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In this study, it is purpose to make clear the effect of cavitation phenomenon on the spray atomization. In this report, the cavitation phenomenon inside the nozzle hole was visualized and the pressure measurements along the wall of the nozzle hole were carried out by use of 25-times enlarged acrylic nozzle. For the representatives of regular gasoline, single and two-component fuels were used as a test fuel. In addition, various cavitating flow patterns same as experimental conditions were simulated by use of Barotropic model incorporated in commercial code of Star-CD scheme, and compared with experimental results.

The SEA model of wind noise requires the quantification of both the acoustic as well as the turbulent flow contributions to the exterior pressure. The acoustic pressure is difficult to measure because it is usually much lower in amplitude than the turbulent pressure. However, the coupling of the acoustic pressure to the surface vibration is usually much stronger than the turbulent pressure, especially in the acoustic coincidence frequency range. The coupling is determined by the spatial matching between the pressure and the vibration which can be described by the wavenumber spectra. This paper uses measured vibration modes of a vehicle window to determine the coupling to both acoustic and turbulent pressure fields and compares these to the results from an SEA model. The interior acoustic intensity radiating from the window during road tests is also used to validate the results.

A phosphor thermometry, for measurements of two-dimensional gas-phase temperature was examined in turbulent combustion in an engine. The reasonable temperature deviation and the agreement with calculated data within 5% precision were achieved by single-shot images in the ignition process of compression ignition engine. Focusing on the local flame kernel, the flame structure could be quantitatively given by the temperature. It became evident that the HCCI flame kernels had 1-3 mm diameter and the isolated island structures. Subsequently, the HTR zone consisted of the combined flame kernels near TDC.

In many countries, cetane number and distillation properties of diesel fuel have been changing, thus affecting the performance of diesel engines. This paper describes investigations made on the effect of diesel fuel quality on white smoke (one of the important emissions of diesel engines). The result of simple laboratory tests simulating high altitude conditions plus field tests using three types of disel engines supplied with various types of diesel fuels is given. It was found that white smoke appearing tendency correlated best with cetane number and the 90 percent distillation point of the fuel. The field tests performed at high altitude correlated well with the simple laboratory tests.

The effects of diesel fuel properties (aromatic content, cetane index and T90), cetane improver, oxygenates, high boiling point hydrocarbons and aromatics distribution on diesel exhaust emissions were studied under the Japanese 10-15 test cycle and the ECE+EUDC test cycle. The test vehicle was a TOYOTA COROLLA with a natural aspirated, 2.0L displacement, IDI diesel engine. It was demonstrated that particulate emissions are highly correlated with T90 and that NOx is affected by the aromatic content of fuel. A reduction in particulates emissions was observed in fuel with a lower cetane number by adding cetane improver, but this reduction was limited. Cetane improver had no effect on NOx emissions in the 45 # 60 cetane number range. Oxygenates reduced particulate emissions remarkably but had little effect on NOx emissions. A decrease in the soot in particulates was particularly observed.

Roadway departure mitigation systems for helping to avoid and/or mitigate roadway departure collisions have been introduced by several vehicle manufactures in recent years. To support the development and performance evaluation of the roadway departure mitigation systems, a set of commonly seen roadside surrogate objects need to be developed. These objects include grass, curbs, metal guardrail, concrete divider, and traffic barrel/cones. This paper describes how to determine the representative color of these roadside surrogates. 24,762 locations with Google street view images were selected for the color determination of roadside objects. To mitigate the effect of the brightness to the color determination, the images not in good weather, not in bright daylight and under shade were manually eliminated. Then, the RGB values of the roadside objects in the remaining images were extracted.

In Biodiesel Fuel Research Working Group(WG) of Japan Auto-Oil Program(JATOP), some impacts of high biodiesel blends have been investigated from the viewpoints of fuel properties, stability, emissions, exhaust aftertreatment systems, cold driveability, mixing in engine oils, durability/reliability and so on. This report is designed to determine how high biodiesel blends affect oil quality through testing on 2005 regulations engines with DPFs. When blends of 10-20% rapeseed methyl ester (RME) with diesel fuel are employed with 10W-30 engine oil, the oil change interval is reduced to about a half due to a drop in oil pressure. The oil pressure drop occurs because of the reduced kinematic viscosity of engine oil, which resulting from dilution of poorly evaporated RME with engine oil and its accumulation, however, leading to increased wear of piston top rings and cylinder liners.

For diesel engines, the delay of injection timing causes the white smoke due to unburned fuel in cold conditions. To define the effective engineering against the white smoke, we studied this occurrence mechanism by observing the white smoke in the cylinder through the glass window, and quantitatively measuring some factors. As a result, it is found that the white smoke quantity is closely correlated with the wall adhesion quantity of injected fuel, and proved that the evaporation acceleration by restraint of the fuel adhesion to the combustion chamber wall is effective to reduce the white smoke.

Improving the engine efficiency to respond to climate change and energy security issues is strongly required. In order to improve the engine efficiency, lower fuel consumption, and enhance engine performance, OEMs have been developing high compression ratio engines and downsized turbocharged engines. However, higher compression ratio and turbocharging cause cylinder pressure to increase, which in turn increases the demand voltage for ignition. To reduce the demand voltage, a new ignition system is developed that uses a high voltage Zener diode to maintain a constant output voltage. Maintaining a constant voltage higher than the static breakdown voltage helps limit the amount of overshoot produced during the spark event. This allows discharge to occur at a lower demand voltage than with conventional spark ignition systems. The results show that the maximum reduction in demand voltage is 3.5 kV when the engine is operated at 2800 rpm and 2.6 MPa break mean effective pressure.

In this study, we combined a diesel engine with the Toyota Hybrid System (THS). Utilizing the functions of the THS, reducing engine friction, lowering the compression ratio, and adopting a low pressure loop exhaust gas recirculation system (LPL-EGR) were examined to achieve both low fuel consumption and low nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions over a wide operating range. After applying this system to a test vehicle it was verified that the fuel economy greatly surpassed that of a conventional diesel engine vehicle and that NOx emissions could be reduced below the value specified in the Euro 6 regulations without DeNOx catalysts.

One-box type vehicles are especially liable to a loss of stability when entering a region of cross-wind. The reasons for this instability were investigated using scale models and by means of a mathematical simulation. Results indicated that yawing moment attains a peak at a precise position of the vehicle relative to the cross-wind. Visualization of the air flow and measurement of the pressure distributions established the cause of the phenomenon. Furthermore a study was conducted into the effects of body shape on stability and the efficacy of various modifications was assessed.

The emission regulations for diesel engines are continually becoming stricter to reduce pollution and conserve energy. To meet these increasingly stringent regulations, a new exhaust after-treatment device is needed. Recently, the authors proposed the simultaneous electrochemical reduction (ECR) system for diesel particulate matter (PM) and NOx. In this method, a gas-permeable electrochemical cell with a porous solid oxide electrolyte is used for PM filtering on the anode. Alkaline earth metal is coated on the cathode for NOx storage. Application of voltage to both electrodes enables the simultaneous reduction of PM and NOx by the forced flow of oxygen ions from the cathode to the anode (oxygen pumping). In this study, the basic characteristics of the ECR system were investigated, and a disk-shaped electrochemical cell was evaluated.

The driving simulator (DS) developed by Toyota Motor Corporation simulates acceleration using translational (XY direction) and tilting motions. However, the driver of the DS may perceive a feeling of rotation generated by the tilting motion, which is not generated in an actual vehicle. If the driver perceives rotation, a vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR) is generated that results in an unnecessary correction in the driver's gaze. This generates a conflict between the vestibular and visual sensations of the driver and causes motion sickness. Although such motion sickness can be alleviated by reducing the tilting motion of the DS, this has the effect of increasing the amount of XY motion, which has a limited range. Therefore, it is desirable to limit the reduction in the tilting motion of the DS to the specific timing and amount required to alleviate motion sickness. However, the timing and extent of the VOR has yet to be accurately identified.

Abnormal fuel injection in light-duty, high-speed diesel engines was analyzed by developing a mathematical simulation program. It predicts the transient hydraulic phenomena and the dynamics of the mechanical components by applying the injection system design data. The results show the existence of marked changes of injection quantity against residual pressure, cavity content and pump speed, in the case of abnormal fuel injection. Closer observation reveals that the injection rate change from two-stage to one-stage causes a marked change in injection quantity.

This paper describes application of sintered silicon nitride to the swirl lower-chamber in order to improve performance of turbocharged diesel engines. Various stress analyses by finite element method and stress measurements have been applied to determine the design specifications for the component, which compromise brittleness of ceramic materials. Material development was conducted to evaluate strength, fracture toughness, and thermal properties for the sintered bodies. Ceramic injection molding has been employed to fabricate components with large quantities in the present work. Quality assurance for the components can be made by reliability evaluation methods as well as non-destructive and stress loading inspections. It is found that the engine performance with ceramic component has been increased in the power out put of 9PS as compared to that of conventional engines.

In order to clarify the diesel fuel spray characteristics inside the cylinder, we developed two novel techniques, which are preparation of same level of temperature and pressure ambient as inside cylinder and quantitative measurement of vapor concentration. The first one utilizes combustion-type constant-volume chamber (inner volume 110cc), which allows 5 MPa and 873K by igniting the pre-mixture (n-pentane and air) with two spark plugs. In the second technique, TMPD vapor concentration is measured by using Laser Induced Exciplex Fluorescence method (LIEF). The concentration is compensated by investigation of the influence of ambient pressure (from 3 to 5 MPa) and temperature (from 550 to 900 K) on TMPD fluorescence intensity. By using two techniques, we investigated the influence of nozzle hole diameter, injection pressure and ambient condition on spray characteristics.

Periodic regeneration of the diesel particulate trap is essential to maintain the collection efficiency and exhaust gas hack pressure at acceptable levels. The objectives of this study are to describe the phenomenology of ceramic foam filter regeneration process and to present its mathematical model. Further simulation study is carried out to estimate the effects of various factors including fuel additive on the ignition and the filter bed temperature and to investigate conditions of excessive temperature which could result in filter destruction. The model is based on the assumption that the regeneration process is composed of two steps. The first step is the additional heat supply from the external energy source, and the second step is the spontaneous combustion propagation. The results from the analytical model agreed very well with the experimental results.

Regeneration capability of a wall-flow monolith type diesel paticulates filter with an electric heater was studied. To prevent filter crack generation and unburned particulates accumulation, a precision controller was added to the test equipment to reduce thermal load. In order to control the supply of oxygen to potentially prevent cracking, a second air feeder was also added. Furthermore, to ignite the accumulated particulates uniformly and propagate extensively to burn accumulated particulates completely a newly improved heater unit was employed. Repeated regeneration tests were conducted with cars on a chassis dynamometer. Though crack generation and unburned particulates accumulation were reduced considerably, satisfactory prevention could not be achieved. Therefore a parameter study using regenerative burning and thermal stress analysis model was carried out.

A study was conducted to reduce unburned oil fractions in diesel particulate matter (PM) by improving oil consumption. A method utilizing radioisotope 14C was developed to measure the unburned oil fractions separately for the four paths by which oil is consumed: valve stem seals, piston rings, PCV system, turbocharger. The conversion ratio of oil consumption to PM was calculated by comparing the unburned oil emission rates with oil consumption rates, which were obtained by the use of the 35S tracer method. The result in an experimental diesel engine shows the highest conversion ratio for the oil leaking through the valve stem seals. The modifications to the engine were thereby focused on reducing the leakage of the stem seals. This stem seal modification, along with piston ring improvements, reduced oil consumption, resulting in the unburned oil fractions in PM being effectively reduced.

To facilitate research and development of diesel engines, the universal numerical code for predicting diesel combustion has been favored for the past decade. In this paper, the finite-rate elementary chemical reactions, sometimes called the detailed chemical reactions, are introduced into the KIVA-3V code through the use of the Partially Stirred Reactor (PaSR) model with the KH-RT break-up, modified collision and velocity interpolation models. Outcomes were such that the predicted pressure histories have favorable agreements with the measurements of single and double injection cases in the diesel engine for use in passenger cars. Thus, it is demonstrated that the present model will be a useful tool for predicting ignition and combustion characteristics encountered in the cylinder.