Jr James McCarthy’s research while affiliated with Eaton and other places

div class="section abstract"> Commercial vehicles require fast aftertreatment heat-up to move the SCR catalyst into the most efficient temperature range to meet upcoming NO_X regulations while minimizing CO₂. The focus of this paper is to identify the technology levers when used independently and also together for the purpose of NO_X and CO₂ reduction toward achieving 2027 emissions levels while remaining CO₂ neutral or better. A series of independent levers including cylinder deactivation, LO-SCR, electric aftertreatment heating and fuel burner technologies were explored. All fell short for meeting the 2027 CARB transient emission targets when used independently. However, the combinations of two of these levers were shown to approach the goal of transient emissions with one configuration meeting the requirement. Finally, the combination of three independent levers were shown to achieve 40% margin for meeting 2027 transient NOx emissions while remaining CO₂ neutral. These independent levers and combinations were also quantified for meeting the new Low Load Cycle. This paper shows which combinations of technologies meets both the transient emission cycles and low load cycles for NOx with adequate margin while also saving CO₂. </div

div class="section abstract"> The commercial vehicle industry continues to move in the direction of improving brake thermal efficiency while meeting more stringent diesel engine emission requirements. This study focused on demonstrating future emissions by using an exhaust burner upstream of a conventional aftertreatment system. This work highlights system results over the low load cycle (LLC) and many other pertinent cycles (Beverage Cycle, and Stay Hot Cycle, New York Bus Cycle). These efforts complement previous works showing system performance over the Heavy-Duty FTP and World Harmonized Transient Cycle (WHTC). The exhaust burner is used to raise and maintain the Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) catalyst at its optimal temperature over these cycles for efficient NO_X reduction. This work showed that tailpipe NO_X is significantly improved over these cycles with the exhaust burner. In certain cases, the improvements resulted in tailpipe NO_X values well below the adopted 2027 LLC NO_X standard of 0.05 g/hp-hr, providing significant margin. In fact, near zero NO_X was measured on some of these cycles, which goes beyond future regulation requirements. However, burner operation on the tested cycles also resulted in a CO₂ increase, indicating that a different burner calibration strategy, or possibly an additional technology, will be needed to achieve lower CO₂ emissions. </div

Low air-flow diesel engine strategies are advantageous during low load operation to maintain temperatures of a warmed-up aftertreatment system (ATS) while reducing fuel consumption and engine-out emissions. This paper presents results at curb idle for internal EGR (iEGR) that demonstrate low airflow and reduced engine-out emissions during fuel-efficient ATS temperature maintenance operation. Internal EGR via reinduction and trapping using negative valve overlap (NVO) are compared to each other, conventional operation and to other low airflow approaches including cylinder deactivation (CDA). At 800 RPM/1.3 bar BMEP (curb idle) iEGR via reinduction enables 200°C engine-out temperature combined with 70% lower NO X , 35% lower fuel consumption, and 40% lower exhaust flow rate than conventional thermal management operation. Internal EGR via trapping using NVO resulted in an engine-out temperature of 185°C, with 56% lower NO X and 25% lower fuel consumption than conventional thermal management operation. Both iEGR strategies have lower engine-out temperatures and higher exhaust flow rates than CDA. No external EGR is required for either iEGR strategy. “iEGR via reinduction” outperforms “iEGR via NVO” as a result of higher open cycle efficiency (via less pumping work) and higher closed-cycle efficiency (via higher specific heat ratio).

Aftertreatment thermal management is critical for regulating emissions in modern diesel engines. Elevated engine-out temperatures and mass flows are effective at increasing the temperature of an aftertreatment system to enable efficient emission reduction. In this effort, experiments and analysis demonstrated that increasing the idle speed, while maintaining the same idle load, enables improved aftertreatment “warm-up” performance with engine-out NOx and particulate matter levels no higher than a state-of-the-art thermal calibration at conventional idle operation (800 rpm and 1.3 bar brake mean effective pressure). Elevated idle speeds of 1000 and 1200 rpm, compared to conventional idle at 800 rpm, realized 31%–51% increase in exhaust flow and 25 °C–40 °C increase in engine-out temperature, respectively. This study also demonstrated additional engine-out temperature benefits at all three idle speeds considered (800, 1000, and 1200 rpm, without compromising the exhaust flow rates or emissions, by modulating the exhaust valve opening timing. Early exhaust valve opening realizes up to ~51% increase in exhaust flow and 50 °C increase in engine-out temperature relative to conventional idle operation by forcing the engine to work harder via an early blowdown of the exhaust gas. This early blowdown of exhaust gas also reduces the time available for particulate matter oxidization, effectively limiting the ability to elevate engine-out temperatures for the early exhaust valve opening strategy. Alternatively, late exhaust valve opening realizes up to ~51% increase in exhaust flow and 91 °C increase in engine-out temperature relative to conventional idle operation by forcing the engine to work harder to pump in-cylinder gases across a smaller exhaust valve opening. In short, this study demonstrates how increased idle speeds, and exhaust valve opening modulation, individually or combined, can be used to significantly increase the “warm-up” rate of an aftertreatment system.

Modern diesel engine aftertreatment systems require elevated temperatures for effective reduction of engine-out emissions. Maintaining elevated aftertreatment temperatures in a fuel-efficient manner is a challenge, especially at low-load engine operation where engine-outlet temperatures are low; therefore, higher engine-outlet temperatures are typically achieved via increased fuel consumption. Previous studies have demonstrated that strategies such as cylinder deactivation (method where there is neither valve motion nor fuel injection in a subset of cylinders, thereby isolating the deactivated cylinders from the gas exchange process) and cylinder cutout (method where there is no fuel injection in a subset of cylinders, implemented with high recirculated gas rates) reduce fuel consumption while elevating engine-outlet temperatures, by reducing the overall airflow through the engine. This article introduces and characterizes “non-fired cylinder ventilation” as alternate means to achieve fuel-efficient aftertreatment thermal management, by reduction of overall airflow through the engine. Fuel injection is deactivated from a subset of cylinders during non-fired cylinder ventilation, and the non-firing cylinders participate in the gas exchange process with the same manifold at a time, thereby reducing the intake-to-exhaust manifold gas exchange through the cylinders. It is demonstrated that non-fired cylinder ventilation shows similar fuel efficiency and thermal management as cylinder deactivation when the valves of the non-firing ventilated cylinders are open by at least 4 mm, due to similar, negligible, gas-exchange losses, while non-fired cylinder ventilation with lower valve lifts enables elevated engine-outlet temperatures with relatively higher fuel consumption than cylinder deactivation. Non-fired cylinder ventilation strategies demonstrate 75 °C higher temperatures at fuel-neutral conditions, and up to 35% fuel savings at similar temperatures, compared to six-cylinder operation.

Approximately 40% of typical heavy-duty vehicle operation occurs at loaded idle during which time conventional diesel engines are unable to maintain aftertreatment component temperatures in a fuel-efficient manner. Fuel economy and thermal management at this condition can be improved via reverse breathing, a novel method in which exhaust gases are recirculated, as needed, from exhaust to intake manifold via one or more cylinders. Resultant airflow reductions increase exhaust gas temperatures and decrease exhaust flow rates, both of which are beneficial for maintaining desirable aftertreatment component temperatures while consuming less fuel via reduced pumping work. Several strategies for implementation of reverse breathing are described in detail and are compared to cylinder deactivation and internal exhaust gas recirculation operation. Experimental data demonstrate 26% fuel consumption savings compared to conventional stay-warm operation, 60 °C improvement in turbine outlet temperature and 28% reduction in exhaust flow compared to conventional best fuel consumption operation at the loaded idle condition (800 r/min, 1.3 bar brake mean effective pressure). The incorporation of reverse breathing to more efficiently maintain desired aftertreatment temperatures during idle conditions is experimentally demonstrated to result in fuel savings of 2% over the heavy-duty federal test procedure drive cycle compared with conventional operation.