Next Generation Clean Diesel Engines – Tailored Measures for Compliance with Upcoming Global Emissions Challenges

Authors

Dipl.-Ing. T. Körfer, FEV Group GmbH, Aachen; Dr.-Ing. C. Menne, Dipl.-Ing. B. Lindemann, FEV Europe GmbH, Aachen; Dr.-Ing. T. Szailer, FEV NA Inc., Auburn Hills, USA

Year

2017

Print Info

Fortschritt-Berichte VDI, Series 12, No 802

Summary

The automobile industry is experiencing a clear paradigm shift as a result of increasingly stringent legal requirements regarding fleet-related CO₂ emissions and newly formulated, more demanding test cycles and test criteria including real driving operation. The comprehensive system optimization continues. Future power trains must be designed more intensively with a full system understanding of combustion engines, transmissions and supporting electrification. In spite of all public discussions, the modern Diesel engine still represents the propulsion unit with the highest thermodynamic efficiency and, in comparable applications, still has overall CO₂ advantages compared to the electric drive, if in the corresponding view the type of electricity generation, for example in Germany, is included. The Diesel engine has been the subject of public discussion on the basis of local air quality, particularly in urban areas. In particular, the sensitive topic of "fine particles" has been clarified since the serial introduction of the particulate filter and is dominated by other sources, being no longer a topic for the diesel engine powertrain. The efficiency of the particulate filter is also independent of operating conditions, such as driver behaviour and traffic conditions, as well as environmental influences such as temperature and geodetic altitude. Therefore, the nitrogen oxides (NO_x) still remain the central theme of exhaust gas detoxification. On the basis of a standardized, but ultimately not fully representative certification cycle, increasing percentages of the actual exhaust gas emissions in everyday operation were increasing as a result of continuously stringent type approval limits. In this respect, the Diesel engine has a certain, but not exclusive, share of the current situation in many inner cities of Europe. The holistic response to this, while maintaining a convincing fuel efficiency, is a combined package of targeted internal engine technologies, optimized exhaust gas aftertreatment systems and performance-enhanced, adaptive control algorithms. The latest generation of modern Diesel engines with a comprehensive and efficient exhaust emission reduction concept features the potential to move the society into a stage of individual mobility with negligible pollutant emissions and, taking into account fuels from renewable resources, even nearly CO₂ neutral.