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Single-cylinder spark ignition engine experiments conducted at constant speed, fixed airflow, and using isooctane as the fuel, demonstrated the effects of fuel-air mixture preparation on lean operation. Mixture preparation was changed by varying the time of fuel injection in the induction manifold, near the intake valve port. For comparison, a prevaporized fuel-air mixture was also investigated. Emphasis was placed on determining the effects of mixture preparation on combustion characteristics. Based on the results from this study, the often favored prevaporized mixture of fuel and air may not be the best diet for lean engine operation.

This paper describes the initial works related to the study of Internal Combustion Engines, as an object of mechanical design, at the Universidad Tecnológica de Pereira. It is reported a concise, complete methodology for simple model of internal combustion engine. The emphasis of the paper is placed on the use of the in-cylinder parameters (pressure and temperature) and inertial loads in the crank-slider mechanism to derive the loads that act on all the components of the crank-slider mechanism as well as the theoretical output torque for a given geometrical structure and inertial properties. These loads can then be used to estimate the preliminary dimensions of engine components in the initial stage of engine development. To obtain the pressure and temperature inside the cylinder, under different operation parameters, such as air fuel ratio and spark angle advance, a Zero dimensional model is applied. The heat transfer from the cylinder and friction are not taken into account.

Combustion concepts for future SI engines try to meet CO2-emission commitments and legislation all over the world. Where the Diesel engine has an advantage by principle, the efficiency of the SI engine has to be improved significantly, while of course the exhaust emissions must not become worse. An approach is to reduce the gas exchange losses using fully variable valve trains on the intake side of the combustion engine. OptiVent is a patented new way of controlling the mass air flow in the cylinder of a combustion engine using opening valves during the compression phase of a four stroke engine. This technology regards a wider range of variability on the valvetrain components of the engine especially for opening the valves more than one time during a cycle. On the other hand it is necessary to combine this technology with direct injection to avoid fuel losses in the exhaust system and raising the exhaust hydrocarbon emission of the engine.

Due to the rising costs of fuel and increasingly stringent regulations, auto makers are in need of technology to enable more fuel-efficient powertrain technologies to be introduced to the marketplace. Such powertrains must not sacrifice performance, safety or driver comfort. Today's engine and powertrain manufacturers must, therefore, do more with less by achieving acceptable vehicle performance while reducing fuel consumption. One effective method to achieve this is the extreme downsizing of current direct injection spark ignited (DISI) engines through the use of high levels of boosting and cooled exhaust gas recirculation (EGR). Key challenges to highly downsized gasoline engines are retarded combustion to prevent engine knocking and the necessity to operate at air/fuel ratios that are significantly richer than the stoichiometric ratio.

Dynamic skip fire (DSF) has shown significant fuel economy improvement potential via reduction of pumping losses that generally affect throttled spark-ignition (SI) engines. In DSF operation, individual cylinders are fired on-demand near peak efficiency to satisfy driver torque demand. For vehicles with a downsized-boosted 4-cylinder engine, DSF can reduce fuel consumption by 8% in the WLTC (Class 3) drive cycle. The relatively low cost of cylinder deactivation hardware further improves the production value of DSF. Lean burn strategies in gasoline engines have also demonstrated significant fuel efficiency gains resulting from reduced pumping losses and improved thermodynamic characteristics, such as higher specific heat ratio and lower heat losses. Fuel-air mixture stratification is generally required to achieve stable combustion at low loads.

This study proposes a novel biofuel for spark ignition (SI) engine, α-pinene (C10H16), which is non-oxygenated and thus has a gravimetric energy density comparable to that of hydrocarbon fuels. The ignition characteristics of α-pinene were evaluated in an ignition quality tester (IQT) under standard temperature and pressure conditions. The measured ignition delay time (IDT) of α-pinene is 10.5 ms, which is lower than that of iso-octane, 17.9 ms. The estimated research octane number (RON) for pinene from IQT is 85. A temperature sweep in IQT showed that that α-pinene is less reactive at low temperatures, but more reactive at high temperatures when compared to isooctane. These results suggest that α-pinene has high octane sensitivity (OS) and is suitable for operation in turbocharged SI engines. With these considerations, α-pinene was operated in a single cylinder SI engine.

“Zoning” a catalytic converter involves placing higher concentrations of platinum group metals (PGM) in the inlet portion of the substrate. This is done to optimize the cost-to-performance tradeoff by increasing the reaction rate at lower temperatures while minimizing PGM usage. A potentially useful application of catalyst zoning is to improve performance using a constant PGM mass. A study was performed to assess what the optimum ratio of front to rear palladium zone length is to achieve the highest performance in vehicle emission testing. Varying the zone ratio from 1:1 to 1:9 shows a clear hydrocarbon performance optimum at a 1:5.66 (15%/85%) split. This performance optimum shows as both a minimum in FTP75 non-methane organic gas (NMOG) emissions as well as a minimum in hydrocarbon, carbon monoxide, and nitrogen oxide light-off temperature. Overall, an improvement of 18%, or 11 mg/mi of combined NMOG+NOx emissions was obtained without using additional PGM.

A zirconia electroysis cell is an all-solid state (mainly ceramic) device consisting of two electrodes separated by a dense zirconia electrolyte. The cell electrochemically reduces carbon dioxide to oxygen and carbon monoxide at elevated temperatures (800 to 1000°C). The zirconia electrolysis cell provides a simple, lightweight, low-volume system for Mars In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) applications. This paper describes the fabrication process and discusses the electrochemical performance and other properties of zirconia electrolysis cells made by the tape calendering method. Electrolytes produced by this method are very thin (micrometer-thick); the thin electrolyte reduces ohmic losses in the cell, permitting efficient operation at temperatures of 800°C or below.

This paper describes the ZENITH Nano-Satellite cum planetary atmospheric entry vehicle, called CanSat, the first Nano-Satellite project that has been developed by Delhi Technological University (Formerly Delhi College of Engineering), India. The satellite will function for monitoring the concentrations of various gases in the atmosphere. For this, the satellite consists of arduino microcontroller interfaced with the various Micro-electromechanical system (MEMS) gas sensors for measuring the concentrations of various gases such as carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, methane, nitrous oxides, ozone, etc. The data obtained from the CanSat will be transmitted to the ground station where all the data will be stored and also the locations will be stored using GPS sensor. The academic goal of this project is to recruit students to the field of space science and technology.

Long term control of the AFR (Air/Fuel Ratio) of spark ignition engines is currently accomplished with a selvoscillating PI control loop. Because of the intake/exhaust time delay, the oscillation frequency and hence bandwidth of this loop is small. This paper describes a new approach to the design of this control loop using a novel observer system. In this way the bandwidth of this important loop is increased by a factor of 2 - 6 times, leading to more accurate overall AFR control. Moreover the observer approach is so robust and allows such feedback levels that it reduces significantly the accuracy required in the calibration of the base fuel control system with which it is be used. It can be used with either conventional- or advanced observer based- base fuel strategies.

This study was undertaken to develop a better understanding of how intake charge dilution by various gases affected nitric oxide (NO) emission from a single-cylinder spark ignition engine. Carbon dioxide, nitrogen, helium, argon, steam, and exhaust gas were individually added to the intake charge of a propane-fueled, single-cylinder engine operated at constant speed and load. Nitric oxide emission was reduced in all cases. The gases with higher specific heats gave larger NO reductions. The product of diluent flow rate and specific heat correlated with NO reduction. The effects of diluents on calculated combustion temperature, mbt spark timing, and fuel consumption are also presented and discussed.

PF&L is priority event for mobility professionals that specialize in powertrain, fuels, lubricants technology, including OEM and Tier 1 component suppliers Light medium and heavy-duty vehicle system and product design engineers.

September 17-19, 2019 │ Garden Grove, CA, USA

September 17-19, 2019 │ Garden Grove, CA, USA

For an open exchange about the most promising new propulsion/powertrain-related technologies for light-, medium-, and heavy-duty vehicles, the SAE 2023 Powertrains, Fuels & Lubricants Conference & Exhibition (PF&L) is where you need to be.

For an open exchange about the most promising new propulsion/powertrain-related technologies for light-, medium-, and heavy-duty vehicles, the SAE 2023 Powertrains, Fuels & Lubricants Conference & Exhibition (PF&L) is where you need to be.

Rankine powerplant advantages are found to fit best applications that call for long maintenance free life, or where the heat energy is essentially free as in bottoming and topping cycles, or in special environments as undersea or space. Worthy applications suggested on the basis of potential market size and ability to satisfy customer imposed cost and performance are: automotive and tank accessory power systems (APS), transportable refrigeration, portable power supply (GPS), standby power, remote site power, and home air conditioner drive. The automotive APS and a 1 1/2 kWe GPS are further analyzed. The APS can offer attractive features to the automobile user, including the possibility of reducing pollution from spark ignition engine. The GPS is an example showing high cost effectiveness for long operating times. It is recommended that marketing and cost studies continue, and that working fluid and heat exchanger technologies be accentuated.

With the passage of the federal Clean Air Act, the automotive industry has a clear assignment to reduce automobile emissions drastically by 1975. The control devices presently available have already reduced hydrocarbons 83%, carbon monoxide 70%, and nitrogen oxides 33%. By 1975, these figures must be 98%, 97%, and 90%, respectively. This paper discusses the devices that have been developed to accomplish the reductions to date, and concludes that in the future the crankcase controls will require little change, that the evaporative controls will require some additional improvement but will not change substantially, and that engine modifications do not have much chance of meeting the 1975 standards without a great deal of supplementation. The author feels two methods are available which may be able to reach the 1975 standards: use of manifold reactors and use of catalysts. However, both present problems of materials and thermodynamics, due to high exhaust temperatures.

The lack of clearly identified constraints for ignition and flame propagation has hindered understanding the processes which limit lean operation in spark ignition engines. This experimental study explores flame initiation and flame propagation as limits of lean operation in engines. In separate tests conducted in a single-cylinder CFR (cooperative fuel research) engine, the spark timing was either advanced or retarded from MBT* in order to determine the ignition-limit or partial-burn-limit spark timings, respectively. These two limiting spark timings were found to converge at lean mixtures. At the MBT lean misfire limit, the ignition-limit, and the partial-burn-limit spark timing lines converged. Apparently flame initiation as well as flame propagation considerations constrain lean operation. The effects of engine and ignition system-related variables on the ignition and partial-burn limits are presented and discussed.

The use of Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) as a predictive tool has been shown to have a broad range of applications. Earlier work by the authors using ANN models to predict carbon dioxide (CO2), carbon monoxide (CO), oxides of nitrogen (NOx), and particulate matter (PM) from heavy-duty diesel engines and vehicles yielded marginal to excellent results. These ANN models can be a useful tool in inventory prediction, hybrid vehicle design optimization, and incorporated into a feedback loop of an on-board, active fuel injection management system. In this research, the ANN models were trained on continuous engine and emissions data. The engine data were used as inputs to the ANN models and consisted of engine speed, torque, and their respective first and second derivatives over a one, five, and ten second time range. The continuous emissions data were the desired output that the ANN models learned to predict through an iterative training process.