12 Diesel engine system design
© Woodhead Publishing Limited, 2011
SCR’s capital and operating costs, weight, packaging space, increased exhaust
restriction, complexity of electronic controls, ammonia slip, compatibility
in very cold weather, readiness of infrastructure, maintenance burdens on
vehicle customers, in-use emissions compliance, etc.
EGR reduces NO
x
through the mechanism of reducing the in-cylinder oxygen
concentration and combustion temperature. Turbocharging with inter-cooling
has been used to increase power density and reduce PM emissions. EGR is
used in modern engines mainly for NO
x
control. Compared to the turbocharged
non-EGR engines in the old era, EGR engines have very different design
considerations from system to component. For instance, the usual practice in
non-EGR engine designs was to match the turbocharger to make the intake
manifold pressure higher than the exhaust manifold pressure because there
was no need to drive EGR ow. In this case, a negative value of the pressure
differential or negative ‘engine delta P’ was created. The engine delta P here
is dened as exhaust manifold pressure minus intake manifold pressure.
Such a negative engine delta P not only resulted in a net gain in BSFC due
to a positive pumping work rather than a negative pumping loss, but also
improved cylinder gas scavenging by using a large valve overlap to reduce
the thermal load acting on the cylinder head, the exhaust valve/manifold, and
the turbine. The valve overlap here refers to the timing difference between
exhaust valve closing and intake valve opening. During the valve overlap
period, both the exhaust valve and the intake valve are open. Moreover, the
air–fuel ratio (A/F ratio) in non-EGR engines could be designed very high
without the problem of exceeding the maximum cylinder pressure limit. The
high A/F ratio increases combustion efciency and decreases soot. However,
in EGR engines those advantages disappear because the need to drive EGR
ow requires a positive value of engine delta P (i.e., exhaust manifold pressure
higher than intake manifold pressure). The increased exhaust restriction due
to the addition of PM and NO
x
aftertreatment devices further complicates the
turbocharger matching. Moreover, the uctuations of engine gas ow and
temperature caused by EGR-on and EGR-off operations during transients
or aftertreatment regeneration demand a careful system design approach
in order to optimize all the subsystems involved. Other design challenges
related to EGR include controlling intake condensate, coolant heat rejection
and engine component wear.
In addition to EGR, modern diesel engines are also characterized by
several other emissions control technologies. Innovative combustion
concepts (e.g., low temperature combustion, HCCI) are being investigated
intensively. Ultra-high injection pressures are demanded for fuel systems,
along with the requirement of achieving high injection pressures at both
low and high engine speeds (e.g., high-pressure common rail fuel system).
Retarding fuel injection timing has become necessary in order to meet the
most stringent NO
x
standard and this results in a penalty on BSFC. With
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