Automotive Science and Engineering

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Changing various parts of different types of engines in the maintenance phase was always a remarkable question. Purpose of the present study is identifying the performance and emissions of a diesel-fueled engine (OM457) before and after replacing connecting rod and crankshaft with another engine (OM444) in the same engine family.

At the first step, a solid model was made then some CFD analyses were done and, results were compared with previous studies for validation after that in the CFD modeling the impact of these parts replacement were observed, and the performance and emissions of this engine were compared with data before replacements.

As the result of these replacements, compression ratio and performance were decreased. HC and CO were increased due to lower air-fuel ratio, and NO_X was decreased because of the lower temperature of in cylinder. Lowering the CR of a diesel engine will reduce the NOx emission numerously but the increase in other emissions will be slight. So for the environment issues lowering the CR will be a practical and low cost method.

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Use of natural gas has been proposed as one of the solutions to reduce fossil fuel consumption such as petrol and gasoline, which emit more pollutants. In this regard, more attention has been directed toward use of natural gas due to its high calorific value and low pollution. This paper studies the effect of different fluid rotation coefficients in parallel form with a surface of a piston bowl (Swirl). And, it attempts to explore the changing effects of this indicator on power and major pollutants of sparking ignition gas engines. Three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics are employed to simulate the procedure. Open-cycle engine, the moment between air-intake-valve opens and the exhaust-valve opens, is simulated through applying combustion equations of turbulence and emissions. First, the results are validated based on experimental data. Then, an analysis of different rotation coefficients is used to compare the temperature and pressure inside the cylinder, productivity, and the amount of generated pollution. The results demonstrate that changing the shape of entrance port, which leads to concomitant change in the fluid rotation rate in the chamber, causes a slight change in the output power. But, the change has a significant impact on the production of pollutants.

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In internal combustion engines, the turbocharger and alternative fuels are two important factors affecting engine performance and exhaust emission. In this investigation, a one-dimensional computational fluid dynamics with GT-Power software was used to simulate a six-cylinder turbocharged diesel engine and the naturally aspirated diesel engine to study the performance and exhaust emissions with alternative fuels. The base fuel (diesel), methanol, ethanol, the blend of diesel and ethanol, biodiesel and decane was used. The results showed that decane fuel in the turbocharged engine has more brake power and torque (about 3.86%) compared to the base fuel. Also, the results showed that the turbocharger reduces carbon monoxide and hydrocarbon emissions, and biodiesel fuel has the least amount of carbon monoxide and hydrocarbon among other fuels. At the same time, the lowest NO_X emission was obtained by decane fuel. As a final result can be demonstrated that the decane fuel in the turbocharged engine and the biodiesel fuel in the naturally aspirated engine could be a good alternative ratio to diesel fuel in diesel engines.

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A multi-objective optimization and thermal analysis is performed by both experimental and numerical approaches on a Stirling engine cooler and heater. The power generated is measured experimentally by an electrical engine coupled with the crank case, and the friction is estimated by the difference between the necessary power used for rotating the engine at a specific pressure and speed, versus the actual power measured experimentally. In the experimental approach, different conditions were considered; for example, the charge pressure varied from 5-9 bars, and the engine speed varied from 286-1146 rpm. The maximum power generated was 461.3 W and was reported at 9 bars of charge pressure and 1146 rpm engine speed. Numerical approach was carried to simulate thermal balance for investigations on the effect of friction, engine speed and efficiency on generated engine power. Average values of Nusselt number and coefficient of friction were suggested from simulation results.
The multi-objective optimization was held using DOE method for maximizing engine efficiency and power, and also minimizing pressure drop. The top and bottom boundary values for our optimization were 5-9 bars of pressure and 286-1146 rpm of engine speed; for both helium and carbon dioxide. To do so, all three significance factors (engine speed, efficiency and friction) were given different weights, thus different combinations of weight value was investigated
Amongst different interesting findings, results showed that if the efficiency weight factor changed from 1 to 3, for helium in a specific condition, the optimum engine speed would increase by approximately 30.6 %

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This work investigates the effects of hydrogen addition to compressed natural gas (CNG) on combustion characteristics and emission reduction using a closed cycle simulation with exact geometry of piston and cylinder head. The effect of equivalence ratio on combustion characteristic were investigated using a spark ignition (SI) engine fueled with CNG and addition of 10% _vol, 15% _vol and 20%_vol hydrogen. Two different speed of 1500 and 3000 rpm have considered at full load condition. The modeling includes ECFM combustion model combined with K-ζ-f turbulent modeland has been done by AVL Fire software. Different volume fraction of Hydrogen with different excess air modeled and validated with experimental data. The validation procedure included in-cylinder pressure profile, maximum pressure, angle of maximum pressure, indicated mean effective pressure, and carbon monoxide (CO) emission showing a good agreement with the experimental results. The value of the peak pressure increases by hydrogen addition and it takes place sooner as the hydrogen volume fraction increases. However, the mean effective pressure drops 3.5%, 7% and 15% for HCNG 10, HCNG15 and HCNG20, respectively. CO emission decreases by increasing the hydrogen volume fraction. The results also indicate that hydrogen addition in lean combustion causes more CO reduction compared to the fuel-rich mixtures.

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Due to very low PM and NOx emissions and considerable engine efficiency, dual-fuel combustion mode such as RCCI strategy attracted lots of attention compared to other combustion modes. In this numerical research work, the impacts of direct injection timing and pressure of diesel fuel on performance and level of engine-out emissions in a diesel-butanol RCCI engine was investigated. To simulate the combustion process, a reduced chemical kinetic mechanism, which consists of 349 reactions 76 species was used. The influence of thirty-six various strategies based on two diesel spraying characteristics such as injection pressure (650, 800, 1000, and 1200 bar) and diesel spray timing (300 to 340 CA with 5 CA steps) have been examined. Results indicated that, under the specific operating conditions like 1000-bar spray pressure by direct injection at 45 CA BTDC and the spray angle of 145 degrees, the level of cylinder-out pollutants such as CO (up to 26%), NOx (about 86%), PM (by nearly 71%) and HC (about 17.25%) have been simultaneously reduced. Also, ISFC decreased by about 2.3%, IP increased by about 2.4%, and also ITE improved by nearly 2% compared to the baseline engine operating conditions.

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Diesel engines are the most trusted sources in the transportation industry. They are also widely used in the urban transportation system. Most pollutants are related to these engines. Therefore, it is important to increase the performance and reduce exhaust emissions of these engines. Alternative fuels are key to meeting upcoming targets.
An experimental and numerical study was performed to investigate the effect of diesel fuel and hydrogen addition to diesel fuel from 0 to 30% on performance and exhaust emissions. Also in this research for changing diesel fuel, an indirect injection engine converted to direct injection engine. The simulation study was conducted by Star cd codes and experimental investigation was carried out on a diesel engine (Perkins 1103A-33TG1), three- cylinders, and four-stroke with maximum engine power 72.3hp at 1800 rpm. The results from this study showed that the increase of hydrogen to diesel fuel improves the thermal efficiency, resulting in lower specific fuel consumption. Also, the results showed that adding hydrogen until 30%, the cylinder pressure increase by about 9% and occurred the delay of peak pressure about 8 degrees of a crank angle compared to diesel fuel. The other obtained results in emission with 30%H2+Diesel showed the soot emission reduced 11.3%, HC and CO reduced nearly 36%, but NOx increased by about 8.3% due to high combustion temperature.

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Elastomeric engine mounts are being used in heavy vehicles as well as passenger cars to absorb the vibrations of the engine, carry its weight and reduce its movement while driving. The aim of this research is some studies that have been done to find the components of the elastomeric compound. Moreover, the feasibility study of constructing three different specimens with different percentages of soot and oil has been carried out in order to achieve the desired characteristics in the heavy vehicle engine mount. A rheometric test was then performed to determine the temperature and time of sintering. The tensile strength test has been used to determine the elasticity of the rubber specimens and to achieve high damping coefficients. Also the tensile strength test was performed with the aim of obtaining a specimen with a suitable stress-strain relationship and comparing the results with the reference engine mount. Consequently, the elastomeric compound is used to make the elastomeric engine mount of heavy duty vehicle in the form of rubber and reverse engineering.

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Many efforts have been made to increase power and reduce emissions from internal combustion engines. For this purpose, the internal combustion engine subsystems are examined via many studies, and the effective parameters in each of them are analyzed. One of these subsystems is the air inlet and outlet to the combustion chamber, the most important part of which is the manifold. In the present study, using one-dimensional modeling of the OM457 heavy diesel engine in the GT SUITE software environment, the effect of geometric parameters of cylinder runner’s length - cylinder runner’s transverse distance as well as plenum’s depth on the performance and the emissions of this engine has been investigated. During this study, it was concluded that increasing the volume of the plenum not only improves the engine’s output but also reduces the emission of pollutants produced. Also, increasing the length of the cylinder runner increased the engine power. The change in the transverse distance of the cylinder runners did not have a significant effect on the power and pollutants of the sample engine. It was also observed that in similar geometric changes, the effect of changing the input manifold is significantly greater than the output manifold level.

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In this paper, to address the problem of using displacement sensors in measuring the transverse vibration of engine accessory belt, a novel non-contact method based on machine vision and Mask-RCNN model is proposed. Mask-RCNN model was trained using the videos captured by a high speed camera. The results showed that RCNN model had an accuracy of 93% in detection of the accessory belt during the test. Afterward, the belt curve was obtained by a polynomial regression to obtain its performance parameters. The results showed that normal vibration of the center of the belt was in the range of 2 to 3 mm, but the maximum vibration was 8.7 mm and happened in the engine speed of 4200 rpm. Also, vibration frequency of the belt was obtained 124 Hz. Moreover, the minimum belt oscillation occurred at the beginning point of the belt on the TVD pulley, whereas the maximum oscillation occurred at a point close to the center of the belt at a distance of 16 mm from it. The results show that the proposed method can effectively be used for determination of the transvers vibration of the engine accessory belts, because despite the precise measurement of the belt vibration at any point, can provide the instantaneous position curve of all belt points and the equation of the belt curve at any moment. Useful information such as the belt point having the maximum vibration, belt slope, vibration frequency and scatter band of the belt vibration can be obtained as well.

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In the current study, the hydrogen-addition influence on the performance of an SI engine using a gasoline-ethanol blend is investigated numerically. The simulation and validation of the model are carried out in order to evaluate the engine performance using conventional gasoline (G100) and the blend of gasoline and ethanol (G75E25). Furthermore, the hydrogen is added to the gasoline–ethanol blend (G50E25H25) to improve the engine thermal efficiency and reduce the amount of brake specific fuel consumption (BSFC) which leads to the reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The brake specific carbon dioxide (BSCO₂) is also studied in this paper. Results show that the addition of hydrogen increases the brake power and thermal efficiency, moderates the BSFC, and decreases the maximum temperature of combustion chamber which reduces the production of greenhouse gases as well as BSCO₂. In comparison with pure gasoline, by using G50E25H25, the maximum temperature of in-cylinder gas decreased by 12.55%, 10.82%, and 13.43% at 2000, 4000, and 6000 rpm, respectively. It is also evaluated that the lowest amount of BSCO₂ is related to G50E25H25 in most of the engine speeds. The bio-fuel of G75E25 and pure gasoline are placed in next positions, respectively.

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Due to the complex geometry and thermos-mechanical loading, cylinder heads are the most challenging parts among all parts engines. They must endure cyclic thermal and mechanical loading throughout their lifetime. Cast aluminum alloys are normally quenched after solution treatment process to improve aging responses. Rapid quenching can lead to high residual stress. Residual stress is one of the main reasons for failure of cylinder heads. The effect of residual stress on the thermal stress and low cycle fatigue life (LCF) of cylinder heads was studied. For this goal, Solidworks software was used to model the cylinder heads. Then the thermo-mechanical analysis was performed to determine the temperature and stress field in ANSYS software.  Finally, the fatigue life analysis that considers residual stress effect was done. The results of finite element analysis (FEA) proved that the effect of residual stress in LCF is significant which is not negligible. Thus, residual stress must be considered in the thermo-mechanical fatigue analysis of the engines cylinder heads. The numerical results showed that the area where the maximum temperature and stress is occurred is where the least LCF is predicted.

 

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In this paper, the consensus of second-order nonlinear self-driving vehicle convoys (SDVCs) is studied. We assume that each self-driving vehicle (SDV) communicates only with one front and one rear SDVs. Each SDV’s nonlinear dynamics consisting of the rolling resistance and the air drag force is a function of SDV’s speed and is investigated in SDVC’s modeling and consensus design. Since the speed is bounded, all vehicles’ nonlinearities are also bounded. Due to engine saturation of each SDV, the control input is limited. We involve this limitation by introducing the arctan(.) function to control protocol. The inter-SDV’s distances are assumed to be constant during motion. The distance tracking error associated with each SDV is defined as distance between it and the leading SDV. The error dynamics of the proposed SDVC is derived after applying the consensus law to each SDV. To prove the internal stability, the Lyapunov theorem is employed. We will prove that under this consensus algorithm, the SDVC will be internal stable. To validate the effectiveness of this method, a SDVC comprising a leading and 6 following SDVs will be studied. It will be verified that under the proposed consensus law, all the SDVs reach a unique consensus.

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In this study, feedback neural networks namely Elman and Jordan are used for prediction of exhaust valve temperature for air cooled engines. Input-output data are extracted from an experimental setup including the valve mechanism of an air cooled engine. Inverse heat transfer problem applying the Adjoint problem is used to address the thermal flux through exhaust valve and seat. Elman and Jordan neural networks are used to predict the transient valve temperature using the experimental data. The results show that Elman and Jordan neural networks predicts well the transient exhaust valve temperature. However, Jordan neural network with training algorithm of Gradient Descent with Adaptive Learning Rate performs better with RMSE error of 16.3 for prediction of exhaust valve temperature.
 

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The general public considers auto service operators to be experts in their work, and they use their advice and guidance when changing the oil. Therefore, due to the importance of this issue, during applied research conducted in a mixed (quantitative and qualitative) manner, an attempt was made to identify and prioritize factors affecting the offer of motor oil brands by Iranian auto services using the fuzzy Delphi technique. In terms of the research method, this research is considered descriptive-survey research, and its statistical population includes all the operators of Iranian auto services. The statistical sample of the research consists of 36 Iranian auto service operators who were selected as a cluster from all over Iran. In the following, after collecting data through semi-structured interviews and questionnaires and analyzing the information, it was determined that the engine oil quality factor is the most important in introducing the engine oil brand by the auto services, according to the experts present. Also, after the quality of the engine oil, the two factors of matching the engine oil with the technical specifications of the car and the timely delivery of orders from the manufacturing companies were placed in the second and third ranks of importance, respectively.

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In this article, the effect of the usage of variable speed electric water pump on the cooling system of a type of passenger car engine has been investigated. The engine water circulation in most of today's cars uses a mechanical method, the power required for its circulation is provided by a belt with a ratio of 1:1 from the crankshaft. This action makes the changes of the water pump speed a function of the engine speed and there is no control over it. One way to solve this problem is to use an intelligent thermal management system. In this method, some components of the cooling system, including the electric water pump, are controlled based on the working conditions and engine temperature. In this research, GT Suite and Simulink software were used simultaneously, and for this purpose, the engine cooling circuit with a mechanical water pump was simulated in GT Suite software and the accuracy of laboratory values was verified in terms of heat transfer. Then the mechanical connection of the water pump was disconnected and the water pump circuit was controlled with an electric motor. In the next step, in order to obtain the control pattern, the electric water pump was replaced with the mechanical water pump in the simulation pattern. The results of the software and experimental simulations of the intelligent cooling system showed a 13.4% reduction in engine warm-up time.