Enhancement of Heavy-Duty Engines Performance and Reliability Using Cylinder Pressure Information

Alessandro Brusa, Enrico Corti (), Alessandro Rossi and Davide Moro
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Alessandro Brusa: Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Bologna, Viale Risorgimento, 2, 40136 Bologna, Italy
Enrico Corti: Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Bologna, Viale Risorgimento, 2, 40136 Bologna, Italy
Alessandro Rossi: Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Bologna, Viale Risorgimento, 2, 40136 Bologna, Italy
Davide Moro: Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Bologna, Viale Risorgimento, 2, 40136 Bologna, Italy

Energies, 2023, vol. 16, issue 3, 1-21

Abstract: Sustainability issues are becoming increasingly prominent in applications requiring the use of heavy-duty engines. Therefore, it is important to cut the emissions and costs of such engines to reduce the carbon footprint and keep the operating expenses under control. Even if for some applications a battery electric equipment is introduced, the diesel-equipped machinery is still popular thanks to the longer operating range. In this field, the open pit mines are a good example. In fact, the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of the mining equipment is highly impacted by fuel consumption (engine efficiency) and reliability (service interval and engine life). The present work is focused on efficiency enhancements achievable through the application of a combustion control strategy based on the in-cylinder pressure information. The benefits are mainly due to two factors. First, the negative effects of injectors aging can be compensated. Second, cylindrical online calibration of the control parameters enables the combustion system optimization. The article is divided into two parts. The first part describes the toolchain that is designed for the real-time application of the combustion control system, while the second part concerns the algorithm that would be implemented on the Engine Control Unit (ECU) to leverage the in-cylinder pressure information. The assessment of the potential benefits and feasibility of the combustion control algorithm is carried out in a Software in the Loop (SiL) environment, simulating both the developed control strategy and the engine behavior (Liebherr D98). Our goal is to validate the control algorithm through SiL simulations. The results of the validation process demonstrate the effectiveness of the control strategy: firstly, cylinder disparity on IMEP (+/−2.5% in reference conditions) is virtually canceled. Secondly, MFB50 is individually optimized, equalizing Pmax among the cylinders (+/−4% for the standard calibration) without exceeding the reliability threshold. In addition to this, BSFC is reduced by 1% thanks to the accurate cylinder-by-cylinder calibration. Finally, aging effects or fuel variations can be implicitly compensated, keeping optimal performance thorough the engine life.

Keywords: combustion control; cylinder pressure; injector ageing compensation; fuel type compensation; engine reliability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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