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Amid the increasing demand for higher efficiency in combustion driven handheld tools, the recent developments in electric machine technology together with the already existing benefits of small combustion engines for these applications favor the investigation of potential advantages in hybrid powertrain tools. This concept-design study aims to use a fully parametric, system-level simulation model with exchangeable blocks, created with a power-loss approach in Matlab and Simulink, in order to examine the potential of different hybrid configurations for different tool load cycles. After the model introduction, the results of numerous simulations for 36 to 100 cc engine displacement will be presented and compared in terms of overall system efficiency and overall powertrain size. The different optimum hybrid configurations can show a reduction up to 30 % in system’s brake specific fuel consumption compared to the baseline combustion engine driven model.

Particulates are among the most harmful emission components of internal combustion engines (ICE)). Thus, emission limits have been widely introduced, e.g., for light- and heavy-duty vehicles. Although there are still engine applications without particulate limitations, the measurement of particulate mass (PM) and particulate number (PN) emissions is therefore of special interest for the development and operation of ICE. For this purpose, a measurement system for PN consisting of a custom-built sample conditioning and dilution system, and a TSI 3790-A10 [1] condensation particle counter (CPC) as particle number counter (PNC) was designed and built. In this work, we present the conditioning and dilution system, the operational parameters, and results from the particle concentration reduction factor (PCRF) calibration.

One of the most significant current discussions worldwide is the anthropogenic climate change accompanying fossil fuel consumption. Sustainable development in all fields of combustion engines is required with the principal objective to enhance efficiency. This certainly concerns the field of hand-held power tools as well. Today, two-stroke SI engines equipped with a carburetor are the most widely used propulsion technology in hand-held power tools like chain saws and grass trimmers. To date, research tended to focus on two-stroke engines with rich mixture setting. In this paper the advantages and challenges of leaner and/or lean operation are discussed. Experimental investigations regarding the influence of equivalence ratio on emissions, fuel consumption and power have been performed. Accompanying 3D-CFD simulations support the experiments in order to gain insight into these complex processes. The investigations concentrate on two different mixture formation processes, i.e.

The release of the “Regulation No. 168/2013” for the approval and market surveillance of two- or three-wheel motorcycles and quadricycles of the European Union started a new challenge for the motorcycle industry. One goal of the European Union is to achieve emission parity between passenger cars (EURO 6) and motorcycles (EURO 5) in 2020. The hybridization of motorcycle powertrains is one way to achieve these strict legislation limits. In the automotive sector, hybridization is well investigated and has already shown improvements of fuel consumption, efficiency and emission behavior. Equally, motorcycle applications have a high potential to improve efficiency and to meet customer needs as fun to drive as well. This paper describes a methodical approach to analyze conventional motorcycles regarding the energy and power demand for different driving cycles and driving conditions. Therefore, a dynamic or forward vehicle simulation within MATLAB Simulink is used.

As the number of different engine and vehicle concepts for powered-two wheelers is very high and will even rise with hybridization, the simulation of emissions and fuel consumption is indispensable for further development towards more environmentally friendly mobility. In this work, an adaptive artificial neural network based predictive model for emission and fuel consumption simulation of motorcycles operated in real world conditions is presented. The model is developed in Matlab and Simulink and is integrated into a longitudinal vehicle dynamic simulation whereby it is possible to simulate various and not yet measured test cycles. Subsequently, it is possible to predict real drive emissions RDE and on-road fuel consumption by a minimum of previous measurement effort.

The hybrid-electric drivetrain permits a multitude of new control strategies like brake energy recuperation, engine start-stop operation, shifting of engine working point, as well as in some situations pure electric driving. Overall this typically allows a reduction of fuel consumption and therefore of carbon dioxide emissions. During the development process of the vehicle various drivetrain configurations have to be considered and compared. This includes decisions regarding the topology - like the position of the electrical machine in the drivetrain (e.g. at the gearbox input or output shaft), as well as the selection of the needed components based on their parameters (nominal power, energy content of the battery, efficiency etc.). To compare the chosen variants, typically the calculated fuel consumption for a given driving cycle is used.

This publication covers investigations on different 3D CFD models for the description of the spray wall and droplet-fluid interaction and the influence of these models on the mixture formation calculation results. Basic experimental investigations in a spray chamber and a flow tunnel as well as the corresponding 3D CFD simulation were conducted in order to clarify the prediction quality of the physical phenomena of spray-wall and spray-fluid interaction by the simulation. Influencing parameters such as the piston top temperature, piston bowl geometry, soot deposits on the piston top as well as flow velocity are investigated. This paper provides a direct link between the underlying simulation models of the mixture formation and actual real world combustion system development processes - underlining the importance of a close interaction of the model calibration and the development process.

In a variety of applications, two-stroke engines assert their usage as a propulsion unit, for examples in off-road vehicles, scooters, hand-held power tools and others. The outstanding power to weight ratio is the key advantage for two-stroke engines. Furthermore, two-stroke engines convince with high durability and low maintenance demand. However, an increasing environmental awareness, the protection of health and the shortage of fossil resources are the driving factors to further enhance the internal combustion process of two-stroke engines. The reduction of emissions and fuel consumption with a constant power level is focused on. Developments deal with the optimization of the combustion process itself or the enhancement of the exhaust gas aftertreatment. Especially in very small two-stroke engines an exhaust gas aftertreatment system is rarely applied, due to disadvantages regarding component temperatures and product costs.

The internal combustion engine is still the most important propulsion system for individual mobility. Especially for the application of motorcycles and recreation vehicles the extraordinary high power density is crucial. Today, these engines are mainly 4-stroke naturally aspirated MPFI engines. The main difference to the automotive sector is the abandonment of all cost intensive technologies, like variable valve timing, intake air charging or gasoline direct injection. The need for further investigations and implementation of new technologies is given due to the very high share of total road transport emissions of motorcycles and the introduction of the emission limits of EURO5 in 2020. One possibility to reach the future emission limits is the downsizing strategy. For this, the potential for emission and fuel consumption reduction is well known.

Legislative regulations and international agreements like the Paris Agreement have been prepared to enforce the effort to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs). Greater environmental awareness among customers and introduction of strict environmental regulations have challenged designers to consider the environmental impact of products together with traditional design objectives in the early stages of product design. An important environmental impact factor is the carbon footprint of a product because carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are a main cause of the global climate change. An early assessment of the product carbon footprint is beneficial because at this stage, design changes are still possible with little effort and at low cost. Actually, there is no detailed methodology for a CO2 impact estimation in the early design phases available and very few researches have been conducted for the special segment of small powertrains.

Real world operating scenarios have a major influence on emissions and fuel consumption. To reduce climate-relevant and environmentally harmful gaseous emissions and the exploitation of fossil resources, deep understanding concerning the real drive behavior of mobile sources is needed because emissions and fuel consumption of e.g. passenger cars, operated in real world conditions, considerably differ from the officially published values which are valid for specific test cycles only [1]. Due to legislative regulations by the European Commission a methodology to measure real drive emissions RDE is well approved for heavy duty vehicles and automotive applications but may not be adapted similar to two-wheeler-applications. This is due to several issues when using the state of the art portable emission measurement system PEMS that will be discussed.

On the basis of small hybrid powertrain investigations in hand-held power tools for fuel consumption and emissions reduction, the prototype hybrid configuration of a small single-cylinder four-stroke internal combustion engine together with a brushless DC electric motor is built and measured on the testbench in terms of efficiency and emissions but also torque and power capabilities. The onboard energy storage system allows the combustion engine electrification for controlling the fuel amount and the combustion behavior while the electric motor placement instead of the pull-start and flywheel allows for start-stop of the system and load point shifting strategy for lower fuel consumption. The transient start-up results as well as the steady-state characterization maps of the system can set the limits on the fuel consumption reduction for such a hybrid tool compared with the baseline combustion-driven tool for given load cycle characteristics.

Professional users in particular will continue to rely on internal combustion engine drives in the future due to high power requirements and high daily energy consumption. Especially if they have to work in rural areas without the possibility of recharging batteries, such as in forestry or maintenance of road verges or railway lines. For these applications, it must be possible to run sustainable fuels for defossilization and drastically reduced CO2 emissions. This paper provides insights into a possible future fuel market and describes its evolution towards a more sustainable future from the perspective of a handheld equipment manufacturer. As developments in the fuel market are currently difficult to predict, manufacturers of hand-held power tools with combustion engines need to be prepared for changes in the composition of fuels that might become available on the market.

In recent years, E-mobility relevance has increased in the automotive sector, yet pure electric vehicles struggle to establish themselves in the still internal combustion engine (ICE) dominated sector of L-category and powersport applications. Battery electric hybrid L-category vehicles, as considered in this paper, combine both ICE and electric powertrains. Nowadays, numerous ICE L-category vehicles use rubber V-belt continuous variable transmissions (CVT) due to their reliability and user-friendliness, which often outweighs the drawback of relatively low efficiency. This paper not only aims to show, with the help of longitudinal dynamic simulation (LDS), how a state-of-the-art L-category ICE powertrain with special focus on the CVT can benefit from hybridization in terms of overall efficiency, but furthermore points out where the efficiency increase actually comes from and how this new knowledge can be implemented intelligently into a hybrid strategy.

The objective of this experimental investigation was to analyze the effect of various exhaust gas aftertreatment technologies on particulate number emissions (PN) of an MPFI EU5 motorcycle. Specifically, three different aftertreatment strategies were compared, including a three-way-catalyst (TWC) with LS structure as the baseline, a hybrid catalyst with a wire mesh filter, and an optimized gasoline particulate filter (GPF) with three-way catalytic coating. Experimental investigations using the standard test cycle WMTC performed on a two-wheeler chassis dynamometer, while the inhouse particulate sampling system was utilized to gather information about size-dependent filtering efficiency, storage, and combustion of nanoparticles. The particulate sampling and measuring system consist of three condensation particle counters (CPCs) calibrated to three different size classes (SPN4, SPN10, SPN23).

The automotive industry has made great efforts in reducing fuel consumption. The efficiency of modern spark ignition (SI) engines has been increased by improving the combustion process and reducing engine losses such as friction, gas exchange and wall heat losses. Nevertheless, further efficiency improvement is indispensable for the reduction of CO2 emissions and the smart usage of available energy. In the previous years the Atkinson Cycle, realized over the crank train and/or valve train, is attracting considerable interest of several OEMs due to the high theoretical efficiency potential. In this publication a crank train-based Atkinson cycle engine is investigated. The researched engine, a 4-stroke 2 cylinder V-engine, basically consists of a special crank train linkage system and a novel Mono-Shaft valve train concept.

Today mankind is using highly sophisticated tools which contribute to maintain the standard of living. Nevertheless, these tools have to be further improved in the near future in order to protect health and environment as well as to ensure prosperity. Two-stroke engines equipped with a carburettor are the most used propulsion technology in hand-held power tools like chain saws and grass trimmers. The shortage of fossil resources and the necessary reduction of carbon dioxide emissions ask for improved engine efficiency. Concurrently, customers demand for an easy usage with high performance at all operating conditions, e.g. varying ambient temperature and pressure and different fuels. Moreover, world-wide emission limits will be even stricter in future. The improvement of the emission level, fuel consumption and customer benefits, while keeping the present advantages of two-stroke engines, like high specific power and simplicity, are the goals of this research work.

One possible path to reduce the CO2 emissions of hand-held power tools are fuels with different amount of renewable content. Within this paper test bench measurements on a small two-stroke engine were carried out. We are trying to reduce CO2 emissions by using fuels which absorbed CO2 from the air during its lifetime or production, so called Zero CO2 fuels The focus was set on the investigation of combustion behaviour, performance and emissions of Zero CO2 fuels in comparison to commonly available fuels. For our measurements we chose a 46 cc serial engine, which was slightly modified for scientific research. This paper shows findings on effects of renewable fuels on engine characteristics. Additionally, the chemical properties of each fuel were investigated in order to form a comprehensive picture, together with the performed dyno measurements.

As alternative to electrification or carbon free fuels such as hydrogen, CO2-neutral fuels have been researched aiming to decrease the impact of fossil energy sources on the environment. Despite the potential benefit of capturing CO2 emission after combustion for own fuel production, the so-called eFuels also benefit by using a green source of energy during their fabrication. Among all the possibilities for eFuels, alcohols, ethers (such as MTBE and ETBE) and alternative hydrocarbons have shown positive impacts regarding emission reduction and performance when compared to standard gasoline. Previously in [1] and [2], synthetic fuels and methanol blends were tested at steady state conditions in order to verify advantages and drawbacks relative to gasoline, for power-sport motorcycles.

Aiming to investigate the influence of methanol blends on the combustion process of a PFI four-stroke boxer engine, four mixtures of pure methanol and oxygen-free gasoline (M0) are prepared. The fuels tested are labelled by M15, M25, M35 and M50, where the number represents the percentual in volume of methanol within the mixture. In order to establish a base for comparisons, standard gas-station gasoline (S95) is also tested. Backwards compatibility is evaluated through test-bed measurements, when the engine operates without any modifications in the ECU. Over the whole operational area of the engine map, M15 and M25 can be used in the motorcycle application. Raw emissions of THC, CO2, CO and NOx decrease with the increase of methanol for almost all the conditions tested. It is observed that knock resistance is higher for higher methanol contents. At WOT, power is increased with the methanol proportion, being M50 and M35 more powerful than standard gasoline.