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Focusing on coastal or inland navigation cities, where emissions from ships are not negligible concerning global ones, the possibility of reducing exhaust gas pollution would have more benefits for public health and air quality. Therefore, in recent years, increasing attention on environmental sustainability is driving the shipbuilding industry towards greener propulsion based on full-electric or hybrid-electric propulsion systems. This work is presented a parallel hybrid system composed of two electric motors, one internal combustion engine, and lithium battery storage. All motors are coupled to the propeller through a specially designed transmission system based on the High Sliding Gear theory (HSG). The hybrid-electric propulsion system is designed to extender the battery pack durability, ensuring a smooth profile of the required current, through the complementary action of the batteries and the internal combustion engine.

Recently, it has been worth pointing out the relevance of alternative fuels in the improvement of air quality conditions and in the mitigation of global warming. In order to deal with these demands, in recent studies, it has been considered a great variety of alternative fuels. It goes without saying that the alternative fuels industry needs the best of the efficiency with a moderate layout. From this perspective, Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) could represent a valid option, although it is not a renewable fuel. In terms of polluting emissions, the LPG can reduce nitrous oxides and smoke concentrations in the air, a capability that has a relevant importance for the modern pollution legislation. LPG is well known as an alternative fuel for Spark Ignition (SI) engines and, more recently, LPG systems have also been introduced in the Compression Ignition (CI) engines in dual-fuel configuration.

The interest of the vehicle producers in fulfillment emission legislations without adopting after treatment systems is driving to the use of non-conventional energy sources for modern engines. A previous test campaign dealing with the use of blends of diesel and propane in a CI engine has pointed out the potential of this non-conventional fuel for diesel engines. The soft adaptation of the common rail injection system and the potential benefits, in terms of engine performances and pollutant emissions, encourage the use of propane-diesel blends if an optimization of the injection strategies is performed. In this work, the performances of a propane-diesel mixture in a research diesel engine have been investigated. The injection strategies of Euro 5 calibration have been used as reference for the development of optimized strategies. The aim of the optimization process was to ensure the same engine power output and reduce the pollutant emissions.

The paper describes the development of an innovative test rig for the evaluation of e-bikes in terms of energetic performances and control system. The test rig has been realized starting from a commercial cyclist training system and suitably modified. The test rig is able to reproduce an aforethought route or paths acquired during road tests. It is possible to measure the performance of the e-bike in terms of instantaneous power and speed, by the installed sensors and data acquisition system. The experimental test rig can simulate the resistant torque of a predetermined track and it aims to test and to optimize the control strategy available on the electronic control unit (ECU). An important feature of the system is represented by the possibility to adopt a hardware in the loop approach for the testing of the e-bike and of its control. Indeed, the whole control algorithm can be implemented on a suitable controller board able to execute real time processes.

Blends of propane-diesel fuel can be used in direct injection diesel engines to improve the air-fuel mixing and the premixed combustion phase, and to reduce pollutant emissions. The potential benefits of usinf propane in diesel engines are both environmental and economic; furthermore, its use does not require changes to the compression ratio of conventional diesel engines. The present paper describes an experimental investigation of the injection process for different liquid preformed blends of propane-diesel fuel in an optically accessible Common Rail diesel engine. Slight modifications of the injection system were required in order to operate with a blend of propane-diesel fuel. Pure diesel fuel and two propane-diesel mixtures at different mass ratios were tested (20% and 40% in mass of propane named P20 and P40). First, injection in air at ambient temperature and atmospheric pressure were performed to verify the functionality of the modified Common Rail injection system.

Euro 6 European legislation emission limits, expected to be introduced around the 2014 timeframe, Lean NOx Trap (LNT) Aftertreatment technology is today considered one the of candidate technology to allow diesel Engine to meet the future Euro 6 limit. The working principle of the LNT is based on its capability to store the NOx engine out during the normal lean (excess of Oxygen) phase operation condition of the Diesel engine. The NOx will be then reduced in a dedicated regeneration phase which consist in creating for relatively short time a rich exhaust gas condition inside the LNT. The LNT regeneration strategy lead to run a Diesel engine with a rich mixture out of the combustion as a Gasoline engine. This can be obtained using advanced air and fuel management. The fuel management implicate the use of delayed injections (after and/or post injections) which can have a direct impact on oil dilution.

Race internal combustion engines are the result of several years of design made to satisfy the growing demand of high specific power. As a result of this increased specific power demand all of the engine components that require lubrication are exposed to a broader range of more extreme operating conditions. Hence an optimized design of a race engine lubricant circuit is becoming much more important, due to the necessity to have its effectiveness with a rational management of its own energy. In this paper, Authors analyse a motorbike high performance lubrication circuit by a simulation methodology, already used and validated for other high performance engine types. It will be illustrated a simulation model, made by mono-dimensional (1D) code, which allows to study all lubricant circuit behaviour, analyzing parameters that are not easy to evaluate experimentally and that, too often, designers don't take into account during engine development.

With the increase of specific power, in development of modern engines, also the demand on the cooling system has significantly increased. CFD analysis reveals the occurrence of localized boiling, since often the measured temperature distribution cannot be explained by convective heat transfer alone [1]. The requirement for highest heat transfer rates has led to the very promising concept of a controlled transition from pure convection to subcooled boiling in the critical thermal conditions [2]. However, computational fluid dynamics is still unable to represent boiling flow, while any boiling based strategy requires a right prediction of heat transfer rates on the coolant surface inside IC engines. Chen's heat transfer model for boiling region [1, 2, 4, 6] is widely used today, to predict and compare the predicted heat transfer coefficients in circular and rectangular ducts with experimental results.

Lean NOx Trap (LNT) catalysts are capable of reducing exhaust NOx emissions from Diesel engines. NOx is stored on the catalyst substrate during the normal engine operation (lean mixture) and is reduced under rich exhaust condition (rich mixture) during the regeneration event. There are different methods to obtain the rich conditions and one of this is the so called “in cylinder” regeneration. This technique is feasible if the engine is equipped with electronic injection system (i.e. Common Rail system), in fact it is possible to obtain rich Air/Fuel ratios conditions using different injection strategies. Generally, one method to obtain the rich condition for the LNT regeneration consists of additional fuel's injection into the engine cylinders while acting at the same time on EGR and Throttle Valve to reduce the intake air flow.

The modern common rail Diesel engines are normally optimised for being fuelled with the commercial Diesel fuel. Consequently, the ECU calibrations are defined to realize the best compromise between performances and emissions. If the engine is fuelled with an alternative biofuel with different characteristics (net heating value, stoichiometric A/F ratio, density, viscosity, etc.) it is clear that the calibration must be modified. Interest in fuels from renewable sources and their use in transportation has grown over the last decade. This is because of their biodegradability, potential improvements in exhaust emissions and benefits on the virtuous CO2 cycle of the earth. This paper demonstrates that it is possible to optimise emissions and performances of a light duty C.R. Diesel engine fuelled with a vegetable derived fuel (Rapeseed Methyl-Ester) pure or blended with commercial Diesel fuel.

The 1997 Kyoto International Conference Protocol committed industrialized countries to reduce their global emissions of greenhouse gases within the period 2008 2012 by at least 5% with respect to 1990. In view of this and following the European Community directives, the Italian government approved a three-year pilot project to promote the experimental employment of biodiesel. The methyl esters of vegetable oils, known as biodiesel are receiving increasing interest because of their low environmental impact and their potential as an alternative fuel for diesel engines as they would not require any significant modification of existing engines. Consequently, an experimental research program has been developed to evaluate performance and emissions of a Diesel engine fueled with a methyl ester derived from rape seed (Rapeseed Methyl Ester or RME) by changing the composition of the diesel fuel-RME mixture. This program aims to analyze the performance and emissions of a turbocharged D.I.