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Air quality improvement, especially in urban areas, is one of the major concerns for the coming years. For this reason, car manufacturers, equipment manufacturers and refiners have been exploring development avenues to comply with increasingly severe anti-pollution requirements. In such a context, the identification of the most promising improvement options is essential. A research program, carried out by IFP (Institut Français du Pétrole), and supported by FSH (Fonds de Soutien aux Hydrocarbures), IFP, PSA-Peugeot-Citroën, Renault and Renault VI (Véhicules Industriels), has been built to study this point. It is a four years programme with different steps which will focus on new engine technologies: some of them are going to be marketed very soon (gasoline direct injection car engine, and diesel common rail injection car and truck engines) to anticipate the Euro 3 (2000) and the Euro 4 (2005) emissions specifications. The original work reported here is part of this research.

Complying with emissions legislation presents ever increasing challenges for heavy duty diesel engines. These challenges are being met through the use of ever more sophisticated engine hardware. An example of such hardware is common rail fuel injection equipment which gives the flexibility of controlling fuel injection timing, pressure and quantity independently of engine speed and load. However, this greater flexibility increases the complexity of the engine optimisation process. The use of statistical experimental design, mathematical models and genetic algorithm techniques allows efficient and accurate quantification of the trade-offs needed to make sound engineering decisions during the optimisation process.