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Particulate Matter (PM) is one of the world’s most problematic pollutants in terms of harm to environment and human health. It has been found out that PM emission levels are very high during traffic congestion and thus, PM is considered as the primary pollutants in city areas. Many literatures suggested that PM emitted during braking sequence from both internal combustion engines and electrified vehicles are considered high and could be the major cause of this issue. Many studies regarding to PM from brake wear were done in the pin disc laboratory setup with a brake dynamometer that might not represent real-world driving scenarios. Various studies of on road non-exhaust PM measurement were mostly focused on driving cycles. Parametric studies to identifying factors that affect brake wear during real-world driving scenarios are still needed for more investigations.

The diesel dual fuel engine emits CH4 in the exhaust gas. This makes the exhaust gas more difficult to treat comparing to the exhaust gas from the conventional engine since CH4 requires high exhaust temperature to oxidize. In addition, another parameter such as exhaust flow rate, specie concentrations, especially CO, C3H8, and H2O have tremendous impact on Diesel Oxidation Catalyst performance on reducing CH4. This research is aimed to propose a kinetic model based on Langmuir Hinshelwood mechanisms that includes several terms such as CH4, C3H8, CO, O2, and H2O concentrations in order to gain a better understanding on the catalytic reaction and to provide a simulation with an accurate prediction. The model’s kinetic parameters are determined from the experiment by using synthetic gas. The composition of synthetic gas is simulated to be similar to the real exhaust gas from diesel dual fuel engines.

Towards the effort of using natural gas as an alternative fuel for a diesel engine, the concept of Diesel Dual Fuel (DDF) engine has been shown as a strong candidate. Typically, DDF's engine-out emission species such as soot and nitrogen oxides are decreased while carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons are increased. The aftertreatment system is required in order to reduce these pollutant emissions from DDF engines. Additionally, DDF engine exhaust has a wide temperature span and is rich in oxygen, which makes HC emissions, especially methane (CH₄), difficult to treat. Until now, it is widely accepted that the key parameter influencing methane oxidation in a catalytic converter is high exhaust temperature. However, a comprehensive understanding of what variables in real DDF engine exhausts most influencing a catalytic converter performance are yet to be explored.

The current study examined diesel dual fuel (DDF) operations in a four-cylinder turbocharged diesel engine under low load conditions. Experiments were performed to investigate effects of diesel injection timings and exhaust valve timing advance for DDF operations under high levels of natural gas utilization. Results showed that diesel injection timings played an important role in DDF combustion. Increasing the ratio of natural gas to total fuel resulted in greater amounts of HC and CO emissions. Advancing the exhaust valve timing increased the internal EGR, raised the in-cylinder temperature at IVC, and improved the combustion efficiency. To maximize the ratio of natural gas to total fuel, a combination of proper exhaust valve timing advance and a tuned timing of diesel injection should be employed to avoid excessive HC and CO emissions.

In the skyrocketing fuel price situation, using natural gas by means of a diesel dual fuel (DDF) conversion technique is a promising technology as it is flexible for diesel trucks. However, DDF engines suffer from low engine efficiency and poor emission characteristics at low-to-medium load operations. In this study, two DDF concepts were proposed by using five operating parameters including 1) the number of injection pulses, 2) duration of each injection pulse, 3) injection timing, 4) throttle position, and 5) EGR. The first three parameters were varied in the first concept whereas all parameters were varied in the second one. Results from these two DDF conversion concepts were compared to the simple conversion where the operating parameters for diesel injections were fixed by the standard ECU of the OEM. At light load (2000 rpm, 3.1-bar IMEP), the brake efficiencies in the first and the second concepts were improved from the simple conversion by 21% and 35%, respectively.

Despite promising future, the diesel-dual-fuel engine, with diesel as pilot and natural gas as main, abounds with challenges from high NOx emission and knock especially at high speed and low load. To cope with these challenges, variation of common-rail pressure provides another desirable degree of freedom. Nevertheless, crippling with complicated dynamics, pressure wave inside the transporting rail, disturbance from varying of injections, engine speed variation, and actuator limitation, common-rail pressure control has relied on the simple PID to deliver only marginally satisfactory result. Some attempts to achieve better control have resulted in either too complicated or not too robust control system. We devise a controller from the quantitative feedback theory.

Diesel Dual Fuel (DDF) operation is a promising alternative engine operating mode. Previous research studies have reported a DDF engine operating under low load conditions suffers from high HC emissions, mostly Methane. The current study investigated the use of a multiple direct injection strategy for improvement of low-load DDF operation in a commonrail direct injection single-cylinder diesel engine. Natural gas was supplied at 70% of energy replacement ratio. Results indicated that depending on engine conditions, a double-pulse injection had potential for combustion control and provided an effective way to reduce NOx and methane emissions. Moreover, the double-pulse injection helped improve the combustion stability, reduce the pressure rise rate, and decrease the maximum cylinder pressure, compared to DDF operation with a single pulse injection.

The diesel/natural gas engine configuration provides a potential alternative solution for PM and NOx emissions reduction from typical diesel engine operations. However, their engine operations suffer from high NMHC/methane emissions and poor engine performance, especially at light loads. By increasing the diesel pilot quantity, the performance and reduction of NMHC/methane emissions can be improved but the emission levels are still very high. Clearly, a typical DOC is not good enough to treat NMHC/methane emissions. Methane has been known as one of most stable species that is difficult to catalytically oxidize in lean burn environment and low exhaust temperatures. An aftertreatment system exclusively designed for treating methane emissions from DDF operations is therefore necessary. The current work is aimed to establish an effective computational tool in order to study the newly proposed catalytic converter system concept on treating methane from DDF operations.

This computational study compares predictions and experimental results for the use of direct injected iso-octane fuel during the negative valve overlap (NVO) period to achieve HCCI combustion. The total fuel injection was altered in two ways. First the pre-DI percent, (the ratio of direct injected fuel during the NVO period “pre-DI” to the secondary fuel supplied at the intake manifold “PI”), was varied at a fixed pre-DI injection timing, Secondly the timing of the pre-DI injection was varied while all of the fuel was supplied during the NVO period. A multi-zone, two-dimensional CFD simulation with chemistry was performed using KIVA-3V release 2 implemented with the CHEMKIN solver. The simulations were performed during the NVO period only.

A single cylinder Yamaha research engine was operated with gasoline HCCI combustion using negative valve overlap (NVO). The injection strategy for this study involved using fuel injected directly into the cylinder during the NVO period (pre-DI) along with a secondary injection either in the intake port (PI) or directly into the cylinder (DI). The effects of timing of the pre-DI injection along with the percent of fuel injected during the pre-DI injection were studied in two sets of experiments using secondary PI and DI injections in separate experiments. Results have shown that by varying the pre-DI timing and pre-DI percent the main HCCI combustion timing can be influenced as a result of varied heat release during the negative valve overlap period along with hypothesized varied degrees of reformation of the pre-DI injected fuel. In addition to varying the main combustion timing the ISFC, emissions and combustion stability are all influenced by changes in pre-DI timing and percent.

A single cylinder CFR research engine has been run in HCCI combustion mode at the rich and the lean limits of the homogeneous charge operating range. To achieve a variation of the degree of charge stratification, two GDI injectors were installed: one was used for generating a homogeneous mixture in the intake system, and the other was mounted directly into the side of the combustion chamber. At the lean limit of the operating range, stratification showed a tremendous improvement in IMEP and emissions. At the rich limit, however, the stratification was limited by the high-pressure rise rate and high CO and NOx emissions. In this experiment the location of the DI injector was in such a position that the operating range that could be investigated was limited due to liquid fuel impingement onto the piston and liner.

A single cylinder CFR research engine has been run in HCCI combustion mode for a range of temperatures and fuel compositions. The data indicate that the best HCCI operation, as measured by a combination of successful combustion with low ISFC, occurs at or near the rich limit of operation. Analysis of the pressure and heat release histories indicated the presence, or absence, and impact of the fuel's NTC ignition behavior on establishing successful HCCI operation. The auto-ignition trends observed were in complete agreement with previous results found in the literature. Furthermore, analysis of the importance of the fuel's octane sensitivity, through assessment of an octane index, successfully explained the changes in the fuels auto-ignition tendency with changes in engine operating conditions.

A series of engine experiments have been performed to explore the impact intake temperature, engine speed and fuel composition on the HCCI operating range of a CFR engine. The experimental matrix covers a range of engine speeds 600 - 2000 RPM), intake temperatures (300 K - 400 K), and four different fuels. Three of the fuels had different chemical composition but had equivalent research octane numbers of 91.8. The fourth fuel, a blend of primary reference fuels had a research octane number of 70. The acceptable HCCI operating range of the engine was defined through two criteria; the rate of pressure rise needed to be less than 10 MPa per crank angle and the covariance of the indicated mean effective pressure needed to be less than 10 percent. Using these limits the HCCI operating range for the engine was evaluated for the experimental matrix. Data for emissions, and fuel consumption as well as in-cylinder pressure were recorded.