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For improving the thermal efficiency and the reduction of hazardous gas emission from IC engines, it is crucial to model the heat transfer phenomenon starting from the intake system and predict the intake air’s mass and temperature as precise as possible. Previously, an empirical equation was constructed using an experimental setup of an intake port model of an ICE, in order to be implemented into an engine control unit and numerical simulation software for heat transfer calculations. The empirical equation was based on the conventional Colburn analogy with the addition of Graetz and Strouhal numbers. Introduced dimensionless numbers were used to characterize the entrance region, and intermittent flow effects, respectively.

In order to get better results in the Formula SAE of Japan, it is necessary to develop a small displacement engine with an ideal fuel consumption rate. Therefore, the authors started to improve an existing engine by combining with glow plug heated sub-chamber and lean burn. Lean burn conditions are usually adopted in gasoline engines, having the advantages of high specific heat ratio, low pump loss, and low cooling loss due to requiring a decreased combustion temperature. The combination of these elements can be expected to vastly improve thermal efficiency and fuel consumption. Unfortunately, however, when the mixture becomes lean, the ignition delay increases, and the flame propagation speed reduces. This leads to an increase in combustion fluctuation. The authors intend to solve this problem by installing a glow plug in a newly designed sub-chamber. This type of device would usually be used to heat the sub-chamber of a diesel engine to solve the cold start problem.

This paper provides the importance of helical coil sub-cooled condenser which has a compact structure, large heat transfer area, and high heat transfer capability in comparison to the straight sub-cooled condenser in the automobile vehicle. The HVAC unit has the largest parasitic load on the engine. Hence, by improving the coefficient of performance of the air-conditioning (A/C) system, the reduction in vehicule emissions is possible. Previous studies explain that there is generation of secondary flow inside the fluid in the circular cross-section of the helical coil. By using the effect of the secondary flow generation, authors tried to enhance the heat transfer rate as it leads to heterogeneous temperature distribution across the periphery of the tube and causes a higher heat transfer. For the purpose of the study, a prototype with a square cross-sectional 2.7 mm × 2.7 mm channel with flat fins towards the outer side has been constructed.

This paper discusses the compact structure, innovative and unique approach of high performance spiral coil sub-cooled condenser for compact power plant/engine applications. The motivation behind this study is to reduce the engine emission by improving the coefficient of performance for air-conditioning unit. Since the air conditioning system is the most power consumption units after the power plant, so it significantly affects the fuel consumption and the hazardous gas emissions. In the air condition cycle, the condenser unit is addressed as one of the important devices, and thus, the author tried to reduce the energy consumption by improving the performance of the condenser. The most advantage points of this study is to use spiral coil sub-cooled condenser, which elaborates the effect of secondary flow generation inside the fluid and is known as the Dean’s effect.

An empirical equation was developed for modeling the heat transfer phenomena taking place in an intake manifold which included the backflow gas effect. In literature, heat transfer phenomenon at intake system is modeled based on steady flow assumptions by Colburn analogy. Previously, authors developed an equation with the introduction of Graetz and Strouhal numbers, using a port model experimental setup. In this study, to further improve the empirical equation, real engine experiments were conducted where pressure ratio between the intake manifold and engine cylinder were added along with Reynolds number to characterize the backflow gas effect on intake air temperature. Compared to the experimental data, maximum and average errors of intake air temperature estimated from the new empirical equation were found to be 2.9% and 0.9%, respectively.

This paper represents the adaptation of turbo charger to single cylinder 450cc SI engine which is used for the student formula competition. The experiment and 1D engine simulation called as GT-Power were performed to confirm the effect of valve profile, compression ratio and air fuel ratio on the engine performance under the naturally aspirated condition. The maximum valve lift of the intake valves increased 27% and that of the exhaust valves increased 15% as compared with the low profile cam. The compression ratio was increased from 12.3 to 13.5 by changing the piston top land length in order to improve the thermal efficiency. It was confirmed that the torque peak was moved from 6000 rpm to 8000 rpm by changing the valve profile. Furthermore, turbo charger was adapted to the engine as changing the capacity of the turbocharger, the maximum boost pressure and the air fuel ratio.

For further development of the thermal efficiency of SI engines, the robust control of the air-fuel ratio (A/F) fluctuation is one of the most important technologies, because the A/F is maintained at the theoretical constant value, which causes the increase of the catalytic conversion efficiency and the reduction of pollutant emission. We developed the robust controller of the A/F, which is the method to change the fuel injection rate by using the feed-forward (FF) controller considering the heat transfer at the intake system. The FF controller was verified under transient driving conditions for a single cylinder, and the A/F fluctuations were reduced at approximately 84%.