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This paper reports on DaimlerChrysler's participation in the Ad Hoc Diesel Fuels Test Program. This program was initiated by the U.S. Department of Energy and included major U.S. auto makers, major U.S. oil companies, and the Department of Energy. The purpose of this program was to identify diesel fuels and fuel properties that could facilitate the successful use of compression ignition engines in passenger cars and light-duty trucks in the United States at Tier 2 and LEV II tailpipe emissions standards. This portion of the program focused on minimizing engine-out particulates and NOx by using selected fuels, (not a matrix of fuel properties,) in steady state dynamometer tests on a modern, direct injection, common rail diesel engine.

Into the early-part of the next century, automotive emission standards are becoming stricter around the world. The electrically-heated catalyst (EHC) is well known as an effective technology for the reduction of cold-start hydrocarbon emissions without a significant increase in back pressure. Our extruded, alternator powered EHC (APEHC) manufactured with a unique canning method and equipped with a reliable, water proof electrode has demonstrated excellent durability and reliability, as stated in our previous SAE paper (#960340). The APEHC system discussed in this paper has achieved the Ultra-Low-Emission Vehicle (ULEV) standards, after 100,000 miles of fleet testing, without any failure. This is the final milestone in addressing the EHC as a realistic-production technology for ULEV. With the ability to meet ULEV/Stage III emission targets without a significant increase in back pressure, the EHC will be applied to an especially high performance vehicle with a large displacement engine.

This research is aimed at development of the catalyst for gasoline automobiles which uses only palladium (Pd) among platinum group metals (PGMs). And the conformity emission category aimed at LEV III-SULEV30. For evaluation, the improvement effect was verified for 2013 model year (MY) ACCORD (LEV II-SULEV) as the reference. As compared with Pd-rhodium (Rh) catalyst, a Pd-only catalyst had the low purification performance of nitrogen oxides (NOx), and there was a problem in the drop in dispersion of Pd by sintering, and phosphorus (P) poisoning.

Aiming for higher output power, greater fuel economy and reduced exhaust emissions, a new V-6 3.5-liter i-VTEC Variable Cylinder Management (VCM) engine has been developed. This engine uses a cylinder-deactivation mechanism with VTEC technology that allows the number of cylinders to be controlled in three modes (three, four or all six cylinders), according to the operating conditions. This adds a four-cylinder mode to the conventional cylinder- deactivation engine. In addition to increasing the number of cylinder- deactivation modes, the new hydraulic circuits, a hydraulic pressure switching mechanism and a switchover control were also developed. These make it possible to instantaneously switch the active cylinders without impairing drivability, in the same manner as a conventional engine.

In order to contribute to the resolution of global environmental problems and to respond to the issue of diminishing resources, the Civic Hybrid, a hybrid passenger automobile has been developed to achieve both low emissions and low fuel consumption. The hybrid system takes the conventional Honda IMA (Integrated Motor Assist) system as its foundation. 4-cylinder, 1.3L SOHC, 2-plug engine i-DSI (DSI: Dual and Sequential Ignition) has been selected and modified for lean burn combustion. In addition, a cylinder idling system to increase the amount of electrical energy regenerated during deceleration has been adopted, among other technology. The ultra-thin DC brushless motor has been modified with its magnetic circuit to improve maximum regenerative torque by approximately 30%. Thanks to a new power train that improves CVT transfer efficiency, low fuel consumption of 48mpg in the city and 47mpg on the highway (the 5MT vehicle is 46mpg in the city and 51mpg on the highway) is achieved.

With the increasing number of automobiles, the worldwide problem of air pollution is becoming more serious. The necessity of reducing tail-pipe emissions is as high as ever, and in countries all over the world the regulations are becoming stricter. The emissions at times such as after engine cold start, when the three-way catalyst (TWC) has not warmed up, accounts for the majority of the emissions of these pollutants from vehicles. This is caused by the characteristic of the TWC that if a specific temperature is not exceeded, TWC cannot purify the emissions. In other words, if the catalyst could be warmed up at an early stage after engine start, this would provide a major contribution to reducing the emissions. Therefore, this research is focused on the substrate weight and investigated carrying out major weight reduction by making the porosity of the substrate larger than that of conventional products.

Recently, automotive emission regulations are being further tightened, such as the Tier III/LEV III in the U.S. As a result, reducing cost of after-treatment systems to meet these strict regulations has become an urgent issue, and then the demand for high-precision air-fuel ratio (A/F) control which can achieve this cost reduction is high [1]. On the other hand, in order to meet rapidly changing market needs, it is becoming difficult to keep enough development periods that enable sufficient calibration by trial-and-error, such as feedback-gain calibration. This leads to an increase in three-way catalytic converter costs in some cases. For these reasons, it is necessary to construct control system that can make full use of hardware capabilities, can shorten development periods regardless of the skill level of engineers.

Measuring the real-world performance of emission control technologies is an important aspect in the development of advanced low-emission vehicles. In addition, data acquired from such measurements can be used to improve the accuracy of air quality predictive models. Honda has developed an on-board sampling/analysis system capable of measuring on-road emissions at ULEV levels and below. Ambient air can be analyzed simultaneously. This FTIR-based system can measure several species; this paper will focus on NMHC, NOX, and CO. Techniques were developed to address the challenges associated with acquiring accurate real-time data at concentrations below 1 ppm in an on-road vehicle. Validation studies performed with reference gases and vehicle exhaust indicate a very good correlation between the on-road analyzer system and classic bench methods for all target compounds. Dynamic studies performed by the University of California, Riverside, also show good correlation.

The Automotive Industry/Government Emissions Research CRADA (AIGER) has been working to develop a new methodology for the direct determination of nonmethane hydrocarbons (DNMHC) in vehicle testing. This new measurement technique avoids the need for subtraction of a separately determined methane value from the total hydrocarbon measurement as is presently required by the Code of Federal Regulations. This paper will cover the historical aspects of the development program, which was initiated in 1993 and concluded in 2002. A fast, gas chromatographic (GC) column technology was selected and developed for the measurement of the nonmethane hydrocarbons directly, without any interference or correction being caused by the co-presence of sample methane. This new methodology chromatographically separates the methane from the nonmethane hydrocarbons, and then measures both the methane and the backflushed, total nonmethane hydrocarbons using standard flame ionization detection (FID).

The two liter DOHC-VTEC engine developed for the Honda S2000 produces 179kW (240HP, which is 120HP per liter). It is the highest output power among all naturally aspirated two liter engines ever mass-produced. It also achieves an exhaust emission level within National LEV standards. The new engine utilizes a redesigned VTEC cylinder head, in which MIM (metal injection molding) rocker arms are used. The new cylinder block with a ladder frame structure for its lower part, a newly developed camshaft drive chain and gear system and a metal honeycomb catalyst with an air pump start-up system are also utilized.

With the total amount of air pollution caused by vehicle emissions on the increase, the problem has now became a global concern, and various regulatory measures have been put into effect in each region of the world. This is especially true in California, U.S.A, where countermeasures have been adopted early. There, the ULEV (Ultra Low Emission Vehicle) standard, which was ones deemed impossible for gasoline engines to meet, is now in effect. In response to these developments, Honda announced the ULEV system for a 2.2 liter gasoline engine with a closed-coupled catalytic converter (CC) and an under-floor catalytic converter (UF) at the beginning of 1995, and reported on the system's emission characteristics. 1) A new ULEV system has been developed based on the previous system but using only UF, aiming for marketable improvements in product characteristics such as higher output. The new system features the ultra low heat capacity and high heat insulating (ULOC) exhaust manifold.

With the adoption of the California Low-Emission Vehicle Regulations and the associated lower emission standards such as LEV (Low-Emission Vehicle in 1990), ULEV (Ultra-Low-Emission Vehicle), and LEV II (1998 with SULEV-Super Ultra Low Emission Vehicle), concerns were raised by emissions researchers over the accuracy and reliability of collecting and analyzing emissions measurements at such low levels. The primary concerns were water condensation, optimizing dilution ratios, and elimination of background contamination. These concerns prompted a multi-year research program looking at several new sampling techniques. This paper will describe the cooperative research conducted into one of these new technologies, namely the Bag Mini-Diluter (BMD) and Direct Vehicle Exhaust (DVE) Volume system.

The College of Engineering-Center for Environmental Research and Technology at the University of California, Riverside and Honda Motor Company are conducting a cooperative research program to study the emission characteristics and evaluate the environmental impact of advanced technology vehicles designed to have emission rates at, or below, the California ULEV standard. This program involves a number of technical challenges relating to instrumentation capable of measuring emissions at these low levels and utilizing this instrumentation to gather data under realistic conditions that will allow assessments of the environmental impact of these advanced vehicle technologies. This paper presents results on the performance and suitability of a Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) based on-board measurement system developed principally by Honda R&D for this task. This system has been designed to simultaneously measure vehicle exhaust and ambient roadway pollutant concentrations.

Honda has developed a new hybrid system targeting the C and D segments that aims for the latest environmental performance, high fuel economy, and enhanced acceleration feeling in driving. The new engine to be applied to this new hybrid system has been developed with the goal of expanding the high thermal efficiency range, realizing the latest environmental performance, and high quietness. The new engine has adopted the Atkinson cycle and cooled exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) carried over from the previous model [1], and employed an in-cylinder direct fuel injection system with fuel injection pressure of 35 MPa. The combustion chamber and ports have been newly designed to match the fuel system changes. By realizing high-speed combustion, the engine realized a high compression ratio with the mechanical compression ratio of 13.9.

As SULEV emission regulations approach, the bag mini-diluter (BMD) technology is gaining acceptance as a replacement for the existing constant volume sampler (CVS) for SULEV exhaust emission measurement and certification. The heart of the BMD system is the direct vehicle exhaust (DVE) flow measurement system. Due to the transient nature of vehicle exhaust during a standard FTP emission test cycle, the DVE must be capable of rapid and accurate response in order to track these varying exhaust flow rates. The DVE must also be robust enough to accurately measure flow rate despite variations in exhaust gas composition, pulsation effects, and rapid changes in both exhaust temperature and pressure. One of the primary DVE systems used on BMDs is the E-Flow, an ultrasonic flow meter manufactured by Flow Technologies, Inc.

Two of the goals of the Penn State FutureTruck project were to reduce the emissions of the hybrid electric Ford Explorer to ULEV or lower, and improve the fuel economy by 25% over the stock vehicle. The hybrid electric vehicle system is powered with a 103kW 2.5L Detroit Diesel engine which operates with a fuel blend consisting of ultra-low-sulfur diesel and biodiesel (35%). Lower emissions are inherently achieved by the use of biodiesel. Additionally, the engine was fitted with a series of aftertreatment devices in an effort to achieve the low emissions standards. Vehicle testing has shown a gasoline-equivalent fuel economy improvement of approximately 22%, a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by approximately 38%, and meeting or exceeding stock emissions numbers in all other categories through the use of an advanced catalyst and control strategy.

Ultra-low energy consumption and ultra-low emission vehicle technologies have been developed by combining petroleum-alternative clean energy with a hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) system. Their component technologies cover a wide range of vehicle types, such as passenger cars, delivery trucks, and city buses, adsorbed natural gas (ANG), compressed natural gas (CNG), and dimethyl ether (DME) as fuels, series (S-HEV) and series/parallel (SP-HEV) for hybrid types, and as energy storage systems (ESSs), flywheel batteries (FWBs), capacitors, and lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries. Evaluation tests confirmed that the energy consumption of the developed vehicles is 1/2 of that of conventional diesel vehicles, and the exhaust emission levels are comparable to Japan's ultra-low emission vehicle (J-ULEV) level.

The needs of the non-internal combustion engine for the automobile have been increasingly emphasized due to the seriousness of the air pollution in major cities and the global warming. However, such power plant technologies are generally considered to be still far away from the full commercialization as technical issues including infrastructure and cost are still remaining to be solved, so the substantial emission cleanup through the market penetration requires a long time for the realization. For the mean time, attempts are made to investigate the maximum potential of the internal combustion engine for reduction of both exhaust emissions and CO2 focusing on Honda''s near-zero emission Zero Level Emission Vehicle (ZLEV) technology.

Lean-burn is an effective means of reducing CO2 emissions. To date, Homogenous Lean Charge Spark Ignition (HLSI) combustion, which lowers emissions of both CO2 and NOx, has been studied. Although HLSI realizes lower emission, it is a major challenge for lean-burn engines to meet SULEV regulations, so we have developed a new aftertreatment system for HLSI engines. It consists of three types of catalysts that have different functions, as well as special engine control methods. As the first stage in achieving SULEV emissions, this study focused on enhancing performance under lean conditions. HLSI engine exhaust gases contain high concentrations of hydrocarbons, including a large amount of paraffin, which are difficult to purify, rather than low concentrations of NOx. Therefore, the key point in low emissions is to purify not only NOx, but also high concentrations of paraffin at the same time.

It is becoming increasingly difficult to obtain good repeatability from running lab vehicle correlation testing, since vehicle variability is so significant at the Low ULEV and SULEV emissions levels. These new emission standards are becoming so stringent that it makes it very difficult to distinguish whether a problem is a result of vehicle variability, test cell sampling or the analytical system. A vehicle exhaust emission simulator (VEES) developed by Horiba, can simulate emissions from low emitting gasoline vehicles by producing tailpipe flow rates containing emissions constituents ( HC, CH4, CO, NOx, CO2 ) injected at the tailpipe flow stream via mass flow controllers.