Regulated Intake Air Boosting and Engine Downspeeding as a Viable Solution for Performance Improvement and Emission Reduction of a Single-Cylinder Diesel Engine

The present work proposes a viable approach to develop single-cylinder diesel engines for the future by implementing regulated intake air boosting (RIAB) and engine downspeeding (ED) along with the well-established low compression ratio (LCR) approach. The investigations were conducted in a mass-production light-duty single-cylinder diesel engine initially equipped with a naturally aspirated (NA) intake system. By lowering the compression ratio (CR) and implementing the intake air boosting (IAB) using a belt-driven supercharger, the maximum brake mean effective pressure (BMEP) of the engine could be increased by 50%. More importantly, the improved performance could be achieved without violating the peak firing pressure (PFP) limits. However, a significant penalty was observed in the brake-specific fuel consumption (BSFC) at low-load operating points due to the additional power consumption of the IAB system. Hence, RIAB was implemented to optimize the boost pressure with respect to engine load to simultaneously reduce the BSFC and oxides of nitrogen (NO_x) and soot emissions. Further, the increased full-load performance of the engine was leveraged to implement the ED approach that could reduce the operating speeds of the engine by 37.8%. It was observed that the benefits of downspeeding a supercharged engine are significantly high due to the simultaneous reduction of the frictional losses of the base engine and the power consumption of the supercharger. Overall, by combining the above concepts and the proven LCR approach, significant benefits could be achieved in fuel economy and exhaust emissions that are quantified for the regulatory Modified Indian Drive Cycle (MIDC) using a one-dimensional tool. The obtained results show a net reduction of 77.8% and 39.5% in the soot and NO_x emissions, respectively. Moreover, a significant benefit of 14.8% could be achieved in the fuel economy. Thus the proposed approach can be used to develop single-cylinder diesel engines for the future to improve vehicle performance and comply with stringent emission regulations.