“OPERAS” In Advanced Diesel Engines for Commercial and Military Applications

Advanced diesel engines developed for the commercial market need to be adapted to the military requirements by OPERAS (Optimizing the injection pressure P, the Exhaust gas recirculation E, injection events Retard and/or Advance and the swirl ratio S). The different after treatment devices, already used or expected to be applied to diesel engines, require feed gases of appropriate properties for their efficient operation. To produce these gases some OPERAS are needed to control the diesel combustion process. Since military vehicles do not need the after treatment devices, the OPERAS of the commercial engines should be modified to meet the military requirements for high power density, better fuel economy, reduction of parasitic losses caused by the cooled EGR system, and reduction of invisible black and white smoke in the field. The data for this paper were obtained from an experimental investigation conducted on a single cylinder diesel engine equipped with a common rail injection system, under different loads and speeds, covering a wide range of operating variables. 2-D and 3-D trade-off maps are developed to identity the OPERAS for the commercial engines, considering the type of the after treatment device used. The possibilities for adapting such engines to the military requirements are explained.