Dale Stretch’s research while affiliated with Eaton and other places

Cylinder deactivation has been recently demonstrated to have fuel savings and aftertreatment thermal management benefits at low to moderate loads compared to conventional operation in diesel engines. This study discusses dynamic cylinder activation as an effective variant to fixed diesel engine cylinder deactivation. The set of inactive and active cylinders varies on a cycle-by-cycle basis during dynamic cylinder activation. This enables greater control over forcing frequencies of the engine, thereby allowing the engine to operate away from the drivetrain resonant frequency at all engine speeds, while maintaining similar fuel savings, thermal management, and emission characteristics as fixed cylinder deactivation. Additional benefits of dynamic cylinder activation include a reduction in the consecutive number of cycles a given cylinder is deactivated, and more even cylinder usage. Enablement of engine operation without exciting drivetrain resonant frequencies at similar fuel efficiency and emissions as fixed cylinder deactivation makes dynamic cylinder activation a strong candidate to augment the benefits already demonstrated for fixed cylinder deactivation.

A large fraction of diesel engine tailpipe NOx emissions are emitted before the aftertreatment components reach effective operating temperatures. As a result, it is essential to develop technologies to accelerate initial aftertreatment system warm-up. This study investigates the use of early exhaust valve opening (EEVO) and its combination with negative valve overlap to achieve internal exhaust gas recirculation (iEGR), for aftertreatment thermal management, both at steady state loaded idle operation and over a heavy-duty federal test procedure (HD-FTP) drive cycle. The results demonstrate that implementing EEVO with iEGR during steady state loaded idle conditions enables engine outlet temperatures above 400 °C, and when implemented over the HD-FTP, is expected to result in a 7.9% reduction in tailpipe-out NOx.

Modern on-road diesel engine systems incorporate flexible fuel injection, variable geometry turbocharging, high pressure exhaust gas recirculation, oxidation catalysts, particulate filters, and selective catalytic reduction systems in order to comply with strict tailpipe-out NOx and soot limits. Fuel consuming strategies, including late injections and turbine-based engine exhaust throttling, are typically used to increase turbine-outlet temperature and flow rate in order to reach the aftertreatment component temperatures required for efficient reduction of NOx and soot. The same strategies are used at low load operating conditions to maintain aftertreatment temperatures. This paper demonstrates that cylinder deactivation (CDA) can be used to maintain aftertreatment temperatures in a more fuel-efficient manner through reductions in airflow and pumping work. The incorporation of CDA to maintain desired aftertreatment temperatures during idle conditions is experimentally demonstrated to result in fuel savings of 3.0% over the HD-FTP drive cycle. Implementation of CDA at non-idle portions of the HD-FTP where BMEP is below 3 bar is demonstrated to reduce fuel consumption further by an additional 0.4%, thereby resulting in 3.4% fuel savings over the drive cycle.

Cylinder deactivation can be implemented at low loads in diesel engines to improve efficiency and aftertreatment thermal management through reductions in pumping work and airflow, respectively. The rate of increase of torque/power during diesel engine transients is limited by the engine’s ability to increase the airflow quickly enough to allow sufficient fuel addition to meet the desired torque/power. The reduced airflow during cylinder deactivation needs to be managed properly so as to not slow the torque/power response. This paper demonstrates that it is possible to operate a diesel engine at low loads in cylinder deactivation without compromising its transient torque/power capabilities, a key finding in enabling the practical implementation of cylinder deactivation in diesel engines.