Transport sector sustainability is an important, topical issue that requires prompt and challenging solutions to accomplish the ambitious Greenhouses Gases and CO2 reduction targets.
Dr. Dario Di Maio, a researcher of CNR-STEMS in the team of Research Director Dr. Carlo Beatrice, in collaboration with Prof. Daniela Misul and Prof. Mirko Baratta from Politecnico di Torino, address the important challenges facing the automotive sector.
Read the original research: doi.org/10.3390/machines10100852
Read more about CNR-STEMS: www.stems.cnr.it/?page_id=834&lang=en
Image Source: Adobe Stock Images / Tomasz Zajda
Transcript
Hello and welcome to Research Pod! Thank you for listening and joining us today.
In this episode we look at the research of the CNR-STEMS, Institute of Sciences and Technologies for Sustainable Energy and Mobility in Naples, and Politecnico di Torino, two esteemed Italian institutions within the international scientific community for their work on the sustainability of vehicles and transport system.
Joining us today are Dr. Dario Di Maio, a researcher of CNR-STEMS in the team of Research Director Dr. Carlo Beatrice, in collaboration with Prof. Daniela Misul and Prof. Mirko Baratta from Politecnico di Torino, who address the important challenges facing the automotive sector.
Transport sector sustainability is an important, topical issue that requires prompt and challenging solutions to accomplish the ambitious Greenhouses Gases and CO2 reduction targets. In fact, the European Union aims to achieve net GHGs emission by at least 55% in 2030, compared to 1990 levels, and to pursue efforts for zeroing such emissions by 2050.
These purposes are included more broadly in the Paris Agreements, negotiated within United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change which set a long-term goal to keep the increase in global average temperature to well below 2 °C, above pre-industrial levels, and to strive to limit the increase to 1.5 °C. According to the most recent estimates by the European Environmental Agency , fossil fuels are still the largest source of energy and emissions in the EU. They contribute to roughly 65% of the EU’s final energy and to almost 80% of all EU Greenhouses Gases emissions.
At the same time, air quality regulations such as the recent Euro 7 standard that will take effect in 2025, setting stringent limits on the concentration of gaseous pollutants and particle emissions from all vehicles.
Vehicle manufacturers are constantly faced with continuous challenges from an engineering perspective that require important synergy with academia and research institutes.
Battery Electric Vehicles are receiving a growing interest as a promising technology to reduce the environmental impact of Light-Duty vehicles; for the Heavy-Duty category, there is high interest from both the scientific and industrial communities in the development of future hydrogen engines, a viable solutition to cut carbon emissions, given its absence in the fuel composition.
In a short-term framework, however, Heavy-Duty engine manufacturers are promoting the use of Natural Gas as an alternative option to conventional Diesel engines, related to durability and performance, with the aim to mitigate the carbon footprint of on-road vehicles dedicated to freight and passenger transport.
As CNR-STEMS and PoliTO tell us, in addition to the management of multiple laboratories in which advanced experimental research activities take place, strategic skills are needed for the use of advanced numerical analysis tools and methodologies for the optimization of system performance and to be compliant with the actual challenges that the world demands us.
These activities require accurate and precise design choices starting from the earlier stages of product development, with an increasing support from numerical models in the experimental phase.
Therefore, the use of accurate and predictive models of engine behavior and its main components to improve vehicle operating conditions and reduce time-to-market for the technologies compliant with in-force and upcoming emission regulations is fundamental for the industry. The advanced simulation tools available allow the team to investigate and ehance engine efficiency with reduced fuel or energy consumption and emissions.
Numerical 1D simulation combined with 3D Computational Fluid Dynamics methodology offer innovative and viable solutions to address these issues. As an example, a recently published research activity showed the importance of the co-simulation of a 1D model and relative combustion sub-model of a Heavy-Duty engine fueled with bio-methane, and its after-treatment device, the Three-Way Catalyst.
This model proved particularly useful for the management of such a device, installed downstream of the Three-Way Catalyst, the typical aftertreatment system for this engine category to control NOx, unburned methane, and other pollutant emissions in stoichiometric conditions.
At the same time, another numerical activity the research team’s are performing concerns the idea of exploiting cylinder deactivation for Heavy-Duty engines. This work sets the stage for the use of this concept, which has currently found application in only passenger cars, in Heavy-Duty as well.
Moreover, through the introduction of an additional virtual pipeline in the engine model and valves actuation by a dedicated control logic, the capability of using an Internal Exhaust Gas Recirculation has been exploited with promising insights to maximize the efficiency of the entire system.
A further activity, supported by joint funding between CNR-STEMS, Politecnico di Torino, Politecnico di Milano and the Italian Ministry of University and Research, regards the use of a completely alternative architecture, called “Free-Piston engine.” The project name is ‘Flex-Gen’.
In contrast to the traditional engine, the piston motion is not controlled by a crankshaft but determined by the interaction of forces from the combustion chamber gases, a rebound device – for example, a piston in a closed cylinder – and a load device – such as a gas compressor or a linear alternator.
Due to its innovative concept, mechanical friction losses are decreased with an improvement in BTE even up to 50%. This solution appears promising especially for off-road applications where it is complicated to use Battery Electric Vehicles at the required operating conditions. Moreover, the compression ratio is not an intrinsic feature of the engine, but it can vary even on a cycle-to-cycle basis. This offers new horizons for the engine optimization and, at the same time, increases the need of a careful, model-based, engine control. From this perspective, an integrated development approach, based on experimental activity and combined 1D-3D numerical modelling, is of fundamental importance for the achievement of the ambitious project targets.
As final remarks: “Due to their features, the thermal engines will represent the unique power-unit solution for many applications and for many decades ahead, our mission is to zeroing their climate impact”
That’s all for this episode – thanks for listening. Links to the personal pages of the contacts in CNR-STEMS and Politecnico di Torino can be found in the shownotes for this episode. And, as always, stay subscribed to Research Pod for more of the latest science.
See you again soon.
Leave a Reply