable of predicting real operation/performance. In this study, a 3D multi-phase CFD model is employed to simulate a large-scale PEMFC (109.93 cm2) under various operating conditions. More specifically, the effects of operating pressure (1.0-4.0 atm) on fuel cell performance and internal water and thermal characteristics are studied in detail under two inlet humidities, 100% and 40%.

A novel combined power and cooling cycle based on the Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) and the Compression Refrigeration Cycle (CRC) is proposed. The cycle can be driven by the exhaust heat from a diesel engine. In this combined cycle, ORC will translate the exhaust heat into power, and drive the compressor of CRC. The prime advantage of the combined cycle is that both the ORC and CRC are trans-critical cycles, and using CO₂ as working fluid. Natural, cheap, environmentally friendly, nontoxic and good heat transfer properties are some advantages of CO₂ as working fluid. In this paper, besides the basic combined cycle (ORC-CRC), another three novel cycles: ORC-CRC with an expander (ORC-CRCE), ORC with an internal heat exchanger as heat accumulator combined with CRC (ORCI-CRC), ORCI-CRCE, are analyzed and compared.

Hybrid powertrain has been proven to be an effective fuel-saving technology in commercial vehicles, but many hybrid commercial vehicles still use conventional diesel engines, resulting in limited fuel savings. The main purpose of this study is to enhance the thermal efficiency of a dedicated hybrid diesel engine focusing on the characteristic operating conditions. Via fundamental thermodynamics process analysis of internal combustion engine, steel piston with high compression ratio, air system involving two-stage turbocharger(2TC) with an intercooler, and late intake valve closing(IVC) timing are proposed to improve the thermal efficiency of the engine. Experimental results show that high compression ratio and lower thermal conductivity of the combustion chamber surface lead to lower heat release rates, requiring optimization of piston profile to accelerate the mixing rate. Besides, high compression ratio also leads to higher mechanical losses.

The exhaust aftertreatment strategy is one of the most fundamental aspects of spark ignition engine technologies. For various types of engines (e.g., carburetor engine, PFI engine and GDI engine), measuring, purifying, modeling, and control strategies regarding the exhaust aftertreatment systems vary significantly. The primary goal of exhaust aftetreatment systems is to reduce the exhaust emission levels of NOx, HC and CO as well as to lower combustion soot. In general, there is a tradeoff among different engine performance aspects. The exhaust catalytic systems, such as the three way catalyst (TWC) and lean NOx trap (LNT) converters, can be applied together with the development of other engine technologies (e.g., variable valve timing, cold start). With respect to engine soot, some advanced diagnosing techniques are essential to obtain thorough investigation of exhaust emission mechanisms.

Based on the principle of conjugate curve surface and the theory of hydrodynamic lubrication, the similar spherical spiral surface, which has the best lubrication effect, was obtained in the paper. Experiment show, this kind of frictional surface is lower 15% at power loss, and it is higher 13% at service life than the traditional frictional surface of piston ring, (such as barrel, stepped, cuneiform, rectangle and so on).

The flow performance of intake port significantly affects engine output power, fuel economy, and exhaust emissions in gasoline engines. Thus, optimal intake port geometry is desired in gasoline engines. To optimize the flow performance of intake port, a new optimization method combining genetic algorithm (GA) and artificial neural network (ANN) was proposed. First, an automatic system for generating the geometry of the tangential intake port was constructed to create various port geometries through inputting the 18 pre-defined structural parameters. Then, the effects of four critical structural parameters were investigated through numerical simulation. On the basis of the computational results, an ANN was used to model the flow performance of the intake port, and a genetic algorithm was simultaneously employed to optimize the flow performance by optimizing the four important structural parameters. Finally, the optimization results were verified through numerical simulation.

In order to minimize short-circuiting of the intake charge in the poppet-valved 2-stroke engine, measures are taken to generate reversed tumble in the cylinder. In this study, five different types of intake ports and three types of pent-roof geometries were designed and analysed of their ability to generate and maintain reversed tumble flows by means of CFD simulation for their intake processes on a steady flow rig. Their flow characteristics were then assessed and compared to that of the vertical top-entry ports. Results show that the side-entry port designs can achieve comparatively high tumble intensity. The addition of flow deflectors inside the side-entry ports does not have much effect on the reversed tumble ratio. The top-entry ports have the highest flow coefficient among all the intake ports examined as well as producing strong reversed tumble. It is also found that the pent-roof at a wider angle helps to strengthen the tumble intensity due to increased air flow rate.

The combustion and emission characteristics of a diesel engine running on butanol-diesel blends were investigated in this study. The blending ratio of n-butanol to diesel was varied from 0 to 40 vol% using an increment of 10 vol%, and each blend was tested on a 2.7 L V6 common rail direction injection diesel engine equipped with an EGR system. The test was carried out under two engine loads at a constant engine speed, using various combinations of EGR ratios and injection timings. Test results indicate that n-butanol addition to engine fuel is able to substantially decrease soot emission from raw exhaust gas, while the change in NOx emissions varies depending on the n-butanol content and engine operating conditions. Increasing EGR ratio and retarding injection timing are effective approaches to reduce NOx emissions from combustion of n-butanol-diesel blends.

Controlled Auto-Ignition (CAI) combustion, also known as Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI), has the potential to simultaneously reduce the fuel consumption and nitrogen oxides emissions of gasoline engines. However, narrow operating region in loads and speeds is one of the challenges for the commercial application of CAI combustion to gasoline engines. Therefore, the extension of loads and speeds is an important prerequisite for the commercial application of CAI combustion. The effect of intake charge boosting, charge stratification and spark-assisted ignition on the operating range in CAI mode was reviewed. Stratified flame ignited (SFI) hybrid combustion is one form to achieve CAI combustion under the conditions of highly diluted mixture caused by the flame in the stratified mixture with the help of spark plug.

Ensuring lower emissions and better economy (fuel economy and after-treatment economy) simultaneously is the pursuit of future engines. An EGR-LNT synergetic control system was applied to a modified lean-burn CA3GA2 gasoline engine. Results showed that the synergetic control system can achieve a better NOx reduction than sole EGR and sole LNT within a proper range of upstream EGR rate and without the penalty in fuel consumption. It also has the potential to save costly noble metals in LNT, but excessive or deficient upstream EGR would make the synergetic control system inefficiency. In order to guarantee the objectivity of the effect of EGR-LNT synergetic control system on NOx reduction, another modified lean-burn CA4GA5 gasoline engine was additionally tested.

The evolution of surface functional groups (SFGs) and the graphitization degree of soot generated in premixed methane flames are studied and the correlation between them is discussed. Test soot samples were obtained from an optimized thermophoretic sampling system and probe sampling system. The SFGs of soot were determined by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) after removing the soluble impurities from the soot samples, while the graphitization degree of soot was characterized by Raman spectrum and electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS). The results reveal that the number of aliphatic C-H groups and C=O groups shows an initial increase and then decrease in the sooting history. The large amount of aliphatic C-H groups and small amount of aromatic C-H groups in the early stage of the soot mass growth process indicate that aliphatic C-H groups make a major contribution to the early stage of soot mass growth.

Gasoline partially premixed combustion (PPC) is a potential combustion concept to achieve high engine efficiency as well as low NOx and soot emissions. But the in-cylinder process of PPC is not well understood. In the present study, the double injection strategy of PPC was investigated on a light-duty optical engine. The fuel/air mixing and combustion process of PPC was evaluated by fuel-tracer planar laser-induced fluorescence (PLIF) and high-speed natural luminosity imaging technique, respectively. Combustion emission spectra of typical double injection case were analyzed. The primary reference fuel, PRF70 (70% iso-octane and 30% n-heptane by volume) was chosen as the lower reactivity fuel like gasoline. Double injection strategies of different first fuel injection timing and mass ratio of the two fuel injections were comparatively studied.

Two-stroke engines have to face the problems of insufficient charge for short intake time and the loss of intake air caused by long valve overlap. In order to promote the power of a two-stroke poppet valve diesel engine, measures are taken to help optimize intake port structure. In this work, the scavenging and combustion processes of three common types of intake ports including horizontal intake port (HIP), combined swirl intake port (CSIP) and reversed tumble intake port (RTIP) were studied and their characteristics are summarized based on three-dimensional simulation. Results show that the RTIP has better performance in scavenging process for larger intake air trapped in the cylinder. Its scavenging efficiency reaches 84.7%, which is 1.7% higher than the HIP and the trapping ratio of the RTIP reaches 72.3% due to less short-circuiting loss, 11.2% higher than the HIP.

A versatile liquid dosing device along with its metering theory, which can be applied to both SCR dosing system and DPF regeneration system of IC engine after-treatment system, is presented in this paper. The device is composed of a solenoid driven plunger pump, a nozzle and a pressure tube, and is pump-end controlled by PWM signals. Both electrically resistive and conductive liquids including DEF for SCR system, fuel for DPF regeneration, and gasoline for spark ignition engine, can be dispensed quantitatively with this device. A metering theory determining the liquid discharged per injection is developed by studying the system using a physical-mathematical model. The study shows that the liquid discharge can be well correlated with a measurable variable T3, which is associated with the net output energy. Experimental investigations verified that the metering results were independent of the state changes.

Investigations using supercritical spray platform,which allows gasoline at low sub-critical state,subcritical state and supercritical state respectively,were made to demonstrate the Subcritical/ Supercritical Spray Characteristics of a Multi-Hole Gasoline Direct Injector. The experimental results show that the spray pattern and spray characteristics (i.e. spray penetration distance,spray area and spray perimeter) varied greatly under different state. In subcritical state,the spray characteristics of gasoline is similar to the phenomenon of "flash bfueling",appearing spray entrainment and spray collapse,then spray penetration distance and area drop significantly.In supercritical state,the six-hole gasoline spray is composed by the thick-core region and the thin-diffusion region,and Mach disk is observed at the outlet of the nozzle,then spray penetration distance and area increases sharply.

In-cylinder flow characteristics in a four-stroke diesel engine were studied experimentally by instantaneous measurements of swirl and squish flow velocity distribution with particle image velocimetry (PIV). The triple-exposed PIV films were interrogated on a self-made system to get the velocity distribution. The measured velocities were analyzed by spatially high-pass and low-pass filtering techniques. Vorticity distributions were also calculated using the measured data. As results, vortex structure of the flow field was clearly visualized. Spatially averaged in-cylinder flow energy was found decaying at high rate but the less-scaled flow components at much lower rate. Clearly visualized squish and reverse squish movements around the top dead center (TDC) during the compression stroke were found strongly affecting the swirl flow field. making the in-bowl flow energy increased.

Wall temperature in GDI engine is influenced by both water jacket and gas heat source. In turn, wall temperature affects evaporation and mixing characteristics of impingement spray as well as combustion process and emissions. Therefore, in order to accurately simulate combustion process, accurate wall temperature is essential, which can be obtained by conjugate heat transfer (CHT) and piston heat transfer (PHT) models based on mapping combustion results. This CHT model considers temporal interaction between solid parts and cooling water. This paper presents an integrated methodology to reliably predict in-cylinder combustion process and temperature field of a 2.0L GDI engine which includes engine head/block/gasket and water jacket components. A two-way coupling numerical procedure on the basis of this integrated methodology is as follows.