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Recently conducted work has been funded by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) to explore the feasibility of achieving 0.02 g/bhp-hr NOX emissions for heavy-duty on-road engines. In addition to NOX emissions, greenhouse gas (GHG), CO2 and methane emissions regulations from heavy-duty engines are also becoming more stringent. To achieve low cold-start NOX and methane emissions, the exhaust aftertreatment must be brought up to temperature quickly while keeping proper air-fuel ratio control; however, a balance between catalyst light-off and fuel penalty must be addressed to meet future CO2 emissions regulations. This paper details the work executed to improve catalyst light-off for a natural gas engine with a close-coupled and an underfloor three-way-catalyst while meeting an FTP NOX emission target of 0.02 g/bhp-hr and minimizing any fuel penalty.

The diesel engine has long been the most energy efficient powerplant for transportation. Moreover, diesels emit extremely low levels of hydrocarbon and carbon monoxide that do not require post-combustion treatment to comply with current and projected standards. It is admittedly, however, difficult for diesel engines to simultaneously meet projected nitrogen oxides and particulate matter standards. Traditionally, measures aimed at reducing one of these two exhaust species have led to increasing the other. This physical characteristic, which is known as NOx/PM tradeoff, remains the subject of an intense research effort. Despite this challenge, there is significant evidence that heavy-duty highway engine manufacturers can achieve substantial emission reductions. Many development programs carried out over the last five years have yielded remarkable results in laboratory demonstrations.

The 2010 emissions standards for heavy-duty engines have established a limit of oxides of nitrogen (NOX) emissions of 0.20 g/bhp-hr. However, the California Air Resource Board (ARB) projects that even when the entire on-road fleet of heavy-duty vehicles operating in California is compliant with 2010 emission standards, the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) requirement for ambient particulate matter (PM) and Ozone will not be achieved without further reduction in NOX emissions. The California Air Resources Board (CARB) funded a research program to explore the feasibility of achieving 0.02 g/bhp-hr NOX emissions.

This paper describes the potential for the use of Dedicated EGR® (D-EGR®) in a gasoline powered medium truck engine. The project goal was to determine if it is possible to match the thermal efficiency of a medium-duty diesel engine in Class 4 to Class 7 truck operations. The project evaluated a range of parameters for a D-EGR engine, including displacement, operating speed range, boosting systems, and BMEP levels. The engine simulation was done in GT-POWER, guided by experimental experience with smaller size D-EGR engines. The resulting engine fuel consumption maps were applied to two vehicle models, which ran over a range of 8 duty cycles at 3 payloads. This allowed a thorough evaluation of how D-EGR and conventional gasoline engines compare in fuel consumption and thermal efficiency to a diesel. The project results show that D-EGR gasoline engines can compete with medium duty diesel engines in terms of both thermal efficiency and GHG emissions.

Through aggressive application of the Miller Cycle, using two-stage turbocharging, medium speed diesel marine and stationary power engines are demonstrating over 30 bar rated power BMEP, and over 50 percent brake thermal efficiency. The objective of this work was to use engine cycle simulation to assess the degree to which the aggressive application of the Miller Cycle could be scaled to displacements and speeds more typical of medium and heavy truck engines. A 9.2 liter six-cylinder diesel engine was modeled. Without increasing the peak cylinder pressure, improved efficiency and increased BMEP was demonstrated. The level of improvement was highly dependent on turbocharger efficiency - perhaps the most difficult parameter to scale from the larger engines. At 1600 rpm, and a combined turbocharger efficiency of 61 percent, the baseline BMEP of 24 bar was increased to over 26 bar, with a two percent fuel consumption improvement.

Despite considerable progress towards clean air in previous decades, parts of the United States continue to struggle with the challenge of meeting the ambient air quality targets for smog-forming ozone mandated by the U.S. EPA, with some of the most significant challenges being seen in California. These continuing issues have highlighted the need for further reductions in emissions of NOX, which is a precursor for ozone formation, from a number of key sectors including the commercial vehicle sector. In response, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) embarked on a regulatory effort culminating in the adoption of the California Heavy-Duty Low NOX Omnibus regulation.[1] This regulatory effort was supported by a series of technical programs conducted at Southwest Research Institute (SwRI).

Medium- and Heavy Duty Truck fuel consumption and the resulting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are significant contributors to overall U.S. GHG emissions. Forecasts of medium- and heavy-duty vehicle activity and fuel use predict increased use of freight transport will result in greatly increased GHG emissions in the coming decades. As a result, the National Highway Traffic Administration (NHTSA) and the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized a regulation requiring reductions in medium and heavy truck fuel consumption and GHGs beginning in 2014. The agencies are now proposing new regulations that will extend into the next decade, requiring additional fuel consumption and GHG emissions reductions. To support the development of future regulations, a research project was sponsored by NHTSA to look at technologies that could be used for compliance with future regulations.

Heavy duty trucks account for about 50 percent of the NOx burden in urban areas and consume about 20 percent of the national transportation fuel in the United States. There is a continuing need to reduce emissions and fuel consumption. Much of the focus of current work is on engine development as a stand-alone subsystem. While this has yielded impressive gains so far, further improvement in emissions or engine efficiency is unlikely in a cost effective manner. Consequently, an integrated approach looking at the whole powertrain is required. A computer model of the heavy duty truck system was built and evaluated. The model includes both conventional and hybrid powertrains. It uses a series of interacting sub-models for the vehicle, transmission, engine, exhaust aftertreatment and braking energy recovery/storage devices. A specified driving cycle is used to calculate the power requirements at the wheels and energy flow and inefficiencies throughout the drivetrain.

Accelerated ash loading studies provide a cost-effective means of investigating the long-term impacts of ash accumulation in diesel particulate filters (DPFs). Despite a variety of methods adopted in previous studies for accelerated ash loading, evaluation of their impact on DPF behavior has been limited primarily to pressure drop response (with & without soot), and characterization of properties of the resulting ash deposits for comparison with samples from field testing. In the current study, the potential to use ash recovered from field DPFs to perform accelerated ash loading studies is explored. Additionally, anhydrous gypsum as a surrogate for diesel ash was investigated. Benefits of using gypsum include low cost and easy access, safety during handling and testing, and consistency from test to test. Narrow control of particle sizing and composition can help compare performance over a wide range of filter sizes and applications.

An investigation was performed to determine the effects of applying on-highway heavy-duty diesel engine emissions reduction technology to an off-highway version of the engine. Special attention was paid to the typical constraints of fuel consumption, heat rejection, packaging and cost-effectiveness. The primary focus of the effort was NOx, reduction while hopefully not worsening other gaseous and particulate emissions. Hardware changes were limited to “bolt-on” items, thus excluding piston and combustion chamber modifications. In the final configuration, NOx was improved by 28 percent, particulates by 58 percent, CO and HC were also better and the fuel economy penalty was limited to under 4 percent. Observations are made about the effectiveness of various individual and combined strategies, and potential problems are identified.

Off-road diesel engines remain one of the most significant contributors to the overall oxides of nitrogen (NOX) inventory and the California Air Resources Board (CARB) has indicated that reductions of up to 90% from current standards may be necessary to achieve its air quality goals. In recognition of this, CARB has funded a program aimed at demonstrating emission control technologies for off-road engines. This program builds on previous efforts to demonstrate Low NOX technologies for on-road engines. The objective was to demonstrate technologies to reduce tailpipe NOX and particulate matter (PM) emissions by 90 and 75%, respectively, from the current Tier 4 Final standards. In addition, the emission reductions were to be achieved while also demonstrating a 5 to 8.6% carbon dioxide (CO2) reduction and remaining Greenhouse Gas (GHG) neutral with respect to nitrous oxide (N2O) and methane (CH4).

Low carbon emissions policies for the transportation sector have recently driven more interest in using low net-carbon fuels, including biodiesel. An internal combustion engine (ICE) can operate effectively using biodiesel while achieving lower engine-out emissions, such as soot, mostly thanks to oxygenate content in biodiesel. This study selected a heavy-duty (HD) single-cylinder engine (SCE) platform to test biodiesel fuel blends with 20% and 100% biodiesel content by volume, referred to as B20, and B100. Test conditions include a parametric study of exhaust gas recirculating (EGR), and the start of injection (SOI) performed at low and high engine load operating points. In-cylinder pressure and engine-out emissions (NOX and soot) measurements were collected to compare diesel and biodiesel fuels.

In June of 2015, the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to further reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve the fuel efficiency of medium- and heavy-duty vehicles. The agencies proposed that vehicle manufacturers would certify vehicles to the standards by using the agencies’ Greenhouse Gas Emission Model (GEM). The agencies also proposed a steady-state engine test procedure for generating GEM inputs to represent the vehicle’s engine performance. In the proposal the agencies also requested comment on an alternative engine test procedure, the details of which were published in two separate 2015 SAE Technical Papers [1, 2]. As an alternative to the proposed steady-state engine test procedure, these papers presented a cycle-average test procedure.

This book will assist readers in meeting today's tough challenges of improving diesel engine emissions, diesel efficiency, and public perception of the diesel engine. It can be used as an introductory text, while at the same time providing practical information that will be useful for experienced readers. This comprehensive book is well illustrated with more than 560 figures and 80 tables. Each main section is broken down into chapters that offer more specific and extensive information on current issues, as well as answers to technical questions.

Until recently, the complexity of the Diesel Particulate Filter (DPF) system has hindered its commercial success. Stringent regulations of diesel emissions has lead to advancements in this technology, therefore mainstreaming the use of DPFs in light- and heavy-duty diesel filtration applications. This book covers the latest and most important research in DPF systems, focusing mainly on the advancements of the years 2002-2006. Editor Timothy V. Johnson selected the top 29 SAE papers covering the most significant research in this technology.

Semi-volatile organic compounds (SVOC) are a group of compounds in engine exhaust that either form during combustion or are part of the fuel and lubricating oil. Since these compounds occur at very low concentrations in diesel engine exhaust, the methods for sampling, handling, and analyzing these compounds are critical to obtaining good results. An improved dilute exhaust sampling method was used for sampling and analyzing SVOC in engine exhaust, and this method was performed during transient engine operation. A total of 22 different SVOC were measured using a 2012 medium-duty diesel engine. This engine was equipped with a stock diesel oxidation catalyst (DOC), a diesel particulate filter (DPF), and a selective catalytic reduction (SCR) catalyst in series. Exhaust concentrations for SVOC were compared both with and without exhaust aftertreatment. Concentrations for the engine-out SVOC were significantly higher than with the aftertreatment present.

Regulated gaseous, particulate and several unregulated emissions are reported from four heavy-duty diesel engines operated on the chassis version of the 1983 transient procedure. Emissions were obtained from Caterpillar 3208, Mack ENDT 676, Cummins Formula 290 and Detroit Diesel 8V-71 engines with several diesel fuels. A large dilution tunnel (57′ × 46″ ID) was fabricated to allow total exhaust dilution, rather than the double dilution employed in the stationary engine version of the transient procedure. A modal particulate sampler was developed to obtain particulate data from the individual segments of the 1983 transient procedure. The exhaust gas was analyzed for benzo(a)pyrene, metals, N2O, NO2, individual hydrocarbons and HCN. Sequential extractions were performed and measured versus calculated fuel consumptions were obtained.

As an alternative fuel, renewable diesel (RD) could improve the performance of conventional internal combustion engines (ICE) because of its difference in fuel properties. With almost no aromatic content in the fuel, RD produces less soot emissions than diesel. The higher cetane number (CN) of RD also promotes ignition of the fuel, which is critical, especially under low load, and low reactivity conditions. This study tested RD fuel in a heavy-duty single-cylinder engine (SCE) under compression-ignition (CI) operation. Test condition includes low and high load points with change in exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) and start of injection (SOI). Measurements and analysis are provided to study combustion and emissions, including particulate matters (PM) mass and particle number (PN). It was found that while the combustion of RD and diesel are very similar, PM and PN emissions of RD were reduced substantially compared to diesel.

Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) systems provide excellent NOX control for diesel engines provided the exhaust aftertreatment inlet temperature remains at 200° C or higher. Since diesel engines run lean, extended light load operation typically causes exhaust temperatures to fall below 200° C and SCR conversion efficiency diminishes. Heated urea dosing systems are being developed to allow dosing below 190° C. However, catalyst face plugging remains a concern. Close coupled SCR systems and lower temperature formulation of SCR systems are also being developed, which add additional expense. Current strategies of post fuel injection and retarded injection timing increases fuel consumption. One viable keep-warm strategy examined in this paper is cylinder deactivation (CDA) which can increase exhaust temperature and reduce fuel consumption.

California Air Resources Board (CARB) has instituted requirements for on-board diagnostics (OBD) that makes a spark-plug sized exhaust particulate matter (PM) sensor a critical component of the OBD system to detect diesel particulate filter (DPF) failure. Currently, non-real-time resistive-type sensors are used by engine OEMs onboard vehicles. Future OBD regulations are likely to lower PM OBD thresholds requiring higher sensitivity sensors with better data yield for OBD decision making. The focus of this work was on the experimental evaluation of a real-time PM sensor manufactured by EmiSense Technologies, LLC that may offer such benefits. A 2011 model year on-highway heavy-duty diesel engine fitted with a diesel oxidation catalyst (DOC) and a catalyzed DPF followed by urea-based selective catalytic reducer (SCR) and ammonia oxidation (AMOX) catalysts was used for this program.