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The vehicle emissions testing programme was conducted by the UK Department of Transport in 2016 in response to emissions tampering exposed in the Volkswagen (VW) emissions scandal. The programme identified large emissions discrepancies between real-world and in-lab testing across a range of Euro 5 and Euro 6 diesel passenger vehicles. The large vehicle test fleet reflects the current challenges faced in controlling vehicle emissions. This paper presents the following findings: NO x emissions are altered due to exhaust gas recirculation mismanagement. A new Real-Life Emissions methodology is introduced to improve upon the current Real Driving Emissions standard. A large and concerning emissions divergence was discovered between the achieved NO x improvement and deterioration of CO 2 . The findings act as catalysts to improve vehicle emissions testing beyond standards established since the VW scandal, aiding in the development of better climate change mitigation strategies and bring tangible air quality improvements to the environment.

In industrial applications, radial or mixed-flow turbines are frequently used in energy recovery systems, small turbines for producing power, and turbochargers. The implementation of radial or mixed-flow turbines helps to maintain high efficiency at a large range of pressure ratios by reducing the overall turbine losses and secondary flow losses. Numerous findings on secondary flow development research adopting double-entry turbines can be obtained in the public domain, except asymmetric volute, which is less well-researched. The focus of the present work is to investigate the evolution of secondary flows and their losses in a mixed-flow turbine used in an asymmetric volute turbine, by employing an experimentally validated three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD). The flow topology is analyzed to explain the formation and evolution of flow separations at the pressure, suction, and hub surfaces. As the opening angle of the nozzle vane increases, the incidence angle falls into the positive range while the maximum pressure difference between the shroud and hub decreases by about 40%. The results also show that the development of secondary flow accounts for the majority of losses and induced the centrifugal pressure head influence. The presence of symmetric nozzle vanes in both large and small scrolls is also found to have a significant detrimental effect on the turbine efficiency, which is 4% lower than the nozzleless case. Furthermore, significant flow separation is observed in the symmetrical nozzle vane configuration as opposed to that of nozzleless. In addition, the centrifugal pressure head indicated by the maximum pressure difference between the hub and shroud influences the overall turbine efficiency, as the symmetrical nozzle vane arrangement is introduced with two different turbine rotational speeds of 30 K rpm and 48 K rpm.

With developments of turbo-compounding and two-stage turbocharging technologies, two-stage turbine is increasingly applied in automotive engines. This paper numerically investigates the characteristic of a two-stage turbine on a turbo-compound engine under pulsating flow conditions. The behaviors of turbine stages with the swallowing capacity ratio (SR) equals to 2.0, under low, mid and high load conditions were studied. Results show that the Low pressure turbine (LPT) is more sensitive to the pulsating flow, especially at low load conditions, compared with High pressure turbine (HPT). It is caused by the dramatic change of velocity ratio in LPT. Results also show that the load split between HPT and LPT under pulsating flow conditions deviates from that at quasi-steady conditions, indicating the different behaviors of the two-stage turbine under pulsating conditions.

This paper presents a novel battery degradation model based on empirical data from the Racing Green Endurance project. Using the rainflow-counting algorithm, battery charge and discharge data from an electric vehicle has been studied in order to establish more reliable and more accurate predictions for capacity and power fade of automotive traction batteries than those currently available. It is shown that for the particular lithium-iron phosphate (LiFePO₄) batteries, capacity fade is 5.8% after 87 cycles. After 3,000 cycles it is estimated to be 32%. Both capacity and power fade strongly depend on cumulative energy throughput, maximum C-rate as well as temperature.

Thermoacoustic devices represent a significant future opportunity in the fields of energy generation and refrigeration. A key component of this type of device is the regenerator, where the conversion between acoustic energy and thermal energy takes place. This conversion occurs due to an externally imposed temperature gradient on the walls of the regenerator channels. Hence, this paper concerns the physics of sound waves in the proximity of such walls. It establishes a new analytical framework which clarifies the disturbance energy conservation in thermoacoustic devices. In this framework, a thermoacoustic production term is proposed to quantify the generation or consumption of disturbance energy originating from the temperature gradient. An extended disturbance energy flux term is identified to account for wave growth or decay through the regenerator. The disturbance energy balance relation states that the disturbance energy flux equals the thermoacoustic production less the viscous and thermal dissipation resulting from gradients of fluctuating velocity and temperature. The analytical framework is implemented in an axisymmetric cylindrical domain; the two-dimensional nature of this work helps to uncover that the wave always decays in the region close to the wall. A dimensional analysis is conducted to identify the controlling parameters, namely the Womersley, Helmholtz and Prandtl numbers. A parametric study of the Womersley and Helmholtz numbers is conducted to showcase the new analytical methodology; the results make it possible to optimize the geometry, wave properties and working conditions of a thermoacoustic device according to the preference of its efficiency, loss and output.

The recovery and utilisation of waste heat from flue/exhaust gases (RU/WHFG) could potentially provide sustainable energy while curbing pollutant emissions. Over time, the RU/WHFG research landscape has gained significant traction and yielded innovative technologies, sustainable strategies, and publications. However, critical studies highlighting current advancements, publication trends, research hotspots, major stakeholders, and future research directions on RU/WHFG research remain lacking. Therefore, this paper presents a comprehensive bibliometric analysis and literature review of the RU/WHFG research landscape based on publications indexed in Scopus. Results showed that 123 publications and 2191 citations were recovered between 2010 and 2022. Publication trends revealed that the growing interest in RU/WHFG is mainly due to environmental concerns (e.g. pollution, global warming, and climate change), research collaborations, and funding availability. Stakeholder analysis revealed that numerous researchers, affiliations, and countries have actively contributed to the growth and development of RU/WHFG. Lin Fu and Tsinghua University (China) are the most prolific researchers and affiliations, whereas the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) and China are the most prolific funder and country, respectively. Funding availability from influential schemes such as NSFC has accounted for China’s dominance. Keyword co-occurrence identified three major research hotspots, namely, thermal energy utilisation and management (cluster 1), integrated energy and resource recovery (cluster 2), and system analysis and optimisation (cluster 3). Literature review revealed that researchers are currently focused on maximising thermodynamic/energy efficiency, fuel minimisation, and emission reduction. Despite progress, research gaps remain in low-temperature/low-grade waste heat recovery, utilisation, storage, life cycle, and environmental impact analysis.

Online uses of first-principles models include nonlinear model predictive control, softsensors, real-time optimization, and real-time process monitoring, among others. The industrial implementation of these applications needs accurate adaptive models and reconciled data. The simultaneous reconciliation and update of parameters of a first- principles model can be achieved using an optimization framework that exploits physical and analytical redundancy of information. This paper demonstrates this concept by means of an industrial case-study. The case-study is a multi-stage centrifugal compressor for which a first-principles model was recently developed. The update of the model parameters is necessary to capture slowly progressing mechanical degradation (e.g. due to fouling and erosion). The reconciliation of the data is necessary for reducing downtime of the online model-based applications caused by gross errors. Two industrial cases including sensor failures were analysed. Applying the proposed framework, it was possible to reconcile the measurements for both cases.

Future CO2 emission legislation requires the internal combustion engine to become more efficient than ever. Of great importance is the boosting system enabling down-sizing and down-speeding. However, the thermodynamic coupling of a reciprocating internal combustion engine and a turbocharger poses a great challenge to the turbine as pulsating admission conditions are imposed onto the turbocharger turbine. This paper presents a novel approach to a turbocharger turbine development process and outlines this process using the example of an asymmetric twin scroll turbocharger applied to a heavy duty truck engine application. In a first step, relevant operating points are defined taking into account fuel consumption on reference routes for the target application. These operation points are transferred into transient boundary conditions imposed on the turbine. These pulsating admission conditions to the turbocharger turbine are analyzed and subsequently discretized using the method of quasi-steadiness to avoid numerically very expensive unsteady CFD simulations. Following, an automated in-house developed workflow based on a parameterized model of the entire turbine stage is introduced and described. The parameterization is based on design parameters linked to aerodynamic properties, hence it is not limited to one specific geometry but rather able to represent a large variety of designs with comparatively few input parameters. Concluding, a meta-model based multi-disciplinary and multi-objective numerical optimization is performed to obtain the best geometry possible. The optimization objectives are linked to a perfect turbine-compressor matching with an existing benchmark compressor stage and regards to the engine’s air fuel ratio and exhaust gas recirculation requirements. The entire optimization is based on numerical methods, that is, a CFD study. However, the numerical models used throughout the paper are validated against experimental data to ensure the quality and accuracy of the predictions regarding its behavior in an experimental setup.

Throttling loss of downsized gasoline engines is significantly smaller than that of naturally aspirated counterparts. However, even the extremely downsized gasoline engine can still suffer a relatively large throttling loss when operating under part load conditions. Various de-throttling concepts have been proposed recently, such as using a FGT or VGT turbine on the intake as a de-throttling mechanism or applying valve throttling to control the charge airflow. Although they all can adjust the mass air flow without a throttle in regular use, an extra component or complicated control strategies have to be adopted. This paper will, for the first time, propose a de-throttling concept in a twin-charged gasoline engine with minimum modification of the existing system. The research engine model which this paper is based on is a 60% downsized 2.0L four cylinder gasoline demonstrator engine with both a supercharger and turbocharger on the intake. The idea is to use a CVT driven supercharger to ‘throttle’ the intake mass flow. By the adoption of a CVT, the supercharger outlet pressure could be controllable. Depending on whether the outlet pressure is larger than the inlet, the supercharger could supply boost at high load consuming engine power or behave like an expander under part load presenting a means to recover the throttling loss to provide all the necessary need. A 1-D simulation model was used for this research with some experimental data of the supercharger functioned as an expander from a test rig. The results showed that at part load, by recovering some throttling loss through the supercharger, up to 3% BSFC improvement could be achieved compared to the throttled counterpart depending on the engine operating points. The effect of the reduced supercharger outlet temperature on the combustion efficiency was also discussed. It showed in the end that by the speed control, extended working range of the supercharger can be achievable which could push the fuel efficiency of the downsized engine further.

This paper presents the energy consumption results from the 2012 RAC Future Car Challenge. It discusses measurement techniques for the different types of powertrain and draws conclusions about their applicability to different vehicle segments. The energy consumption of a plug-in hybrid vehicle is analysed in detail to illustrate separately electric versus fuel energy consumption.