Gasoline compression ignition (GCI) is a promising strategy to achieve high thermal efficiency and low emissions with limited modifications to the conventional diesel engine hardware. It is a partially premixed concept, which derives its superiority from higher volatility and longer ignition delay of gasoline-like fuels combined with higher compression ratio typical of diesel engines. The present study investigates the combustion process in a GCI engine operating with different injection strategies using computational fluid dynamics (CFD). Simulations are carried out on a single cylinder of a multi cylinder heavy-duty compression ignition engine, which operates at a compression ratio of 17:1 and an engine speed of 1038 rev/min. Two different injection strategies viz., late injection (LI), and early pilot injection (EP) are investigated to understand their impact on combustion and performance of the engine. Renormalized group (RNG) k-ε model is used to describe in-cylinder turbulence and KH RT model is used to simulate the fuel spray breakup. The developed CFD methodology is validated against relevant experimental data under a wide range of operating conditions for each injection strategy. The developed CFD methodology was found to capture the engine combustion behavior quite well. Based on the validated CFD model, the differences in the progress of combustion event for the two injection strategies is highlighted. It was found that a larger pilot fuel mass fraction results in a steeper rise in the initial heat release rate which in turn influences the transition to mixing controlled combustion. In line with the experimental data, the study showed that the late pilot injection strategy with three injection pulses, results in higher performance compared to the other conditions.

This study provides an energy consumption analysis of two prevalent micromobility vehicles: an e-scooter and an e-bike. Utilizing a custom data acquisition system, the vehicles were tested under various conditions at Argonne National Laboratory. Initial tests focused on steady-state energy consumption, while subsequent evaluations considered real-world riding conditions. Both vehicles were tested in throttle mode, eliminating human propulsion. The e-bike was also tested across three pedal-assistance levels. Results show the e-bike is roughly twice as energy-efficient as the e-scooter in most scenarios. Additionally, peak power outputs for both vehicles significantly exceeded nominal values. The study also examined the charging characteristics of each vehicle, such as efficiency and duration.

Gasoline Compression Ignition is a novel combustion concept that derives is superiority from the high compression ratio of a compression ignition engine as well as the properties of gasoline fuel, such as longer ignition delay and higher volatility compared to diesel. This combustion concept was experimentally tested on a 12.4L Class 8 truck engine which is equipped with unique features that include variable geometry turbine and variable valve actuation. Based on these experimental data, prior efforts by the authors focused on the development of an engine model for a heavy-duty engine operating on a low-reactivity fuel. This engine model was leveraged within this study to investigate a combustion control strategy at different engine conditions and injection methods and was augmented to incorporate cycle-to-cycle combustion variations. State estimation is performed by means of a Kalman filter which feeds into a model predictive controller. The model predictive controller chooses control actions based on a predefined cost function under consideration of bounds reflecting physical constraints. The engine model was utilized to establish a state–space model that serves the Kalman filter and model predictive controller for estimation and prediction. A comparative study investigating control actions and engine behavior was performed with and without limiting in-cylinder peak pressure as well as combustion noise, which is of particular interest for early pilot injection strategies. In addition, the proposed control architecture was investigated at two different levels of cycle-to-cycle variations and compared to the performance of a control structure with input disturbance rejection For increased cycle-to-cycle variations, disturbance estimation reduces state fluctuations and control effort. In general, this investigation highlights control aspects specific to a compression-ignited combustion regime with low-reactivity fuel, which heavily relies on the impact of the variable geometry turbine and variable valve actuation on states and constraints. The control algorithm is able to maintain the desired references for brake mean effective pressure and combustion phasing while controlling peak in-cylinder pressure and combustion noise.

This work focuses on zero-dimensional modeling of the heat release rate in a compression ignition engine operating on gasoline-like fuels. Due to the properties of gasoline, such as high volatility and longer ignition delay than diesel, the injection strategies can vary significantly from the operation with conventional diesel fuel. Different injection strategies are commonly used to achieve varying degrees of in-cylinder stratification in order to shape the combustion event and maximize efficiency. The proposed zero-dimensional combustion model was developed to account for the different stages in combustion caused by the fuel stratification. As the ignition delay model is an integral part of the entire combustion process and significantly affects the prediction accuracy, special attention has been paid to local phenomena influencing ignition delay. A one-dimensional spray model by Musculus and Kattke was employed in conjunction with a Lagrangian tracking approach in order to estimate the local air–fuel ratio within the spray tip, as a proxy for reactivity. The local air–fuel ratio, in-cylinder temperature and pressure were used in an integral fashion to estimate the ignition delay. Heat release rates were modeled using first-order non-linear differential equations. The proposed combustion model was validated against experimental data of a heavy-duty compression ignition engine with up to three injection events at mostly 1038 r/min and 14 bar brake mean effective pressure. Further validation of the model was carried out at other engine loads and speeds. Model prediction errors in CA50 of less than 1 °CA across all conditions were found. Modeling results of other combustion metrics such as combustion duration and indicated mean effective pressure are also highly satisfactory. In addition, the model has been shown to be capable of estimating the ringing intensity for most conditions.

Gasoline compression ignition (GCI) is a promising way to achieve high thermal efficiency and low emissions while leveraging conventional diesel engine hardware. GCI is a partially premixed combustion concept, which derives its superiority from good volatility and long ignition delay of gasoline-like fuels. The present study investigates the interaction between the piston bowl and the spray plume of a compression ignition engine that operates with a late fuel injection strategy using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis. Simulations were carried out on a single cylinder of a multi-cylinder heavy-duty compression ignition engine. The engine operates at a speed of 1038 rev/min., and a compression ratio of 17. Incylinder turbulence was modelled using RNG k-ε model and the fuel spray break up was modelled using KH-RT model. A reduced chemical kinetic mechanism was used to model combustion chemistry. After validating the combustion and performance characteristics of the baseline piston against experimental results, several new piston bowl designs were generated using CAESES. Full cycle engine simulations for four selected bowl profiles were carried out. The results compare the spray-bowl interaction of the new piston bowl designs with the baseline design. It was found that the lip location and center depth of the bowl profile are the critical design parameters that influence the air utilization and heat transfer losses. The impact of spray-bowl interaction on thermal efficiency of the engine is investigated.

Gasoline compression ignition (GCI) is an emerging technology that can achieve high fuel efficiency and low criteria emissions in diesel engine platforms using gasoline and gasoline-like fuels. While low- and mid-range loads are enabled with low temperature combustion (LTC) approaches, high-loads are more efficient with high temperature combustion (HTC) requiring mixing-controlled combustion (MCC). Lower soot emissions are achieved with gasoline even in high-load MCC than with diesel, but detailed soot properties from gasoline and diesel have been rarely discussed. In order to better understand how high-load operations affect soot properties, gasoline and diesel were tested in a six-cylinder heavy duty engine at 14 bar brake mean effective pressure (BMEP) at similar combustion phasing. Effects of pilot mass ratio and EGR on heat release rates, cylinder temperatures, ignition delay (ID) and combustion duration (CD) were examined, relating with emissions variations with applications of the two fuels. Soot mass and particle number emissions were slightly lower with gasoline than with diesel, resulting in a more favorable NOx-soot trade-off with gasoline like other reports. Contrary to other findings in the literature, gasoline and diesel soot samples presented similar particle distribution shapes, carbon crystalline structures and primary particle sizes, regardless of fuel type and EGR rate. Consequently, the current result proposes that soot particles have undergone similar soot formation and oxidation processes despite reactivity difference and oxygen availability under the examined high-load MCC with similar combustion phases.

Gasoline compression ignition using a single gasoline-type fuel for direct/port injection has been shown as a method to achieve low-temperature combustion with low engine-out NO x and soot emissions and high indicated thermal efficiency. However, key technical barriers to achieving low-temperature combustion on multi-cylinder engines include the air handling system (limited amount of exhaust gas recirculation) as well as mechanical engine limitations (e.g. peak pressure rise rate). In light of these limitations, high-temperature combustion with reduced amounts of exhaust gas recirculation appears more practical. Furthermore, for high-temperature gasoline compression ignition, an effective aftertreatment system allows high thermal efficiency with low tailpipe-out emissions. In this work, experimental testing was conducted on a 12.4 L multi-cylinder heavy-duty diesel engine operating with high-temperature gasoline compression ignition combustion with port and direct injection. Engine testing was conducted at an engine speed of 1038 r/min and brake mean effective pressure of 1.4 MPa for three injection strategies, late pilot injection, early pilot injection, and port/direct fuel injection. The impact on engine performance and emissions with respect to varying the combustion phasing were quantified within this study. At the same combustion phasing, early pilot injection and port/direct fuel injection had an earlier start of combustion and higher maximum pressure rise rates than late pilot injection attributable to more premixed fuel from pilot or port injection; however, brake thermal efficiencies were higher with late pilot injection due to reduced heat transfer. Early pilot injection also exhibited the highest cylinder-to-cylinder variations due to differences in injector behavior as well as the spray/wall interactions affecting mixing and evaporation process. Overall, peak brake thermal efficiency of 46.1% and 46% for late pilot injection and port/direct fuel injection was achieved comparable to diesel baseline (45.9%), while early pilot injection showed the lowest brake thermal efficiency (45.3%).

Steady-state experiments were conducted on a 12.4L, six-cylinder heavy-duty engine to investigate the influence of port-injected water and dilution via exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) on combustion and emissions for diesel and gasoline operation. Adding a diluent to the combustion process reduces peak combustion temperatures and can reduce the reactivity of the charge, thereby increasing the ignition-delay and, allowing for more time to premix air and fuel. Experiments spanned water/fuel mass ratios up to 140mass% and exhaust gas recirculation ratios up to 20vol% for gasoline and diesel operation with different injection strategies. Diluting the combustion process with either water or EGR resulted in a significant reduction in nitrogen oxide emissions along with a reduction in brake thermal efficiency. The sensitivity of brake thermal efficiency to water and EGR varied among the fuels and injection strategies investigated. An efficiency breakdown revealed that water injection considerably reduced the wall heat transfer; however, a substantial increase in exhaust enthalpy offset the reduction in wall heat transfer and led to a reduction in brake thermal efficiency. Regular diesel operation with main and post injection exhibited a brake thermal efficiency of 45.8% and a 0.3% reduction at a water/fuel ratio of 120%. The engine operation with gasoline, early pilot, and main injection strategy showed a brake thermal efficiency of 45.0% at 0% water/fuel ratio, and a 1.2% decrease in brake thermal efficiency for a water/fuel ratio of 140%. Using EGR as a diluent reduced the brake thermal efficiency by 0.3% for diesel operation, comparing ratios of 0% and 20% EGR. However, a higher impact on brake thermal efficiency was seen for gasoline operation with early pilot and main injection strategy, with a reduction of about 0.8% comparing 0% and 20% EGR. Dilution by means of EGR exhibited a reduction in nitrogen oxide emissions up to 15 g/kWh; water injection showed only up to 10 g/kWh reduction for the EGR rates and water/fuel ratio investigated.

On behalf of the Vehicle Technologies Office of the U.S. Department of Energy, we are pleased to introduce the Fiscal Year (FY) 2019 Annual Progress Report for the Advanced Engine and Fuel Technologies Program. In support of the Vehicle Technology Office’s goal for future U.S. economic growth, the Program focuses on early-stage research and development to improve understanding of combustion processes, fuel properties, and emissions control technologies, generating knowledge and insight necessary for industry to cost-effectively develop the next generation of engines and fuels. One of the most promising and cost-effective approaches to improving the fuel economy of the U.S. vehicle fleet is to introduce the next generation of higher-efficiency, very-low-emission combustion engines that meet future federal emissions regulations into the passenger and commercial vehicle markets. Advanced fuel formulations that can incorporate non-petroleum-based blending agents could further enhance engine efficiency, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and provide fuel diversification. Also, innovations in combustion, fuels, emissions control, air control, turbomachinery, and energy recovery could potentially increase fuel economy considerably compared to today’s vehicles. The expected national economic, environmental, and energy security benefits from these next-generation engines and fuels would be significant inasmuch as the majority of vehicles sold over the next several decades will still include an engine. The Program has set the following goals for passenger and commercial vehicle fuel economy improvements. By 2030, increase light-duty engine efficiency to demonstrate 35% improvement in passenger vehicle fuel economy (25% improvement from engine efficiency and 10% from fuel co-optimization) relative to a 2015 baseline vehicle, while meeting the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Tier 3 Emission and Fuel Standards. By 2030, improve heavy-duty engine efficiency by 35% relative to a 2009 baseline vehicle and identify cost-effective high-performance fuels that can further increase efficiency up to an additional 4%, while meeting prevailing U.S. Environmental Protection Agency emissions standards. The Program utilized advanced combustion processes to increase engine efficiency, resulting in a modeled passenger vehicle fuel economy improvement of 19.4% (over a Model Year 2015 baseline) in FY 2019. This report highlights progress achieved by the Advanced Engine and Fuel Technologies Program during FY 2019. The nature, current focus, and recent progress of the Program are described together with summaries of National Laboratory, industry, and university projects that provide an overview of the exciting work being conducted to address critical technical barriers and challenges to commercializing the next generation of higher-efficiency engine, emissions control, and fuel technologies for passenger and commercial vehicles.

Direct injection (DI) strategy of natural gas (NG) into internal combustion engines (ICE) has led to higher thermal efficiency and lower exhaust emissions. In order to thoroughly understand the most relevant phenomena affecting the performances of such engines, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) plays a key role as an accurate description of the jet evolution and interaction within the combustion chamber is required to that aim. Accurate description of high-pressure gaseous jets is rather challenging at high Mach numbers, as the injected gas is strongly under-expanded once in the ambient, giving room to shocks due to compressibility effects. Also the interaction between shock waves and mixing layers needs to be carefully represented with a multi-dimensional model, calling for substantial computational resources requirements. In this paper a numerical investigation of the behavior of a gaseous jet (Argon) through an outward opening injector has been carried out. A Large Eddy Simulation (LES) approach has been used in order to track the structures derived by the interaction of the injected fuel with the surrounding ambient. Although already good results were obtained using a Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) approach, the adoption of LES is required to characterize more accurately the jet properties in terms of vortex structures and mixing effectiveness. The effect of the Nozzle Pressure Ratio (NPR) on the jet evolution has been highlighted in the paper, showing how a higher NPR would give a faster injection process, compromising however the homogeneity of the mixture.

With the engine technology moving towards more challenging (highly dilute and boosted) operation, spark-ignition processes play a key role in determining flame propagation and completeness of the combustion process. On the computational side, there is plenty of spark-ignition models available in literature and validated under conventional, stoichiometric SI operation. Nevertheless, these models need to be expanded and developed on more physical grounds since at challenging operation they are not truly predictive. This paper reports on the development of a dedicated model for the spark-ignition event at non-quiescent, engine-like conditions, performed in the commercial CFD code CONVERGE. The developed methodology leverages previous findings that have expanded the use and improved the accuracy of Eulerian-type energy deposition models. In this work, the Eulerian energy deposition is coupled at every computational time-step with a Lagrangian-type evolution of the spark channel. Typical features such as spark channel elongation, stretch, attachment to the electrodes are properly described to deliver realistic energy deposition along the channel during the entire ignition process. The numerical results are validated against schlieren images from an optical constant volume chamber and show the improvement in the simulation of the spark channel during the entire ignition event, with respect to the most commonly used energy deposition approach. Further development pathways are discussed to provide more physics-based features from the developed ignition model in the future.

Gasoline compression ignition using a single gasoline-type fuel for direct/port injection has been shown as a method to achieve low temperature combustion with low engine-out NOx and soot emissions and high indicated thermal efficiency. However, key technical barriers to achieving low temperature combustion on multi-cylinder engines include the air handling system (limited amount of exhaust gas recirculation) as well as mechanical engine limitations (e.g. peak pressure rise rate). In light of these limitations, high temperature combustion with reduced amounts of exhaust gas recirculation appears more practical. Previous studies by the authors demonstrated that utilizing port and direct injection of E85 gasoline simultaneously resulted in the best performance and the highest brake thermal efficiency of 47.1%, which was 1.2% higher compared to diesel baseline. For further efficiency improvement, a better understanding of energy and exergy loss mechanisms is required. In this work, first and second law thermodynamics analysis were applied to experiments with gasoline compression ignition at an engine speed of 1038 rpm and brake mean effective pressure of 1.4 MPa on a 12.4 L multi-cylinder heavy-duty diesel engine. The impact on the efficiency, losses, and irreversibility with respect to various parameters such as fuel, injection strategy, intake condition, and port injected water mass was quantified. The peak efficiency of ideal cycles and the combined efficiency with a waste heat recovery system were also estimated in this study to assess opportunities for further efficiency gains. It was found that the combustion irreversibility was dominated by the combustion temperature rather than the fuel structure. Despite its highest brake thermal efficiency, E85 gasoline generated the highest exergy destruction due to its lowest combustion temperature. For the same reason, retarding the combustion phasing or adopting a port and direct injection strategy increased the exergy destruction. The combustion duration loss was more notable than the phasing loss and was affected by both the combustion duration and shape of heat release profile. Water port injection increased the exhaust energy, but the available energy dropped significantly attributed to the decrease in the exhaust temperature, rendering waste heat recovery ineffective. The second law analysis serves as a helpful tool in conjunction with the first law analysis to explore pathways to maximize engine efficiency.

This paper presents an in-depth laboratory technology assessment of a 2016 Toyota Mirai Fuel Cell (FC) vehicle based on chassis dynamometer testing. The 114.6 kW FC stack has a high dynamic response, which makes this powertrain a FC-dominant hybrid electric vehicle. The measured peak efficiency is 66.0% FC stack and 63.7% FC system with an idle hydrogen flow rate of 4.39 g/hr. The high FC system efficiencies at low loads match typical vehicle power spectrums, resulting in a high average vehicle efficiency of 62% compared to 45% and 23% for a hybrid electric vehicle and a conventional vehicle, respectively. An energy breakdown accounts for the FC stack losses, FC system losses, air compressor loads, and heater loads for different drive cycles and different thermal conditions. The cold-start North American city drive cycle (UDDS) energy consumption values are, respectively, 758, 581, 226, and 321 Wh/km at ambient conditions of -18 degrees C, -7 degrees C, -25 degrees C and 35 degrees C with 850 W/m(2) of solar loading. The FC system shutdown and startup processes at temperatures below the freezing point contribute to the increased hydrogen consumption. The raw test data files are available for download, thus providing the research community with a public reference data on a modern production automotive FC system. Crown Copyright (C) 2019 Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. All rights reserved.

Recent increases in natural gas supply have led to a desire to leverage this fuel in the transportation sector. Dual fuel engines provide a platform on which to use natural gas efficiently; these engines, however, require new hardware and new control strategies to properly utilize two fuels simultaneously. This paper explores the impact of implementing dual fuel capabilities on a sedan and demonstrates that a dual fuel E10 and compressed natural gas engine is able to improve the average engine efficiency by up to 6.5% compared to a single fuel engine on standard drive cycles. An optimal control technique is also developed, and the proposed approach allows factors including fuel cost and fuel availability to be taken into account. Optimization at each time instant is investigated and contrasted with optimization over the entire cycle. Cycle optimization is shown to have particular value for cases in which the level in one fuel tank is low.

The objective of the proposed project is to demonstrate targeted blending of gasoline and natural gas as a means to reduce petroleum consumption of light-duty spark-ignition engine vehicles by at least 50%. This goal will be achieved through petroleum displacement with natural gas (NG) combined with a relative engine efficiency improvement in excess of 10% while meeting retrofitability requirements with an anticipated payback period of less than 36 months. Further through NG direct injection (DI) a 10% improvement in power density over the PFI baseline will be demonstrated. The proposed project employs a sound R&D approach and combines experimental work with state-of-the-art computational modeling to be able to demonstrate the ambitious project goals. The project spans a 30 month period and is divided in 3 phases with the initial phase focused on experimental characterization of the gaseous jet structure of the high-pressure NG DI injector which is used to validate the 3D-CFD simulation tool. The phase also includes an experimental demonstration of the fundamental feasibility of the proposed dual-fuel approach on an automotive single-cylinder research engine. The scope of the second phase includes optimization of the combustion system by means of virtual design combined with 3D-CFD analysis. The resulting optimized combustion system will be built and experimentally evaluated by the end of the 12 month period. The third and final phase expands the scope by integrating the engine results in a vehicle level simulation tool with the objective of developing an optimized engine control strategy that maximizes the efficiency benefits attainable with the limited on-board NG supplies. A detailed cost analysis to verify that the 36 month amortization period requirement is met will conclude the proposed effort.

One of the main factors limiting the efficiency of spark-ignited engines is the occurrence of engine knock. In high temperature and high pressure in-cylinder conditions, the fuel-air mixture auto-ignites creating pressure shock waves in the cylinder. Knock can significantly damage the engine and hinder its performance; as such, conservative knock control strategies are generally implemented that avoid such operating conditions at the cost of lower thermal efficiencies. Significant improvements in the performance of conventional knock controllers are possible if the properties of the knock process are better characterized and exploited in knock controller designs. One of the methods undertaken to better characterize knocking instances is to employ a probabilistic approach, in which the likelihood of knock is derived from the statistical distribution of knock intensity. In this paper, it is shown that knock intensity values at a fixed operating point for single fuel and dual fuel engines are accurately described using a mixed lognormal distribution. The fitting accuracy is compared against those for a randomly generated mixed-lognormally distributed data set, and shown to exceed a 95% accuracy threshold for almost all of the operating points tested. Additionally, this paper discusses a stochastic knock control approach that leverages the mixed lognormal distribution to adjust spark timing based on knock intensity measurements. This more informed knock control strategy would allow for improvements in engine performance and fuel efficiency by minimizing knock occurrences.

In current production natural gas/gasoline bi-fuel vehicles, fuels are supplied via port fuel injection (PFI). Injecting a gaseous fuel in the intake port significantly reduces the volumetric efficiency and consequently torque as compared to gasoline. In addition to eliminating the volumetric efficiency challenge, direct injection (DI) of natural gas (NG) can enhance the in-cylinder flow, mixing, and combustion process resulting in improved efficiency and performance. A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) approach to model high-pressure gaseous injection was developed and validated against X-ray data from Argonne's Advanced Photon Source. NG side and central DI of various designs and injection strategies were assessed experimentally along with CFD correlation. Significant effects on combustion metrics were quantified and explained via improved understanding of the in-cylinder flow effects due to NG injection. On-demand in-cylinder blending using E10 PFI and NG DI provides an additional lever to adjust in-cylinder turbulence as well as knock resistance across the engine speed and load range. NG DI improves part-load dilution tolerance due to higher in-cylinder turbulence and the high knock resistance of NG compared to E10 improves wide open throttle (WOT) performance while enabling increased compression ratios (CR). Vehicle level simulations suggest that implementing this strategy on a 1/2 ton pick-up truck with a naturally aspirated engine at 12.5:1 CR improves energy consumption on the aggressive US06 drive cycle by 15.5% compared to E10 operation, and gives a petroleum reduction of 78% over the blended range. There are challenges regarding market acceptance and widespread adoption of dual-fuel NG-gasoline vehicle applications beyond the performance degradation when the vehicle runs out of natural gas. Those challenges include practical concerns such as loss of cargo volume and payload due to the NG storage tank, extended NG refueling times, fueling convenience due to gasoline and NG fuel tanks, and limited NG fueling infrastructure.