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Combustion visualizations were carried out in a constant volume vessel to study the partially premixed combustion of a gasoline-like fuel using high speed imaging. The test fuel (G80H20) is composed by volume 80% commercial gasoline and 20% n-heptane. The effects of ambient gas composition, ambient temperature and injection pressure on G80H20 combustion characteristics were analyzed. Meanwhile, a comparison of the EGR effect on combustion process between G80H20 and diesel was made. Four ambient gas conditions that represent the in-cylinder gas compositions of a heavy-duty diesel engine with EGR ratios of 0%, 20%, 40% and 60% were used to simulate EGR conditions. Variables also include two ambient temperature (910K and 870K) and two injection pressure (20 MPa and 50 MPa) conditions.

In order to improve the ignition capacity and burning rate for spark-ignited engines, pre-chamber jet ignition is a promising technique to achieve fast premixed combustion and low pollutant emissions. However, few studies focus on the interaction between multiple reacting (i.e. flamelet) or reacted (i.e. radical) jets, its effect on ignition, exotherm and flow behaviors also remain to be revealed. This paper investigated two types of jet interaction under different pre-chamber structures, including the jet-crossing and unequal nozzle designs. Optical experiments under different conditions were conducted in a constant volume combustion chamber with CH4 as fuel, using simultaneous high speed schlieren and OH* chemiluminescence method. Meanwhile, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations with CH4 and NH3/CH4 blend fuels were carried out using Converge software to provide further insights of turbulent flow and ignition process.

Light duty vehicle emission standards are getting more stringent than ever before as stipulated by US EPA Tier 2 Standards and LEV III regulations proposed by CARB. The research in this paper sponsored by US DoE is focused towards developing a Tier 2 Bin 2 Emissions compliant light duty pickup truck with class leading fuel economy targets of 22.4 mpg “City” / 34.3 mpg “Highway”. Many advanced technologies comprising both engine and after-treatment systems are essential towards accomplishing this goal. The objective of this paper would be to discuss key engine technology enablers that will help in achieving the target emission levels and fuel economy. Several enabling technologies comprising air-handling, fuel system and base engine design requirements will be discussed in this paper highlighting both experimental and analytical evaluations.

During the engaging process of sleeve and teeth ring in mechanical transmissions, their rotational speed and position differences cause multiple engaging ways and trajectories, and casual impacts between them will delay the engaging process and cause a long power off time for a gear shift. In order to reveal the engaging mechanism of the sleeve and the teeth ring, it is essential to build a high-fidelity model to cover all of their engaging ways and capture their speed changes for an impact. In this work, our contribution is that their impact process is modeled as a precise, continuous and nonlinear damping model, and then a hybrid automaton model is built to connect the system dynamics in different mechanical coupling relationships.

Current production heavy duty diesel engines have a brake thermal efficiency (BTE) between 43-46% [1]. In partnership with the United States Department of Energy (DOE) as part of the Supertruck 2 program, Cummins has undertaken a research program to develop a new heavy-duty diesel engine designed to deliver greater than 50% BTE without the use of waste heat recovery. A system level optimization focused on: increased compression ratio, higher injection rate, carefully matched highly efficient turbocharging, variable lube oil pump, variable cooling components, and low restriction after treatment designed to deliver 50% BTE at a target development point. This work will also illustrate the system level planning and understanding of interactions required to allow that same 50% BTE heavy duty diesel engine to be integrated with a waste heat recovery (WHR) system to deliver system level efficiency of 55% BTE at a single point.

The influence of big-end bore fretting on connecting rod fatigue fracture is investigated. A finite element model, including rod-bearing contact interaction, is developed to simulate a fatigue test rig where the connecting rod is subjected to an alternating uniaxial load. Comparison of the model results with a rod fracture from the fatigue rig shows good correlation between the fracture location and the peak ‘Ruiz’ criterion, rather than the peak tensile stress location, indicating the potential of fretting to initiate a fatigue fracture and the usefulness of the ‘Ruiz’ criterion as a measure of location and severity. The model is extended to simulate a full engine cycle using pressure loads from a bearing EHL analysis. A fretting map and a ‘Ruiz’ criterion map are developed for the full engine cycle, giving an indication of a safe ‘Ruiz’ level from an existing engine which has been in service for more than 5 years.

Gasoline Direct Injection (GDI) engines have developed rapidly in recent years driven by fuel efficiency and consumption requirements, but face challenges such as injector deposits and particulate emissions compared to Port Fuel Injection (PFI) engines. While the mechanisms of GDI injector deposits formation and that of particulate emissions have been respectively revealed well, the impact of GDI injector deposits and their relation to particulate emissions have not yet been understood very well through systematic approach to investigate vehicle emissions together with injector spray analysis. In this paper, an experimental study was conducted on a GDI vehicle produced by a Chinese Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) and an optical spray test bench to determine the impact of injector deposits on spray and particulate emissions.

Gasoline direct injection (GDI) engine technology is now widely used due to its high fuel efficiency and low CO2 emissions. However, particulate emissions pose one challenge to GDI technology, particularly in the presence of fuel injector deposits. In this paper, a 4-cylinder turbocharged GDI engine in the Chinese market was selected and operated at 2000rpm and 3bar BMEP condition for 55 hours to accumulate injector deposits. The engine spark timing, cylinder pressure, combustion duration, brake specific fuel consumption (BSFC), gaseous pollutants which include total hydro carbon (THC), NOx (NO and NO2) and carbon dioxide (CO), and particulate emissions were measured before and after the injector fouling test at eight different operating conditions. Test results indicated that mild injector fouling can result in an effect on engine combustion and emissions despite a small change in injector flow rate and pulse width.

Cu/CHA catalysts have been widely used in the industry, due to their desirable performance characteristics including the unmatched hydrothermal stability. While broadly recognized for their outstanding activity at or above 200°C, these catalysts may not show desired levels of NOx conversion at lower temperatures. To achieve high NOx conversions it is desirable to have NO2/NOx close to 0.5 for fast SCR. However even under such optimal gas feed conditions, sustained use of Cu/CHA below 200°C leads to ammonium nitrate formation and accumulation, resulting in the inhibition of NOx conversion. In this contribution, the formation and decomposition of NH4NO3 on a commercial Cu/CHA catalyst have been investigated systematically. First, the impact of NH4NO3 self-inhibition on SCR activity as a function of temperature and NO2/NOx ratios was investigated through reactor testing.

Based on the third generation of hydraulic engine mounts (HEMs), which has three types of hydraulic mechanisms such as inertia track, decoupler and disturbing plate, the influences of the three different hydraulic mechanisms on the dynamic properties were studied experimentally. The working principles of the three hydraulic mechanisms and the relationship between the dynamic properties of the three generations of HEMs were revealed clearly, these experimental results will be helpful for HEM design selection. It was discovered experimentally that the frequency-dependent dynamic properties of HEM with inertia track or orifice have fixed points under different excitation displacement amplitudes. Based on the facts that the analytical results matched well with the experimental ones, a new parameter-identification-method for HEM is presented, which is clear in theory and is time- and cost-saving, the identified results were reliable.

In modern engine design, downsizing and reducing weight while still providing an increased amount of power has been a general trend in recent decades. Traditionally, an engine design with superior NVH performance usually comes with a heavier, thus sturdier structure. Therefore, modern engine design requires that NVH be considered in the very early design stage to avoid modifications of engine structure at the last minute, when very few changes can be made. NVH design optimization of engine components has become more practical due to the development of computer software and hardware. However, there is still a need for smarter algorithms to draw a direct relationship between the design and the radiated sound power. At the moment, techniques based on modal acoustic transfer vectors (MATVs) have gained popularity in design optimization for their good performance in sound pressure prediction.

With increasing energy prices and concerns about the environmental impact of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, a growing number of national governments are putting emphasis on improving the energy efficiency of the equipment employed throughout their transportation systems. Within the U.S. transportation sector, energy use in commercial vehicles has been increasing at a faster rate than that of automobiles. A 23% increase in fuel consumption for the U.S. heavy duty truck segment is expected from 2009 to 2020. The heavy duty vehicle oil consumption is projected to grow while light duty vehicle (LDV) fuel consumption will eventually experience a decrease. By 2050, the oil consumption rate by LDVs is anticipated to decrease below 2009 levels due to CAFE standards and biofuel use. In contrast, the heavy duty oil consumption rate is anticipated to double. The increasing trend in oil consumption for heavy trucks is linked to the vitality, security, and growth of the U.S. and global economies.

Sustained NOx reduction at low temperatures, especially in the 150-200 °C range, shares some similarities with the more commonly discussed cold-start challenge, however, poses a number of additional and distinct technical problems. In this project, we set a bold target of achieving and maintaining 90% NOx conversion at the SCR catalyst inlet temperature of 150 °C. This project is intended to push the boundaries of the existing technologies, while staying within the realm of realistic future practical implementation. In order to meet the resulting challenges at the levels of catalyst fundamentals, system components, and system integration, Cummins has partnered with the DOE, Johnson Matthey, and Pacific Northwest National Lab and initiated the Sustained Low-Temperature NOx Reduction program at the beginning of 2015 and completed in 2017.

Studying drifting dynamics and control could extend the usable state-space beyond handling limits and maximize the potential safety benefits of autonomous vehicles. Distributed electric vehicles provide more possibilities for drifting control with better grip and larger maximum drift angle. Under the state of drifting, the distributed electric vehicle is a typical nonlinear over-actuated system with actuator redundancy, and the coupling of input vectors impedes the direct use of control algorithm of upper. This paper proposes a novel automated drifting controller for the distributed electric vehicle. First, the nonlinear over-actuated system, comprised of driving system, braking system and steering system, is formulated and transformed to a square system through proposed integrative recombination method of control channel, making general nonlinear control algorithms suitable for this system.

The large amount of controllable fuel injection parameters of Diesel engine equipped with high pressure common-rail fuel injection system makes the control of combustion more flexible, and also makes the workload of calibration and optimization much heavier. For higher efficiency, model-based approaches are presented and researched. This contribution presents a new method for modeling which is constituted by Neural Network and Adaptive Network-based Fussy Inference System (ANFIS). The experiment is carried out on a 6-cylinder common rail diesel engine. The analysis and experiment show that effective modeling can be achieved using this method.

This paper presents an investigation of drivability issue of engine start-stop. Hybrid vehicles provide excellent benefits regarding fuel efficiency and emission. However, vibration results from constant engine start and stop events generate drivability issues, thus compromising driving comfort. This paper has designed a high speed torque sensor to capture instantaneous torque at the engine shaft. Its consequences help to find out the most suitable index of vibration severity. This paper is organized in four sections. The first section introduces the powertrain to be studied. The second section introduces development of a specially designed torque sensor. The torque sensor is installed between the engine and ISG (Integrated Starter Generator), alongside with an encoder. The torque sensor is utilized to collect the instantaneous shaft torque on occasion of engine start. In the third section, this paper has performed two experiments.

Hydraulic retarder is important auxiliary brake device which widely used in commercial vehicles for its economy, safety and driving comfort, however cavitation will occur and reduce the braking performance when hydraulic retarder operates at high speed. In this paper, a model of hydraulic retarder considering cavitation effect was established, and the reliability of the model was verified by comparing with the external characteristics of the product which was obtained from Voith’s official discloses data. Then the cavitation of hydraulic retarder under high-speed working condition was studied by the establishing simulation model. The simulation model can describe and analyze the internal flow field in the hydraulic retarder, and can be used as an important tool for the development and optimization of hydraulic retarder in the future. When hydraulic retarder’s rotational speed is about 1500rpm, the cavitation will be observed in the working chamber.

At first, the dynamic electromagnetic characteristics of a pulsed solenoid valve is analyzed by experiments. The fast valve response is obtained by material modifications. Then, the intelligent solenoid driving method is discussed. The new techniques of the “active” PWM and the “d2i/dt2” detection are developed for feedback control of the solenoid holding current and the valve closure timing. Finally, the control and diagnosis method for the valve closure duration is investigated. A sensing mechanism utilizing momentary camshaft speed fluctuations of fuel injection pump is presented, which provides the basis for feedback control and diagnosis of the valve closure duration and diesel fuel injection process.

A plateau self-adapted turbocharging system based on variable geometry turbocharger (VGT) technology is proposed to solve the problem of diesel engine operating at plateau. The control strategy of the plateau self-adapted turbocharging system is studied using a GT-Power engine model. The control strategy is based on the optimization of the VGT nozzle vane position at various engine operating conditions and various altitudes. Simulation results show that by optimizing the matching and controlling the VGT, the performance of the engine matched with VGT can be improved significantly compared with the one matched with FGT (fixed geometry turbocharger) at various altitudes. Surge and overspeed phenomena of the turbocharger can also be avoided.

Presently, urban transportation highly depends on the fossil fuels, but its rapid fluctuating economic issues and environmental consequences impose the variegation of energy sources. Hydrogen enriched compressed natural gas (HCNG) engines offer the potential of higher brake thermal efficiency with low emissions, which also satisfies the strict pollutant emission standards. The two-zone turbulent entrainment quasi-dimensional combustion model is developed to predict the combustion process of spark-ignited hydrogen enriched compressed natural gas-fueled engines. The fundamentals of thermodynamic process, turbulent flame propagation model and other sub-models like laminar burning velocity, adiabatic temperature and ignition lag model are introduced for the better accuracy. The experiments have been conducted for three different fuels; pure CNG, 20% HCNG, and 40% HCNG blends under MAP of 105 kPa for various excess air ratios (λ) and ignition timing (θi).