Browse Topic: Fuels and Energy Sources

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The organizers of the most prominent Formula Student competitions have recently initiated a preliminary feasibility study on the application of hydrogen-based propulsion technologies in future single-seater race vehicles. These include electric powertrains with electrochemically converted hydrogen in fuel cell–powered vehicles, competing within the electric championship league. Based on the initial set of regulations, this study presents a model-based comparison between battery-powered (BEVs) and fuel cell–powered electric vehicles (FCVs) for Formula Student. The analysis is conducted using energy, power, and efficiency metrics from four candidate models of propulsion systems, implemented in an open and publicly available MATLAB script: two BEVs with varying battery capacities, and two FCVs employing different hybridization strategies. The aim of this study is to pinpoint and quantify the advantages and disadvantages of each technology for the Formula Student use case, and to identify
Martoccia, LorenzoBreda, SebastianoFontanesi, Stefanod’Adamo, Alessandro
This SAE Recommended Practice establishes uniform procedures for testing BEVs that are capable of being operated on public and private roads. The procedure applies only to vehicles using batteries as their sole source of power. It is the intent of this document to provide standard tests that will allow for the determination of energy consumption and range for light-duty vehicles (LDVs) based on the federal test procedure (FTP) using the urban dynamometer driving cycle (UDDS) and the highway fuel economy driving schedule (HFEDS) and provide a flexible testing methodology that is capable of accommodating additional test cycles as needed. Additionally, this SAE Recommended Practice provides five-cycle testing guidelines for vehicles performing supplementary testing on the US06, SC03, and cold FTP procedures. Realistic alternatives should be allowed for new technology. Evaluations are based on the total vehicle system’s performance and not on subsystems apart from the vehicle.
Light Duty Vehicle Performance and Economy Measure Committee
Stochastic end-gas autoignition in spark ignition (SI) engines, commonly called “knock,” limits attainable engine efficiencies. Multiple pathways to extend SI engine operation into knock-limited regions have been studied, including direct water injection (DWI). This study employs single-cylinder engine experiments with a centrally mounted water injector to investigate the knock resistance offered by compression stroke water injections, which, through incomplete mixing, can thermally stratify the cylinder. In SI, thermally stratifying injections are expected to forcibly widen the cylinder temperature distribution by preferentially cooling the cylinder periphery. The end-gas is in the cylinder periphery. A cooler end-gas would result in longer ignition delays, thus providing knock resistance. The difference between intake temperature required to match knock-limited CA50 and a baseline intake temperature at the load of 8 bar IMEPg (gross indicated mean effective pressure) was used to
Datar, AdityaVedpathak, KunalGainey, BrianLawler , Benjamin
The advancement of Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control (CACC) technology enables vehicle platooning on public roads, offering significant potential to enhance urban mobility, driving safety, and energy efficiency. Among various applications, truck platooning has become a promising strategy to increase highway flow rates by reducing vehicle headways, improving coordination, and optimizing space utilization. This paper presents a quantitative assessment of a CACC-based truck platooning system, focusing on its effectiveness in enhancing highway mobility under varying traffic conditions. A statistical regression model is developed and calibrated using simulations of real-world highway networks to identify key influencing factors and evaluate the resulting improvements in traffic flow. The analysis considers five primary variables: desired platoon speed, platoon size, space headway, percentage of platooning trucks, and non-platoon traffic flow. The study systematically examines the impact
Karbasi, Amir HosseinWang, JinghuiYang, Hao
The increasing demand for electrified transportation is leading to accelerated development of highly efficient hybrid and battery electric vehicles. A major concern for customers adapting to battery electric vehicles (BEV) is range anxiety due to low charging speeds, charging infrastructure not matching expectations and unreliable range estimations shown to the customers by their vehicles. Estimating the range more accurately has been difficult due to the sensitivity of vehicle’s energy consumption to real-world environmental and driving conditions. This paper aims to find out the effect of true wind in the road load experienced by BEVs in the real-world driving scenarios and how using a highly accurate wind speed measurement improves the energy consumption estimation better. On-road tests were conducted on public roads and in controlled test-track environments to collect reliable wind speed measurements using a dynamic multi-hole pressure probe. Additional coastdown tests were also
Raghupathy, Vishnu PrasaadKim, ShinhoonEvans, NicNiimi, KeisukeMochihara, Takahiro
By the early 2020s, more than 4.5 billion people have been living in urban areas worldwide, compared to just 1 billion in 1960. Rising growth in urban populations present challenges to infrastructure and transportation systems. Higher traffic levels and reliance on conventional vehicles have contributed to heightened greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, rising global temperatures, and irreversible environmental degradation. In response, emerging transportation solutions—including intelligent ridesharing, autonomous vehicles, zero-tailpipe-emission transport, and urban air mobility—offer opportunities for safer and more sustainable transportation ecosystems. However, their widespread adoption depends not only on technological performance and efficiency, but also on integration with current infrastructure, safety, resilience to unexpected disruptions, and economic viability. A dynamic agent-based System-of-Systems (SoS) transportation model is developed to simulate vehicle traffic and human
Rana, VishvaBalchanos, MichaelMavris, DimitriValenzuela Del Rio, Jose
Paper considers the effects of fluid properties from liquified gases during high pressure pumping, at ranges from 200 to 1500 bar, and at speeds of 500 to 1500 rpm. Tests represent highest to date pressure ranges attained with liquified fluids such as DME. The paper examines the effects of compressibility on the pumping and resulting loading torque characteristics described over the pumping cycle as resolved by a high-fidelity sensor. Experimental tests and simulated performance based on a 1-D model are compared for Diesel and DME for a high-pressure fuel pump, piston style, featuring two plunger-barrels. Each of the pump’s plunger-barrel is inlet metered electronically, allowing the pump to run at a variable displacement and with the flexibility to deactivate one or both plungers fully. The model captures the response of the inlet metering valve and output valve lifts across speed and loads. The output check valve is subject to pressure pulsations and shows the importance to optimize
de Ojeda, WilliamWu, Simon (Haibao)
Hydrogen fuel cell powered vehicles for heavy duty trucking are a promising path for reducing future vehicle emissions due to their reduced mass for storage and faster refueling compared to battery electric trucks. These benefits come at the cost of increased system complexity stemming from the fact that fuel cells generate electricity through a chemical reaction which must be tightly controlled. The air handling system delivers the proper amount of air (oxygen) to react with fuel (hydrogen) in the fuel cell to produce power. Air delivery requires significant power and is the largest parasitic loss for a 300 kW fuel cell. Today’s systems use an electric motor driving an air compressor to supply pressurized air to the fuel cell stack. By operating at elevated pressure levels, fuel cells can achieve higher power density, which is important for vehicle powertrains. In addition to parasitic power loss, hydrogen fuel cell systems often have reliability issues associated with the air
Reich, EvanSwartzlander, MatthewWine, JonathanMcCarthy, Jr., JamesMiller, EricAkhtar, SaadReddy, SharanLawy, TJ
Ambient and initial temperatures significantly impact the energy consumption rate (ECR) of battery electric vehicles (BEVs) due to auxiliary loads and the temperature dependence of battery efficiency. This study introduces a streamlined, physics-based thermal modeling approach within the FASTSim tool that bridges the gap between oversimplified constant-load models and computationally expensive high-fidelity simulations. By employing a lumped thermal mass framework, the model captures fundamental energy balances and critical non-linear energy penalties while maintaining the computational efficiency required for expansive sensitivity studies. The simulations evaluated a compact BEV hatchback with a resistive heater over city (UDDS) and highway (HWFET) test cycles. Compared to a 22°C initial and ambient temperature baseline, a -7°C initial/ambient temperature resulted in a 221% increase in the ECR for the city cycle and a 100% increase for the highway cycle. Conversely, a 45°C initial
Baker, ChadSteuteville, RobinHolden, JakeGonder, JeffreyCarow, Kyle
The development of renewable and eco-friendly bio-lubricants can address the environmental challenges posed by petroleum-based lubricants. At the same time, it is possible to improve the tribological properties of lubricants through alternative sources. To overcome these problems, castor oil is a potential basis for bio-lubricants due to its high viscosity, natural lubricity, and biodegradability. In the current work, castor oil was chemically modified by the epoxidation process. This process has improved the tribological properties of castor oil through the epoxidation method. In this method, the presence of hydrogen peroxide acts as an oxidizing agent while sulfuric acid serves as a catalyst, converting the unsaturated double bonds present in the oil into oxirane rings. At the same time, this modification enhanced the thermal stability and tribological applications in harsh operating conditions. The tribological performance of the epoxidized castor oil, further reinforced with copper
Prabhakaran, JPali, Harveer SinghSingh, Nishant Kumar
Fuel cell systems are gaining traction across heavy-duty applications, driven by global decarbonization targets. Managing their inherent complexity and diverse architectural requirements, commonly organized into the “Big 5” fuel cell subsystems (stack, thermal, electric, anode, and cathode), necessitates advanced Model-Based Development (MBD) approaches. This paper presents and validates a constraint-graph-based, equation-oriented, acausal MBD methodology for fuel cell system (FCS) development, implemented in an industrial modeling environment. This methodology supports scalable functional and software development from 75 kW single-stack systems to twin-stack configurations exceeding 250 kW. It facilitates robust parameterization and reuse of consistently formulated, subsystem-level physical models across Model-in-the-Loop (MiL) to Hardware-in-the-Loop (HiL) environments, ensuring numerically robust software architectures and improved embedded control quality. Industrial application
Bandi, Rajendra PrasadBleile, Thomas
General Motors (GM) continues to advance its electrification strategy through the development of scalable Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV) and Battery Electric Truck (BET) platforms. This paper highlights GM’s latest BEV and BET products that leverage shared Drive Unit (DU), Rechargeable Energy Storage System (RESS), and integrated power electronic (IPE) components across multiple vehicle programs. By adopting a modular and commonized propulsion architecture, GM achieves significant benefits in manufacturing efficiency, cost optimization, speed to market, and product flexibility. The shared DU, RESS, and IPE components are engineered to meet diverse performance requirements while maintaining high standards of energy efficiency, thermal management, and durability. This approach enables rapid deployment of electrified solutions across various segments, from passenger vehicles to full-size trucks, without compromising on capability or customer experience. The paper outlines the technical
Liu, JinmingSevel, KrisAnwar, MohammadOury, AndrewWelchko, BrianGagas, Brent
Compared to regular fuels, biofuels can play a key role as low-carbon transitional energy sources for ICE vehicles as the fleet moves towards increasing electrification. Blending of ethanol plays a key role in enhancing the anti-knock properties of the fuel and also allows renewable hydrocarbons (such as bio-naphtha) to be incorporated into the blend whilst maintaining an acceptable overall fuel quality. Super lean burn ICE technology with λ between 2 and 3 can lead to enhanced fuel economy and reduced NOx emissions. The Toyota prototype engine used to generate data for this project injects most of the fuel in PFI mode to generate a homogeneous super-lean charge in the cylinder, but just before spark ignition the DI injector sprays a small amount of fuel towards the spark plug to create a richer charge near the spark plug to promote flame kernel development. Various fuel formulations with high biofuel content were tested in both conventional and super lean burn engines. Certain fuel
Aradi, AllenKrueger-Venus, JensJain, Sandeep KumarCracknell, RogerKolbeck, AndreasShibuya, MasahikoYamada, RyotaMatsubara, NaoyoshiKitano, Koji
The development of electric vehicle powertrains is driven by diverse and often conflicting requirements. In early development phases, these requirements are often vague, incomplete, continuously refined and subject to change as development progresses. Moreover, powertrain designs must be competitive regarding multiple key performance indicators (KPIs) such as performance, cost, energy efficiency, and package integration. This challenges engineers to concurrently develop the powertrain design alongside the requirements on which the design is based on. Managing this combination of uncertain requirements and multi-KPI design optimization represents a complex challenge in automotive engineering. The present work introduces a requirements engineering approach based on OPED (Optimization of Electric Drives). OPED digitalizes the transition from requirements to technical solutions by integrating parametric system models with an AI-based evolutionary optimization algorithm. This enables
Hofstetter, MartinLechleitner, Dominik
In this work, a numerical study is carried out to analyze the cold start process of a three-dimensional proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) with a three-parallel serpentine flow channel design. The investigation is mainly focused on developing a transient ice formation model in a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) environment to predict ice formation during subfreezing startup and to analyze its influence on the operation of the fuel cell. The model considers sublimation and de-sublimation processes inside the gas diffusion layer and the catalyst layer. To account for the influence of ice on electrochemical reactions, the local transfer current is reduced depending on the fraction of ice volume present in the porous regions. The proposed model is validated against experimental data, and the comparison shows that the model can successfully reproduce both the successful and the failed cold start cases under different initial temperatures. The study identifies two main factors
ma, ShihuChamphekar, OmkarHan, Chao
Although overall demand for petroleum products is expected to decline, diesel fuel demand is projected to remain stable. Modern refineries produce diesel fuel by blending straight-run diesel fuel with cracked fractions like Light Cycle Oil (LCO) and kerosene. Cracked fractions are characterized by high concentrations of aromatic and naphthenic compounds compared to straight-run diesel fuel, whereas kerosene exhibits lighter distillation properties. This study quantitatively assesses the effects of diesel fuel composition and distillation properties on PM formation using engine bench tests designed to reflect practical refinery blending operations. To isolate the impact of fuel composition, test fuels were formulated with substantial variations in aromatic and naphthenic content, while other key parameters were held constant. To investigate the influence of distillation properties, two sets of test fuels were prepared: one series with varying front-end volatility achieved by adjusting
Katori, KoheiSeo, MasahiroTakahashi, Ko
Simultaneously reducing criteria pollutants and fuel consumption is important for clean air and improving vehicle total cost of ownership. The goal of this effort was focused on a 90% NOx reduction and 10% fuel savings for an off-road 407 kW diesel engine. The baseline was a production Fiat Powertrain 13L engine and aftertreatment system meeting 0.4 g/kW-hr NOx. The baseline system was quantified over the NRTC, RMC, new low load cycle and five field cycles. A next generation engine was built incorporating several fuel-efficient design features, including a higher compression ratio, increased fuel-rail pressure, low-friction piston rings, and a high-efficiency variable-geometry turbocharger. Cylinder deactivation and EGR pump technologies were added to this engine as well. The combination was optimized prior to adding advanced aftertreatment systems, showing the trade-off of engine out NOx and exhaust temperature. Two next-generation catalyst technologies were employed into a LO-SCR
McCarthy, Jr.,, JamesWine, JonathanBradley, RyanHasseman, AndyPrikhodko, VitalyHowell, Thomas
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