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In the diagnosis of membrane flooding and drying faults in a Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC) through Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS), this paper proposes a Genetic Algorithm (GA)-based feature selection method for selecting the required frequency points of failure, to reduce the measurement time taken by EIS while ensuring high diagnostic accuracy. This feature selection method searches the feature space through GA and proposes an encoding method tailored to this problem. During the searching process, three algorithms, i.e., Backpropagation Neural Network (BPNN), K-Nearest Neighbor (KNN), and eXtreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost), are used to extract various features and select higher diagnostic rates of feature frequencies.

Engine operation produces particles that contaminate the lubricating oil and can damage the engine's internal components. This paper presents a model for a three-coil inductive metal particle sensor and verifies the rationality and accuracy of the model by simulating the motion of a single spherical iron particle passing through the sensor. On this basis, the simulation of coupling double particles with different sizes, distances, and shapes is carried out. The study explores the influence of particle motion on the sensor-induced signal under various conditions. The research shows that when two particles pass through the sensor, the induced voltage signal will produce superposition when the distance between the two particles is small. The peak value of the induced voltage is 1-2 times the peak value of the induced voltage of a single particle. As the distance increases, the peak value of the induced voltage initially decreases, then slowly increases, and finally stabilizes.

Low combustion efficiency and high hydrocarbon emissions at low loads are key issues of natural gas and diesel (NG-diesel) dual fuel engines. For better engine performance, two diesel-spray-orientated (DSO) bowls were developed based on the existing diesel injector of a heavy-duty diesel engine with the purpose of placing more combustible natural gas/air mixture around the diesel spray jets. A protrusion-ring was designed at the rim of the piston bowl to enhance the in-cylinder flame propagation. Numerical simulations were conducted for a whole engine cycle at engine speed of 1200 r/min and indicated mean effective pressure (IMEP) of 0.6 MPa. Extended coherent flame model 3 zones (ECFM-3Z) combustion model with built-in soot emissions model was employed. Simulation results of the original piston bowl agreed well with the experimental data, including in-cylinder pressure and heat released rate (HRR), as well as soot and methane emissions.

In this paper, the differences between multi-hole and single-hole spray contour under the same conditions were compared by using high-speed photography. The difference between the contour area of multi-hole and that of single-hole spray was used as a parameter to describe the degree of spray collapse. Three dimensionless parameters (i.e. degree of superheat, degree of undercooling, and nozzle pressure ratio) were applied to characterize inside-nozzle thermodynamic, outside-nozzle thermodynamic and kinetic factors, respectively. In addition, the relationship between the three dimensionless parameters and the spray collapse was analyzed. A semi-empirical equation was proposed for evaluation of the degree of collapse based on dimensionless parameters of flash and non-flash boiling sprays respectively.

To satisfy the latest emission standards, the use of advanced technologies such as exhaust gas recirculation, diesel particulate filter, and complicated injection strategies are increasing in modern diesel engines. However, some of these complicated technologies may cause soot and diesel fuel to enter the engine oil during engine operation and ultimately affect oil performance. Once the soot and diesel fuel content is beyond a certain level, the engine oil should be changed to guarantee adequate lubrication. Thus, a proper method of monitoring oil condition is required. It is well known that soot and diesel fuel affect oil permittivity and viscosity significantly. Thus, in this study, a new method to monitor oil quality is proposed by measuring the dielectric constant and oil viscosity. Carbon black was used as the substitute for soot and was mixed with diesel fuel at different ratios. Both the dielectric constant and oil viscosity increase as soot content increases.

In this research, propane flash boiling sprays discharged from a five-hole gasoline direct injector were studied in a constant volume vessel. The fuel temperature (Tfuel) ranged from 30 °C to 90 °C, and the ambient pressure (Pamb) varied from 0.05 bar to 11.0 bar. Different flash boiling spray behavior compared to that under sub-atmospheric conditions was found at high Pamb. Specifically, at the sub-atmospheric pressures, the individual flashing jets merged into one single jet due to the strong spray collapse. In contrast, at Pamb above 3.0 bar and Tfuel above 50 °C, the spray collapse was mitigated and the flashing jets were separated from each other. Further analyses revealed that the mitigation of spray collapse at high Pamb was ascribed to the suppression of jet expansion. In addition, it was found that the spray structure was much different at similar Rp, indicating that Rp lacked the generality in describing the structure of flash boiling sprays.

In order to meet increasingly stringent fuel consumption and emission regulations, more attentions are paid to improve engine efficiency. A large amount of energy-saving technologies have been applied in automotive field especially in gasoline engines. It is well known that lean burn and ultra-high compression ratio technologies are two basic and important methods to increase efficiency. In this paper, a rapid compression machine was employed to study combustion process of lean iso-octane mixture at ultra-high compression ratios (16 to 19:1). Regardless of flammability of the mixture, spark was triggered at the timing right after the end of compression, then, the flame propagation and/or auto-ignition can be recorded using high-speed photography simultaneously. The effects of equivalence ratio (φ), compression ratio (ε), dilution ratio, and effective temperature (Teff) on the combustion process was investigated.

Natural gas is one of the promising alternative fuels due to the low cost, worldwide availability, high knock resistance and low carbon content. Ignition quality is a key factor influencing the combustion performance in natural gas engines. In this study, the effect of pre-chamber geometry on the ignition process and flame propagation was studied under varied initial mixture temperatures and equivalence ratios. The pre-chambers with orifices in different shapes (circular and slit) were investigated. Schlieren method was adopted to acquire the flame propagation. The results show that under the same cross-section area, the slit pre-chamber can accelerate the flame propagation in the early stages. In the most of the cases, the penetration length of the flame jet and flame area development are higher in the early stages of combustion.