Search Results

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.

Using the nonlinear finite element analysis, three nonlinear characteristics of the rubber gasbag of the air spring on the bus are thoroughly analyzed, including the nonlinear characteristic of the rubber gasbag with multi layers of composite materials, the nonlinear large displacement geometry characteristic of the rubber gasbag on working, and the nonlinear contact characteristic of the rubber gasbag when contacts the pedestal and the top cover plate. A model is build and the nonlinear characteristic of the air spring on the bus is analyzed using the ABAQUS software. At last, the article discusses parameters that influence on the characteristic of the air spring for the bus.

Acetone-Butanol-Ethanol (ABE), an intermediate product in the ABE fermentation process for producing bio-butanol, is considered a promising alternative fuel because it not only preserves the advantages of oxygenated fuel which typically emit less pollutants compared to conventional diesel, but also lowers the cost of fuel recovery for each individual component during the fermentation. With the development of advanced ABE fermentation technology, the volumetric percentage of acetone, butanol and ethanol in the bio-solvents can be precisely controlled. In this respect, it is desirable to estimate the performance of different ABE blends to determine the best blend and optimize the production process accordingly. ABE fuels with different component ratio, (A: B: E: 6:3:1; 3:6:1; 0:10:0, vol. %), were blended with diesel and tested in a constant volume chamber.

This paper presents experimental studies of particulate emissions in a small SI engine fueled with LPG and gasoline fuels. A single cylinder, four-stroke, water-cooled, 125cc EFI engine with gasoline fuel is used as the baseline engine. Characteristics of the particulate emissions of the two fuels are compared. Test results show that: there are great quantities of particulate emissions for both fuels, but the total numbers of particulate emissions for the two fuels are generally in the same level. The distribution of the particulate sizes is in bimodal type for the gasoline, but for the LPG its first peak is not markedly in some conditions. The particulate sizes of the second peak for the two fuels appear at about the same size. At middle loads and 3000r/min, the particulate emissions for both of the two fuels are the greatest.

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.

This paper summarized the first phase research work to develop hybrid transit buses for China, including driving cycle analysis, performance requirements setting, key components first dimensioning, configuration choosing, saving potential estimate and parametric study. Through these fundamental works, we realize that (1) the Chinese urban bus cycle has some specialties compared with foreign ones, and these specialties cause differences on the design criteria and design results of the hybrid buses; (2) the parallel configuration is better than the series one for the Chinese cycle from both fuel consumption and cost points of view.

This paper presents the development of an electronic control LPG gas injection system and its application in a small SI engine. The tests results show that the developed LPG gas injection system can meet the needs for the goal of high engine power output and low exhaust emissions based on the engine bench tests. With the LPG electronic gas injection system, the air-fuel ratio can be optimized based on the requirements and CO and NOx emission levels are decreased significantly compared with the LPG mechanical mixer fuel supply system, based on the same HC emission levels. With the new gas phase LPG electronic control injection system, the HC emission level is controlled below the 300 ppm under most engine conditions and under 200 ppm when the engine speed is over 3000 r/min. The NOx emission level is under 2600 ppm in the whole range of engine operation conditions and is decreased by 2000 ppm compared with the LPG mechanical mixer system.

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.

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.

In order to improve the handling and stability of a light bus at high speed, a virtual model was established in Adams-Car and its anti-roll bar and bushing parameters were virtually optimized. The tyre mechanical characteristics were firstly tested by using a plate-type tyre tester and the Magic Formula parameters of the tyre were obtained. Then the virtual bus model's handling performance were studied by the simulation of central steering test and steady static circular test. An optimal matching method was put forward. By using genetic algorithm to conduct optimization, the optimised parameters were obtained. After that the anti-roll bar and bushing samples were respectively manufactured. At last, the comparative trials were performed in an automotive proving ground, and the subjective evaluation of the light bus's handling and stability was taken by three specialized assessors.

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.

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.

This paper presented one calculation method of the contact load, which is the load acted on the spring at the moment when the second-level stiffness of the spring just begins to work. In the proposed method, the contact load calculation mainly based on the dynamic load of the unsprung mass and the road grades and the commonly driving speed were also considered. A semiempirical formula of the contact load was put forward. Then the contact load of the commercial bus's rear suspension was respectively calculated by using the proposed formula and traditional methods(geometric mean method and average load method) to compare each other and to verify the new method. Later, the spring samples were respectively manufactured based on the calculation results. At last, the validation tests were respectively performed in an automotive proving ground.

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.