Advanced Air Management Technologies for Reducing Fuel Consumption and Green House Gas Emissions

Global demand for diesel fuel has predominantly driven the Commercial Vehicle industry to seek out fuel consumption reduction technologies to integrate into their products in order to provide value to their customers. Since air generation and use directly affect fuel consumption, active management of these systems provides a new avenue to achieving future fuel and green house gas (GHG) emissions requirements. Using a turbocharged compressor coupled with a clutch mechanism delivers air at maximum efficiency while simultaneously removing parasitic losses during an inactive state. The electronic air dryer monitors vehicle status and actively manages the charging and regeneration activities to minimize waste. Lastly, the use of an engine air boosting device enables both steady state and transient savings by means of driveline modifications such as adaptive shifting and rear axle ratio changes without the associated dynamic performance degradation. Testing utilizing the SAE J1321 Type II (Oct 1986) protocol yielded individual component savings in the range of 0.5% to 2.5%. The small upgrades required to take advantage of these modest savings require little risk since the systems described are already used in some fashion on nearly every commercial vehicle.