Engineering Commons^™

Spray And Combustion Studies Of High Reactivity Gasoline In Comparison To Diesel Under Advanced Compression Ignition Engine Conditions, Meng Tang

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Gasoline compression ignition (GCI) technology has demonstrated great potentials in improving fuel economy and reducing engine-out NO_x and particulate matter emissions. Development and application of the GCI technology on multi-cylinder engines require both fundamental understandings of the gasoline spray combustion characteristics and accurate numerical tools. Due to the large differences in the thermo-physical and the chemical properties between gasoline and diesel range fuels, differences in the spray combustion characteristics between gasoline and diesel is expected. Reports on the gasoline spray combustion characteristics under conditions relevant to medium to heavy-duty engines are scarce and this dissertation aims to fill in …

The Interaction Of Ignition And In-Cylinder Flow On Flame Kernel Development And Its Impacts On Combustion In An Optically Accessible Direct Injection Engine, Yanyu Wang

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

A significant challenge facing spark-ignited (SI) engines to achieve higher efficiency via highly diluted combustion is the quickly increased combustion instability as the dilution level increases. The flow motion variation has been identified as a dominant factor that introduces combustion variability at highly diluted conditions. However, the detailed mechanism of how the variation in flow motion impacts the flame kernel development and introduces combustion instability is only partially understood. This research investigated the impacts of the in-cylinder flow on variability of the ignition and early flame kernel development in a single cylinder direct-injection spark-ignition (DI-SI) optically accessible engine and accessory …

Control Oriented Modeling Of An Automotive Drivetrain For Anti-Jerk Control, Gurijala Venkat Prithvi Reddy

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Drivability is an important metric during the development of an automobile. Calibration engineers spend a significant amount of time trying to improve the drivability of vehicles for various driving conditions. With an increase in the available computational power in an automobile, novel model-based methods are being implemented for further improving the drivability, while reducing calibration time and effort. Phenomenon known as clunk and shuffle, which are caused due to backlash and compliance in the driveline, are a major cause of issues related to drivability and noise, vibration and harshness (NVH) during tip-in and tip-out scenarios.

This thesis focuses on developing …

Cold Start Analysis And Modeling Of A Direct-Injection Gasoline Engine, Yash Borghate

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

In this thesis, two different works related to cold start of a direct-injection (DI) gasoline engine are shown. First, effect of split injection is studied on engine exhaust temperature and hydrocarbon emissions for cold start conditions. Instead of single injection, two injections are done, one injection during the intake stroke and one injection during the compression stroke. Split injection is known to reduce jet wall wetting, thus reducing the hydrocarbon emissions from engine itself. Further, split injection reduces engine cycle-by-cycle variability with respect to the single injection case. Correlations between start of injection for the injection in the intake stroke …

Video Frame Reduction In Autonomous Vehicles, Gaurav R. Bagwe

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Camera sensors are emerging in many applications such as Smart Buildings and autonomous driving. The Data generated by multiple cameras in a smart building and autonomous driving applications is usually transmitted through an edge box to a cloud terminal. This transmitted information requires a considerable channel bandwidth, which is not available through current communication standards. The report proposes a Camera Sensor Frame Reduction method to decrease the required channel bandwidth for applications such as autonomous driving.

Here, we propose a method that incorporates cross frame similarity measurement method to reduce the redundant frames and decrease the data rate of each …

Modeling And Analysis For Driveline Jerk Control, Prince Lakhani

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

In modern-day automotive industry, automotive manufacturers pay keen attention to driver’s safety and comfort by ensuring good vehicle drivability, feel of acceleration, limiting jerk and noise. The vehicle driveline plays a critical role to meet these criteria. By using high-fidelity simulation tool such as AMESim®, it is now possible to accurately model the vehicle driveline to be tested for different scenarios. With Simulink®, one can develop an efficient torque-based control system to limit the driveline oscillations and the generated noise. So, a joint simulation is used which provides a platform to evaluate the estimators and control system while considering the …

Study Of Obstacle Effect On The Gpsr Protocol And A Novel Intelligent Greedy Routing Protocol For Vanets, Ravikumar Chilmula

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

In recent years, connected vehicle technologies have been developed by automotive companies, academia, and researchers as part of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). This group of stakeholders continue to work on these technologies to make them as reliable and cost-effective as possible. This attention is because of the increasing connected vehicles safety-related, entertainment, and traffic management applications, which have the potential to decrease the number of road accidents, save fuel and time for millions of daily commuters worldwide.

Vehicular Ad-Hoc Network (VANET), which is a subgroup of Mobile Ad-Hoc Network (MANET), is being developed and implemented in vehicles as the critical …

Distributed Control System For Parallel-Connected Dc Boost Converters, Steven Goldsmith

Michigan Tech Patents

The disclosed invention is a distributed control system for operating a DC bus fed by disparate DC power sources that service a known or unknown load. The voltage sources vary in v-i characteristics and have time-varying, maximum supply capacities. Each source is connected to the bus via a boost converter, which may have different dynamic characteristics and power transfer capacities, but are controlled through PWM. The invention tracks the time-varying power sources and apportions their power contribution while maintaining the DC bus voltage within the specifications. A central digital controller solves the steady-state system for the optimal duty cycle settings …

Wire Neutralization System, Scott A. Bradley, Jason Wiitanen, Timothy B. Smigowski, John T. Niemeyer, Andrew Culkin

Michigan Tech Patents

A wire neutralizing system for use with a vehicle including a frame adapted to be hitched to a vehicle. At least one wheel supports the frame while a bottom of the wheel rolls over terrain having buried wires. The system also includes a blade movable between a stowed position in which the blade is above the bottom of the wheel and a deployed position in which the blade is below the bottom of the wheel, such that the blade plows through the terrain to disable buried wires when in the deployed position.

Model-Based Control Of Hybrid Electric Powertrains Integrated With Low Temperature Combustion Engines, Ali Soloukmofrad

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Powertrain electrification including hybridizing advanced combustion engines is a viable cost-effective solution to improve fuel economy of vehicles. This will provide opportunity for narrow-range high-efficiency combustion regimes to be able to operate and consequently improve vehicle’s fuel conversion efficiency, compared to conventional hybrid electric vehicles (HEV)s. Low temperature combustion (LTC) engines offer the highest peak brake thermal efficiency reported in literature, but these engines have narrow operating range. In addition, LTC engines have ultra-low soot and nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions, compared to conventional compression ignition and spark ignition (SI) engines. This dissertation concentrates on integrating the LTC engines (i) in …

Easily Verifiable Controller Design With Application To Automotive Powertrains, Mohammad Reza Amini

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Bridging the gap between designed and implemented model-based controllers is a major challenge in the design cycle of industrial controllers. This gap is mainly created due to (i) digital implementation of controller software that introduces sampling and quantization imprecisions via analog-to-digital conversion (ADC), and (ii) uncertainties in the modeled plant’s dynamics, which directly propagate through the controller structure. The failure to identify and handle these implementation and model uncertainties results in undesirable controller performance and costly iterative loops for completing the controller verification and validation (V&V) process.

This PhD dissertation develops a novel theoretical framework to design controllers that are …

Development Of A High-Fidelity Model And Kalman Filter Based State Estimator For Simulation And Control Of Nox Reduction Performance Of A Scr Catalyst On A Dpf, Venkata Rajesh Chundru

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Reduction of emissions and improving the fuel consumption are two prime research areas in Diesel engine development. The present after-treatment systems being used for emissions control include diesel oxidation catalyst (DOC) for NO, HC and CO oxidation along with catalyzed particulate filters for PM (particulate matter) and selective catalytic reduction (SCR) for controlling NOx emissions. Recently an after-treatment system called SCR catalyst on a DPF capable of simultaneously reducing both NOx and PM emissions has been developed in order to reduce the overall size of the after-treatment system.

The goal of this proposed research is to create a state estimator …

Effect Of Spark Advance And Fuel On Knocking Tendency Of Spark Ignited Engine, Abhay S. Joshi

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Knock, in spark ignition engine is the combustion caused by the autoignition of the fuel-air mixture. It is the phenomenon that limits engine performance and thermal efficiency. Knock also has an adverse effect on emissions and fuel economy. Engine designers target engines with maximum power and torque output without compromising on fuel economy. Engine downsizing is the method generally adopted. The main goal of engine downsizing is to achieve better fuel economy while increasing the power and torque output of the engine. Better fuel economy is achieved by reducing the displaced volume which in turn means a much higher brake …

Simulation Study On Effect Of Gas Charging And Egr In A Dual-Fuel Engine, Satyavenkata Naga Sai Sharath Gorthy

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Natural gas combined with diesel as micro pilot has the capabilities of achieving lower NOx and soot emissions. Optimization of the combustion process in engines with natural gas and diesel micro-pilot is essential to achieve higher efficiencies and loads. Gas charging (intake air boosting) and EGR are two technologies which when implemented in the natural gas-diesel engines, provide the opportunity to achieve higher efficiencies and loads and low emissions. Simulation study is one of the approaches to investigate the extent and effects of gas charging and EGR on the performance of the engine. With the rapid improvements over the past …

An Optimal Energy Management Strategy For Hybrid Electric Vehicles, Amir Rezaei

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEVs) are used to overcome the short-range and long charging time problems of purely electric vehicles. HEVs have at least two power sources. Therefore, the Energy Management (EM) strategy for dividing the driver requested power between the available power sources plays an important role in achieving good HEV performance.

This work, proposes a novel real-time EM strategy for HEVs which is named ECMS-CESO. ECMS-CESO is based on the Equivalent Consumption Minimization Strategy (ECMS) and is designed to Catch Energy Saving Opportunities (CESO) while operating the vehicle. ECMS-CESO is an instantaneous optimal controller, i. e., it does not …

Integration And Testing Of An Advanced Conformable Cng Tank In A Full-Sized Light-Duty Pickup, Abayomi Famuyiwa

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Michigan Technological University is collaborating with Southwestern Energy and REL Inc. to develop and integrate a compressed natural gas (CNG) matrix tank that enables efficient packaging, increases range, and reduced cost for CNG vehicle applications. The vehicle being used in this project is a light-duty pickup truck to take advantage of the open space underneath the body and bed of the vehicle. With today’s cylindrical CNG tanks consuming cargo space, a solution is to develop a tank capable of being shaping to the underbody of the truck to free cargo space. University faculty and graduate students utilizes Finite Element Analysis …

Modeling, Simulation And Control Of Hybrid Electric Vehicle Drive While Minimizing Energy Input Requirements Using Optimized Gear Ratios, Sanjai Massey

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

This project was conducted to analyze (model and simulate) and optimize an electric motor based drive system to propel a typical passenger vehicle in an urban driving environment. Although there are many HEV and EV type systems on the market today, this paper chose the Toyota Prius HEV system as a baseline using a brushless AC motor.

Although a vehicle can be driven many ways, a more standardized Urban Dynamometer Driving Schedule, UDDS, was chosen to simulate real driving conditions. This schedule is determined by the US Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, and is intended to represent the city driving conditions …

An Experimental Investigation Of The Effect Of Temperature And Space Velocity On The Performance Of A Cu-Zeolite Flow-Through Scr And A Scr Catalyst On A Dpf With And Without Pm Loading, Vaibhav Kadam

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Abstract The heavy-duty diesel (HDD) engines use the diesel oxidation catalyst (DOC), catalyzed particulate filter (CPF) and urea injection based selective catalytic reduction (SCR) systems in sequential combination, to meet the US EPA 2010 PM and NOₓ emission standards. The SCR along with a NH₃ slip control catalyst (AMOX) offer NOₓ reduction >90 % with NH₃ slipHowever, there is a strong desire to further improve the NOₓ reduction performance of such systems, to meet the California Optional Low NOₓ Standard implemented since 2015. Integrating SCR functionality into a diesel particulate filter (DPF), by coating the SCR catalyst on the DPF, …

Restraint System Design And Evaluation For Military Specific Applications, Sebastian Karwaczynski

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

This research focuses on designing an optimal restraint system for usage in a military vehicle applications. The designed restraint system must accommodate a wide range of DHM’s and ATD’s with and without PPE such as: helmet, boots, and body armor. The evaluation of the restraint systems were conducted in a simulated vehicle environment, which was utilized to downselect the ideal restraint system for this program.

In December of 2011 the OCP TECD program was formulated to increase occupant protection. To do this, 3D computer models were created to accommodate the entire Soldier population in the Army. These models included the …

Design Of Real-Time Combustion Feedback System And Experimental Study Of An Rcci Engine For Control, Jayant Kumar Arora

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Premixed compression ignition (PCI) technologies offer high efficiency and low emissions but are usually confined by limited operation range as well as high pressure rise and heat release rate. In this work, a more recently developed PCI mode is explored where in-cylinder blending of two fuels with different auto-ignition characteristics (diesel and gasoline) is utilized to create reactivity stratification such that heat release rate and combustion timing can be controlled. This mode has been defined as Reactivity Controlled Compression Ignition (RCCI).

As part of this thesis, the main aim is to study various parameters that can be used to control …

An Experimental Investigation Into The Effect Of Particulate Matter On Nox Reduction In A Scr Catalyst On A Dpf, Saksham Gupta

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The study of NO_x reduction across the SCRF^® is presented in this report to understand the inlet and outlet NO, NO₂, NH₃ species from the SCRF^®. The SCRF^® is a prototype SCR catalyst on a Diesel Particulate Filter (DPF) that reduces NOx and PM at the downstream location. The SCRF^® reduces the packaging volume of the aftertreatment components in order to reduce the cost, volume and weight of the aftertreatment system. A total of 12 experiments were performed on a Cummins ISB 2013 280 hp engine and the aftertreatment system. The …

Design, Fabrication And Analysis Of An Auxiliary Power Unit On A Heavy-Duty Truck To Power The Hvac Systems Of The Truck During Driver Off-Duty Conditions, Rohan Milind Kalurkar

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Currently, one of the biggest challenges the world is facing is energy insufficiency. One of the contributors to energy consumption in United States are the idling semi-trailer trucks. In May 2001, President Bush issued The National Energy Policy in which he directed The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Department of Transportation (DOT) to reduce the idling of trucks. This was done in order to reduce energy consumption by lowering fuel consumption and emissions coming out of semi-trailer trucks in the United States of America.

This project deals with the efforts of installing an Auxiliary Power Unit (APU) as a device …

Design And Fabrication Of A Suspension Rig, Abhijith Geo Philip

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Owing to its placement under the vehicle body, the suspension system is one of the parts of the vehicle which are difficult to comprehend completely, albeit being a vital component. For demonstrating the working of a suspension system, a physical model in which one can actually see the movement of all the components would be a great tool. A Mustang II independent front suspension system was purchased from Heidts Engineering Performance and a rig that can emulate some of the real world situations of vehicle suspension action was designed and fabricated. All the components are accessible and conditions like bounce, …

Experimental Study, Modelling And Controller Design For An Rcci Engine, Naga Nithin Teja Kondipati

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Low Temperature Combustion (LTC) has got widespread attention over the past two decades in the field of Automotive Research and Development due to it’s potential for achieving higher efficiencies with near-zero engine out NOx and soot emissions. Among all the LTC strategies Reactivity controlled compression ignition (RCCI) has shown the most promising results due to it’s precise control over combustion phasing and heat release rate. However, RCCI being a dual-fuel stratified combustion, precise control over the injection timing of direct injected fuel and in-cylinder fuel reactivity of the mixture needs to be controlled effectively in order to achieve gross indicated …

Competition Vehicle Based Intake Manifold Design, Joshua N. Matiash

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

A competitive vehicle in Formula SAE needs to be easy for unskilled drivers to extract the maximum performance from. This requires a predictable and manageable torque curve. This report details the development of an intake manifold for a Formula SAE car from a vehicle-based approach to produce this manageable and predictable torque. The current vehicle was instrumented and driven on a representative track to determine the usage of available torque. Based on these findings an ideal torque curve was chosen that favored increased torque at upper engine speed ranges and decreased torque at lower engine speed ranges. A 1-D engine …

Map-Aware Adaptive Automotive Radar, Jae Seung Lee, Nikola Steven Subotic, James Paul Ebling, Helen Kourous-Harrigan

Michigan Tech Patents

A dedicated short range radar system is provided for use with a GPS system. The radar system includes a transmitter which transmits a microwave radio signal. A receiver is coupled to a horizontally scanning receiver antenna array which receives an echo, if present, from the radio signal transmitted by the transmitter. The radio receiver then generates an output signal representative of the echo. A control circuit then receives the output signal from the antenna array as well as the output signal from the GPS system. The control circuit then varies the mode of operation of the receiver and/or the transmitter …

High Resolution Doppler Collision Avoidance Radar, Jae Seung Lee, Paul Donald Schmalenberg, Nikola Steven Subotic, James Paul Ebling

Michigan Tech Patents

An example radar apparatus has a transmission frequency modulated by a chirp waveform having three chirp segments, including increasing, decreasing, and a constant frequency segments. The chirp waveform may extend over the full revisit time of the radar beam. The frequency difference between the transmitted and echo signals are determined at least once per chirp segment. Example apparatus include a Doppler radar for vehicle use.

Modeling And Analysis Of Reactivity Controlled Compression Ignition (Rcci) Combustion, Mohammadreza Nazemi

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) and Premixed Charge Compression Ignition (PCCI) combustion strategies are promising methods for achieving low engine-out NOx and soot emissions as well as high indicated efficiency. However, these combustion strategies have difficulties with controlling the rate of heat release and lack of an adequate combustion phasing control mechanism. A dual-fuel Reactivity Controlled Compression Ignition (RCCI) combustion strategy will address these issues due to the existence of precise means for controlling the heat release rate and combustion phasing. In the RCCI strategy two fuels with different reactivity (auto-ignition characteristics, e.g., gasoline and diesel) are blended inside the …

Design And Implementation Of A Mobile Test Cell, Timothy J. Okkema

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

In this thesis, a modular powertrain mounting and instrumentation system is developed to increase engine testing efficiency in the Michigan Technological University Mobile Laboratory (Mobile Lab). This method is specifically designed for use in an on-the-road application with limited space where traditional engine test cell designs are not practical. This system is made to be robust, but simple enough that it can easily be built by future powertrain test engineers. In addition, a wall mounted diesel system was developed to provide common rail injection pressures to add the ability for conversion of mechanical injected diesel engines. And finally, an engine …

A Quantitative Investigation Of The Water Condensation Inside Tubes Of Compact Charge Air Cooler, Robin Cash

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

To address the need of increasing fuel economy requirements, automotive Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) are increasing the number of turbocharged engines in their powertrain line-ups. The turbine-driven technology uses a forced induction device, which increases engine performance by increasing the density of the air charge being drawn into the cylinder. Denser air allows more fuel to be introduced into the combustion chamber, thus increasing engine performance. During the compression process, the air is heated to temperatures that can cause pre-ignition, resulting in reduced engine functionality. The introduction of the charge air cooler (CAC) is therefore, necessary to extract heat from …