Single-cylinder 125 CC stepped piston engine for mobility and portable power generation applications

Two-stroke engines is far simpler than four-stroke version from its physical perspective. For a given brake output, two-stroke is lighter, easier to work on, and provide higher power-to-weight ratio than the four-stroke, making it suitable for small platform applications. However a conventional two-stroke engine has a reputation for generating smoke and unburned fuel, a situation which does not meet many emissions regulations, now enforced around the world. Thus for many decades two-stroke engines were not favored, giving ways to four-stroke engines to dominate applications, especially for mobile power-generation purposes. In the quest to improve the potential of such an engine, a group of researchers from the Automotive Development Centre (ADC), Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) has come up with a 125 cc, air-cooled stepped-piston engine to demonstrate the higher power-to-weight ratio feature, apart from overcoming emission reduction. The engine is designed to mitigate the problem of mixture short circuiting, which is the major hindrance to combustion efficiency, and for this to happen they have incorporated a three-port stratification strategy onto the engine. This paper provides the overview related to the earlier work done to infuse the necessary features and highlights some of the performance features of this unique engine design

Development and evaluation of an automotive air-conditioning test rig

To evaluate an air-conditioning system performance on board of a car is quite cumbersome and tedious process due to the limitation of space in the engine compartment. This paper presents the process of designing and the result from the automotive refrigeration system simulation that have been integrated into the test rig. To perform the test on automotive refrigeration simulator the location for the temperature measurement selected and thermocouples were installed. The locations of the temperature probes are at the inlet and outlet of compressor, condenser outlet and the inlet of the evaporator. The gas pressure was measured at low and high pressure sides located at evaporator outlet and receiver-drier respectively. The test results were analyzed using the properties table of the refrigerant used. The coefficient of performance (COP), cooling load of the system and compressor power consumption were determined. The variable parameters used are the evaporator blower speed and the air velocity passes through the condenser. The experimental results obtained show that increasing the blower speed will reduce the COP of the refrigeration system. The maximum COP of the system is 4.3 at the lowest evaporator blower speed. The power consumption will be reduced when the air flow velocity through the condenser is varied from 0 to 70 km/hr respectively

Performance of a water pump in an automotive engine cooling system

A cooling system employed in an automobile is to maintain the desired coolant temperature thus ensuring for optimum engine operation. Forced convection obtained by means of a water pump will enhance the cooling effect. Thus it is necessary to understand the system’s pump operation and be able to provide for the ultimate cooling of the engine. The objective of this laboratory investigation is to study the water pump characteristics of an engine cooling system. The crucial water pump parameters are the head, power, and its efficiency. In order to investigate the water pump characteristic a dedicated automotive cooling simulator test rig was designed and developed. All of the data obtained are important towards designing for a more efficient water pump such as electric pump that is independent of the power from the engine. In addition to this fact, the simulator test rig can also be used to investigate for any other parameters and products such as radiator performance and electric pump before installation in the actual engine cooling system. From the experiment conducted to simulate for the performance of a cooling system of a Proton Wira (4G15), the maximum power equals to 37 W which indicates the efficiency of the pump is relatively too low as compared to the typical power consume by the pump from the engine which are about 1 to 2 kW. Whereas the maximum power and efficiency obtained from the simulator test rig simulator is equals to 42 W and 15% respectively