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This paper presents a study of LPG lean burn in a motorcycle SI engine. The lean burn limits are compared by several ways. The relations of lean burn limit with the parameters, such as engine speed, compression ratio and advanced spark ignition etc. are tested. The experimental results show that larger throttle opening, lower engine speed, earlier spark ignition timing, larger electrode gap and higher compression ratio will extend the lean burn limit of LPG. The emission of a LPG engine, especially on NOx emission, can be significantly reduced by means of the lean burn technology.

For the purpose of predicting the interior noise of a passenger automobile at middle and high frequency, an energy finite element analysis (EFEA) model of the automobile was created using EFEA method. The excitations including engine mount excitation and road excitation were measured by road experiment at a speed of 120 km/h. The sound excitation was measured in a semi-anechoic chamber. And the wind excitation was calculated utilizing numeric computation method of computational fluid dynamics (CFD). The sound pressure level (SPL) and energy density contours of the interior acoustic cavity of the automobile were presented at 2000 Hz. Meanwhile, the flexural energy density and flexural velocity of body plates were calculated. The SPL of interior noise was predicted and compared with the corresponding value of experiment.

This paper presents an experimental study of the emission characteristics of a small Spark-Ignited, LPG engine. A single cylinder, four-stroke, water-cooled, 125cc SI engine for motorcycle is modified for using LPG fuel. The power output of LPG is above 95% power output of gasoline. The emission characteristics of LPG are compared with the gasoline. The test result shows that LPG for small SI engine will help to reduce the emission level of motorcycles. The HC and CO emission level can be reduced greatly, but NOx emissions are increased. The emission of motorcycle using LPG shows the potential to meet the more strict regulation.

An air-cooled, four-stroke, 125 cc electronic gasoline fuel injection SI engine for motorcycles is altered to burn ethanol fuel. The effects of nozzle orifice size, fuel injection duration, spark timing and the excess air/ fuel ratio on engine power output, fuel and energy consumptions and engine exhaust emission levels are studied on an engine test bed. The results show that the maximum engine power output is increased by 5.4% and the maximum torque output is increased by 1.9% with the ethanol fuel in comparison with the baseline. At full load and 7000 r/min, HC emission is decreased by 38% and CO emission is decreased 46% on average over the whole engine speed range. However, NOx levels are increased to meet the maximum power output. The experiments of the spark timing show that the levels of HC and NOx emission are decreased markedly by the delay of spark timing.

The automotive industry is aggressively pursuing fuel efficiency improvements through hybridization of production vehicles, and there are an increasing number of racing series adopting similar architectures to maintain relevance with current passenger car trends. Hybrid powertrains offer both performance and fuel economy benefits in a motorsport setting, but they greatly increase control complexity and add additional degrees of freedom to the design optimization process. The increased complexity creates opportunity for performance gains, but simulation based tools are necessary since hybrid powertrain design and control strategies are closely coupled and their optimal interactions are not straightforward to predict. One optimization-related advantage that motorsports applications have over production vehicles is that the power demand of circuit racing has strong repeatability due to the nature of the track and the professional skill-level of the driver.

Hybrid Electric Vehicles with a power split system provide a variety of possibilities to promote the fuel economy of vehicles and better adapt to various driving conditions. In this paper, a new power split system of a hybrid electric bus which consists of double planetary gear sets and a clutch is introduced. The system is able to decouple both the torque and speed of the engine from the road load, which makes it possible for the engine to operate on its optimal operation line (OOL). Considering the features of the system configuration and bus driving cycle, the driving mode of the bus is divided into Electric Vehicle (EV) mode, Electric Variable Transmission (EVT) mode and Parallel mode. By controlling the engagement of the clutch at high vehicle speed (after the mechanical point), the system operates in the parallel mode rather than EVT mode. This avoids the problem that the system efficiency sharply declines in high speed region which EVT configurations are generally faced with.

The platooning of connected automated vehicles (CAV) possesses the significant potential of reducing energy consumption in the Intelligent Transportation System (ITS). Moreover, with the rapid development of eco-driving technology, vehicle platooning can further enhance the fuel efficiency by optimizing the efficiency of the powertrain. Since road grade is a main factor that affects the energy consumption of a vehicle, the estimation of the road grade with high accuracy is the key factor for a connected vehicle platoon to optimize energy consumption using vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication. Commonly, the road grade is quantified by single consumer grade global positioning system (GPS) with the geodetic height data which is rough and in the meter-level, increasing the difficulty of precisely estimating the road grade.

In this study, an experimental investigation was conducted using a direct injection single-cylinder diesel engine equipped with a test common rail fuel injection system to clarify how dimethyl ether (DME) injection characteristics affect the heat release and exhaust emissions. For that purpose the common rail fuel injection system (injection pressure: 15 MPa) and injection nozzle (0.55 × 5-holes, 0.70 × 3-holes, same total holes area) have been used for the test. First, to characterize the effect of DME physical properties on the macroscopic spray behavior: injection quantity, injection rate, penetration, cone angle, volume were measured using high-pressure injection chamber (pressure: 4MPa). In order to clarify effects of the injection process on HC, CO, and NOx emissions, as well as the rate of heat release were investigated by single-cylinder engine test. The effects of the injection rate and swirl ratio on exhaust emissions and heat release were also investigated.

To find out the main excitation sources of a bus floor's vibration, modal analysis and spectral analysis were respectively performed in the paper. First we tested the vibration modal of the bus's floor under the full-load condition, and the first ten natural frequencies and vibration modes were obtained for the source identification of the bus floor's vibration. Second the vibration characteristic of the bus floor was measured in an on-road experiment. The acceleration sensors were arranged on the bus's floor and the possible excitation sources of the bus, which includes engine mounting system, driveline system, exhaust system, and wheels. Then the on-road experiment was carefully conducted on a highway under the four kinds of test condition: in-situ acceleration, uniform velocity (90km/h, 100km/h, 110km/h, 120km/h), uniform acceleration with top gear, and stall sliding condition with neutral gear.

This study investigates the fundamental stiffness and damping properties of a self-damped pneumatic suspension system, based on both the experimental and analytical analyses. The pneumatic suspension system consists of a pneumatic cylinder and an accumulator that are connected by an orifice, where damping is realized by the gas flow resistance through the orifice. The nonlinear suspension system model is derived and also linearized for facilitating the properties characterization. An experimental setup is also developed for validating both the formulated nonlinear and linearized models. The comparisons between the measured data and simulation results demonstrate the validity of the models under the operating conditions considered. Two suspension property measures, namely equivalent stiffness coefficient and loss factor, are further formulated.

Adaptive cruise control (ACC), as one of the advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), has become increasingly popular in improving both driving safety and comfort. Since the objectives of ACC can be multi-dimensional, and often conflict with each other, it is a challenging task in its control design. The research presented in this paper takes ACC control design as a constrained optimization problem with multiple objectives. A hierarchical framework for ACC control is introduced, aimed to achieve optimal performance on driving safety and comfort, speed and/or distance tracking, and fuel economy whenever possible. Under the hierarchical framework, the operational mode is determined in the upper layer, in which a model predictive control (MPC) based spacing controller is employed to deal with the multiple control objectives. On the other hand, the lower layer is for actuator control, such as braking and driving control for vehicle longitudinal dynamics.

A novel non-destroy repeatable-use impact theory based total cylinder sampling system has been established. This system is mainly composed of a knocking body and a sampling valve. The knocking body impacts the sampling valve with certain velocity resulting in huge force to open the sampling valve and most of the in-cylinder gas has been dumped to one sampling bag for after-treatment. The feasibility and sampling response characteristics of this impact theory based total cylinder sampling system were investigated by engine bench testing. Within 0 to 35°CA ATDC (Crank Angle After Top Dead Center) sample timing 50 percent to 80 percent of in-cylinder mass would be sampled, which was a little less compared with the traditional system. The half decay period of pressure drop was 10 to 20 degrees crank angle within 0 to 60°CA ATDC sample timing, which was about 2-3 times of the traditional system.

The incomplete combustion and misfire of diesel engine during starting result in unwanted white smoke. The histories of combustion and emission in different phases under different start conditions were studied in this paper. The optimization of the fuel injection control strategy under start conditions was performed. When the diesel engine is started under low temperature, the control strategy adapted to start the engine with a certain constant fuel mass injected per cycle, there may be misfire cycles in the initial period or in the transitional process, which is mainly caused by the mismatch between the fuel mass injected per cycle and the instantaneous engine speed. Therefore, an optimized control strategy was put forward, namely, the engine starts with high fuel mass injection in the first several cycles and then decreases step by step during the transitional period until it operates at idle condition. This strategy was validated to decrease significantly the misfire cycles.

This paper presents an investigation of cold starts based on a cycle-by-cycle control strategy in an LPG EFI engine. Experiments were carried out in a four-stroke, water-cooled, single cylinder, 125cc SI engine with an EFI system. Effects of the first injection pulse width and the first combustion cycle on the characteristics of the cold-start were analyzed based on the histories of transient engine speeds and cylinder pressures. The study focuses on how to realize the controllable ignition cycle and the single-cycle and multi-cycle combustions were tested based on the single starting injection pulse width. Test results show that the first combustion cycle has an important effect on HC emission and combustion stability of following cycles at cold-start. The injection pulse width is the key factor determining the characteristics of an ignition cycle during the cold-start.

The calibration of the electronic throttle unit and the pedal unit was made. Based on it, an electronic control system of electronic throttle was designed and installed on a 4G18 engine. Engine experiment was made especially for its transient working condition. Engine performance at transient working condition was investigated. The test results indicate that the optimum way of opening the throttle valve is to open the throttle valve to the target location at once, when 4G18 engine transit from 2000r/min to 3000r/min without load. And its optimum calibration for the electronic throttle control unit is made based on the test results. The control system, the experiment, the test results and the calibration were introduced in this paper.

Based on a 125cm3 single cylinder SI engine, the designated idle speed was controlled by adjusting of cycle ignition advance angle. By analyzing the effects of different idle speed and throttle open position on three way catalyst (TWC) light-off time and conversion efficiency of HC and CO emissions, combined with the corresponding total HC and CO emissions level, the optimum idle speed and throttle open position at engine's warm-up phase were found by the matching optimum. The present method for engine control strategy is helpful to optimize the warm-up phase emission levels in SI engine with LPG fuel.

In this work, a XD132 Road Roller from XCMG in China was employed as a research basis to study the heat exchange performance of the heat dissipation module under varied working conditions. The module in the XD132 consists of a cooling fan and three radiators. At first, the numerical investigation on the elementary units of radiators was performed to obtain Colburn j factor and Fanning friction f factor, which were used for the ε-NTU method to predict the radiator performance. The fan was numerically tested in a wind test tunnel to acquire the performance curve. The performance data from both investigations were transformed into the boundary conditions of the numerical vehicle model in a virtual tunnel. A field experiment was carried out to validate the simulation accuracy, and an entrance coefficient was proposed to discuss the performance regularity under four working conditions.

Improvement of shift quality evaluation has become more prevalent over the past few years in the development of automatic transmission electronic control system. For the problems of the subjective shift quality evaluation that subjectivity is too strong, the standard cannot be unified and the definition of the objective evaluation index is not clear at present, this paper studies on the methods of objective evaluation of shift quality based on the multi-hierarchical grey relational analysis. Firstly, objective evaluation index system is constructed based on physical quantities, such as the engine speed, the longitudinal acceleration of the vehicle and so on, which broadens the scope of the traditional objective evaluation index further.

In this paper, the performance simulation model of a domestic self-dumping truck was established using AVL-Cruise software. Then its accuracy was checked by the power performance and fuel economy tests which were conducted on the proving ground. The power performance of the self-dumping truck was evaluated through standing start acceleration time from 0 to 70km/h, overtaking acceleration time from 60 to 70km/h, maximum speed and maximum gradeability, while the composite fuel consumption per hundred kilometers was taken as an evaluation index of fuel economy. A L9 orthogonal array was applied to investigate the effect of three matching factors including engine, transmission and final drive, which were considered at three levels, on the power performance and fuel economy of the self-dumping truck. Furthermore, the grey relational grade was proposed to assess the multiple performance responses according to the grey relational analysis.

In this study, with the aim of reducing fuel consumption and improving power performance, the optimization for the driveline parameters of a self-dumping truck was performed by using a vehicle performance simulation model. The accuracy of this model was checked by the power performance and fuel economy tests. Then the transmission ratios and final drive ratio were taken as design variables. Meanwhile, the power performance of the self-dumping truck was evaluated through standing start acceleration time from 0 to 70km/h, maximum speed and maximum gradeability, while the combined fuel consumption of C-WTVC drive cycle was taken as an evaluation index of fuel economy. The multi-objective optimization for the power performance and fuel economy was then performed based on particle swarm optimization algorithm, and the Pareto optimal set was obtained. Furthermore, the entropy method was proposed to determine the weight of fuel consumption and acceleration time.