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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Therm. Eng.
Sec. Heat Engines
Volume 4 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fther.2024.1517404
This article is part of the Research Topic Current Status, Advances, and Key Future Trends in Heat Engines View all articles

Development of a High Thermal Efficiency Heavy-duty Engine

Provisionally accepted
Erick Garcia Erick Garcia 1Vassilis Triantopoulos Vassilis Triantopoulos 1Joseph Trzaska Joseph Trzaska 1Andre L. Boehman Andre L. Boehman 1*Maxwell Taylor Maxwell Taylor 2Jian Li Jian Li 2
  • 1 University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, United States
  • 2 Volvo Technology of America, LLC, Greensboro, NC, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    The U.S. Department of Energy Supertruck 2 program placed emphasis on development of heavyduty trucks with high freight efficiency using commercially realizable technology suites. This paper describes the research and development process used to pursue a high thermal efficiency heavy-duty engine under Supertruck 2. The team focused on over-expanded engine cycles and advanced piston designs. This paper describes how single-cylinder engine studies using thermal barrier coated pistons, high compression pistons, and over-expanded cycles informed the development process of a multi-cylinder demonstration engine that achieved 49.9% peak thermal efficiency. While tailoring the injection strategy and other control parameters optimized the demonstration engine, more than half of the efficiency improvement came from the over-expanded cycle.

    Keywords: freight efficiency, diesel engine, Thermal efficiency, Diesel emissions, Heavy-duty, Miller cycle, Compression ignition

    Received: 26 Oct 2024; Accepted: 20 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Garcia, Triantopoulos, Trzaska, Boehman, Taylor and Li. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Andre L. Boehman, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, United States

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.