Analysis of Advanced Air and Fuel Management Systems for Future Automotive Diesel Engine Generations

The increasing stringency of pollutant emissions regulations, aiming to fuel neutral NOx limits, is expected to foster the implementation of new technologies in terms of aftertreatment, air management and fuel injection systems. In this field, modern diesel engines are equipped with electronically-controlled flexible fuel injection systems and air/gas/EGR control valves. The only part in the air system ‘left for revolutionary’ is the valvetrain and a fully flexible Variable Valve Actuation (VVA) is becoming nowadays highly desirable for modern diesel engine. In this context, the purpose of the research activity was, on one hand, to evaluate and identify, through numerical simulation, the best VVA strategies to be implemented in a passenger car diesel engine by quantifying and choosing benefits vs drawbacks of VVA strategies. On the other hand, the definition of the best injection pattern for BSFC, Emission and NVH improvements through the adoption of Genetic Algorithm was performed. The EURO VI medium diesel engine (1.6 l 4L) developed by General Motors Global Propulsion Systems was selected as case study

Challenges and Prospects of Steelmaking Towards the Year 2050

The world steel industry is strongly based on coal/coke in ironmaking, resulting in huge carbon dioxide emissions corresponding to approximately 7% of the total anthropogenic CO2 emissions. As the world is experiencing a period of imminent threat owing to climate change, the steel industry is also facing a tremendous challenge in next decades. This themed issue makes a survey on the current situation of steel production, energy consumption, and CO2 emissions, as well as cross-sections of the potential methods to decrease CO2 emissions in current processes via improved energy and materials efficiency, increasing recycling, utilizing alternative energy sources, and adopting CO2 capture and storage. The current state, problems and plans in the two biggest steel producing countries, China and India are introduced. Generally contemplating, incremental improvements in current processes play a key role in rapid mitigation of specific emissions, but finally they are insufficient when striving for carbon neutral production in the long run. Then hydrogen and electrification are the apparent solutions also to iron and steel production. The book gives a holistic overview of the current situation and challenges, and an inclusive compilation of the potential technologies and solutions for the global CO2 emissions problem

LowEmission Annual report 2022

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Energy management and guidelines to digitalisation of integrated natural gas distribution systems equipped with expander technology

In a swirling dynamic interaction, digital innovation, environment and anthropological evolution are swiftly shaping the smart grid scenario. Integration and flexibility are the keywords in this emergent picture characterised by a low carbon footprint. Digitalisation, within the natural limits imposed by the thermodynamics, seems to offer excellent opportunities for these purposes. Of course, here starts a new challenge: how digital technologies should be employed to achieve these objectives? How would we ensure a digital retrofit does not lead to a carbon emission increase? In author opinion, as long as it remains a generalised question, none answer exists: the need to contextualise the issue emerges from the variety of the characteristics of the energy systems and from their interactions with external processes. To address these points, in the first part of this research, the author presented a collection of his research contributions to the topic related to the energy management in natural gas pressure reduction station equipped with turbo expander technology. Furthermore, starting from the state of the art and the author's previous research contributions, the guidelines for the digital retrofit for a specific kind of distributed energy system, were outlined. Finally, a possible configuration of the ideal ICT architecture is extracted. This aims to achieve a higher level of coordination involving, natural gas distribution and transportation, local energy production, thermal user integration and electric vehicles charging. Finally, the barriers and the risks of a digitalisation process are critically analysed outlining in this way future research needs

Alcohol Flexible Dual-Fuel Direct Injection Engine

Laws concerning emissions from HD internal combustion engines are becoming increasingly stringent in terms of local emissions and emissions concerning global warming such as lowering tailpipe CO2. New engine technologies are needed to satisfy these new requirements and to reduce fossil fuel dependency and increase renewable fuels in the transportation sector. One way to achieve both objectives can be to partially replace fossil fuels with alternatives that are sustainable with respect to emissions of greenhouse gases and engine out particulates. Also a decrease in NOx can be achieved. Suitable candidates are ethanol or methanol. The thesis presented here summarizes results from publications and additional results presented here with the aim to investigate the possible advantages of combusting low carbon alcohol fuels in dual-fuel configuration in a HD Diesel engine - in particular, the potential to greatly reduce particulate emissions and thereby bypass the soot-NOx tradeoff and lowering tailpipe CO2 emissions. It was complimented by additional results presented in the kappa itself.Ethanol sprays were studied in a high pressure/temperature spray chamber at typical engine condition with gas densities of about 27 kg/m^3 at around 550 C and around 60 bar. Spray parameters, such as the liquid cone angle, liquid penetration length and vapor penetration at injection pressures up to 2200 bar, were investigated. The characterization of those sprays was followed by an investigation focusing on the combustion of alcohol fuels in a single cylinder engine. Methanol, ethanol and E85 were chosen, but because of their poor auto-ignition properties, a pilot Diesel injection was used to initiate the combustion process. One of the alcohol fuels and Diesel were injected directly but separately, necessitating the use of two separate common rail systems together with a newly designed cylinder head and adapted injection nozzles. The dual fuel system\u27s combustion properties were compared to those of pure Diesel with the same dual injection strategy. The injection pressure on the alcohol side were varied up to 2000 bar and investigations were carried out at low, medium and high speed-load points, with and without EGR. The investigated low carbon fuels outperformed Diesel under all tested conditions in terms of thermal efficiency and indicated specific NOx, soot and CO2 emissions. Thermal efficiency was increased by up to 3.5 %-points and simultaneously soot emissions were lowered by a factor of 40 or more and NOx by 20 %. ISCO2 emissions were down by up to 25 %. The fuel substitution ratio was over 95 % and the combustion stability was not compromised

Enhancing Future Skills and Entrepreneurship

This open access book presents the proceedings of the 3rd Indo-German Conference on Sustainability in Engineering held at Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, India, on September 16–17, 2019. Intended to foster the synergies between research and education, the conference is one of the joint activities of the BITS Pilani and TU Braunschweig conducted under the auspices of Indo-German Center for Sustainable Manufacturing, established in 2009. The book is divided into three sections: engineering, education and entrepreneurship, covering a range of topics, such as renewable energy forecasting, design & simulation, Industry 4.0, and soft & intelligent sensors for energy efficiency. It also includes case studies on lean and green manufacturing, and life cycle analysis of ceramic products, as well as papers on teaching/learning methods based on the use of learning factories to improve students’problem-solving and personal skills. Moreover, the book discusses high-tech ideas to help the large number of unemployed engineering graduates looking for jobs become tech entrepreneurs. Given its broad scope, it will appeal to academics and industry professionals alike

INTER-ENG 2020

These proceedings contain research papers that were accepted for presentation at the 14th International Conference Inter-Eng 2020 ,Interdisciplinarity in Engineering, which was held on 8–9 October 2020, in Târgu Mureș, Romania. It is a leading international professional and scientific forum for engineers and scientists to present research works, contributions, and recent developments, as well as current practices in engineering, which is falling into a tradition of important scientific events occurring at Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology in the George Emil Palade University of Medicine, Pharmacy Science, and Technology of Târgu Mures, Romania. The Inter-Eng conference started from the observation that in the 21st century, the era of high technology, without new approaches in research, we cannot speak of a harmonious society. The theme of the conference, proposing a new approach related to Industry 4.0, was the development of a new generation of smart factories based on the manufacturing and assembly process digitalization, related to advanced manufacturing technology, lean manufacturing, sustainable manufacturing, additive manufacturing, and manufacturing tools and equipment. The conference slogan was “Europe’s future is digital: a broad vision of the Industry 4.0 concept beyond direct manufacturing in the company”

Análisis de metodologías de modelado de motores diésel marinos para su diagnosis y mantenimiento basado en condiciones

313 p.La presente tesis doctoral analiza las diferentes estrategias de modelado de motores diésel marinos existentes en el marco de su diagnosis y mantenimiento basado en condiciones. Concretamente, tras una fase preliminar en la que se analizan y prueban experimentalmente el modelo termodinámico y el modelo de redes neuronales artificiales en un motor diésel de un cilindro, se concluye que ambos muestran niveles de error relativamente bajos pero que el modelo termodinámico requiere tiempos de cálculo notablemente mayores. Partiendo de esta base, consecutivamente se ha modelado un motor diésel marino de 6 cilindros empleando las redes neuronales artificiales. En este motor, se ha analizado el nivel de precisión de las redes neuronales para cualquier condición del motor dentro de su mapa de funcionamiento completo (considerando el efecto de factores externos como la meteorología o corrientes) para calcular 35 parámetros de funcionamiento y emisiones simultáneamente. Entre los resultados, las redes neuronales han mostrado errores por debajo del 8,5% para todos los parámetroscalculados a excepción de las emisiones de CO y NO2 que debido a sus bajas concentraciones en este tipo de motores han mostrado errores mayores. Se ha demostrado pues, el potencial de este tipo de metodología para mostrar la imagen completa del estado de un motor marino para cualquier punto dentro de su mapa de funcionamiento y con tiempos de cálculo admisibles para procesos de modelado en tiempo real (0,109 segundos). Por último, se ha analizado la actividad de un motor diésel de 9 cilindros a bordo de un buque atunero operativo durante los años 2020 y 2021, procesando hasta 5.181 horas de funcionamiento sin ningún fallo. Por consiguiente, se han calculado los valores límite de las desviaciones que puedan sufrir 57 parámetros diferentes del motor dentro de su funcionamiento correcto, con objeto de proveer una referencia útil para establecer límites de desviaciones representativas de fallos en futuros trabajos de investigación en el campo de la diagnosis y el mantenimiento basado en condiciones de los motores diésel marinos.AZT

Annual General Assembly of the International Association of Maritime Universities

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