Boosting and Air Handling Technologies for Advanced Power Systems

Recently, advanced power system research/development including advanced combustion engines, electric hybrid vehicles (SI or CI), and pure electric vehicles (including PEM or SOFC FCEVs) has seen a significant spike in interest across the automotive and commercial transportation industry. The increased interest in electric vehicles and advanced combustion engines (including Low Temperature Combustion, Gasoline Compression Ignition and Opposed-Piston Two-Stroke Compression Ignition), showed up in the past occasionally. However, it appears that this time, the entire power system industry is substantially invested in their development due to an increase in demand for fuel economy, decrease in engine criteria emissions, and societal concerns. In all these applications, the air-handling systems are critical and are being developed in ways that have not been considered before. The unique challenges faced in powertrain controllability, combustion /air-management controllability, and thermal management controllability mean that the traditional air handling systems used for conventional engines may not be suitable for future advanced power systems. It is therefore necessary to expand the research literature on air handling technologies for advanced power systems so as to gain a better insight into the design/testing requirements of such prime movers.

The present research topic aims to expand the understanding of air handling system components such as boosting systems (including turbochargers, superchargers, electrical turbochargers), waste heat recovery systems, valvetrain systems (variable valve actuation strategies), EGR systems, variable cylinder displacement (cylinder deactivation), and variable compression ratio. There is also specific interest in understanding how the existing designs of these systems can be optimized or better implemented to engine systems operating on advanced power system strategies. Work from both numerical simulations and experiments pertaining to these areas can be submitted to this special issue. Advanced Power Systems, for this special issue, may fall under the following configuration/combustion types:

- Plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEVs)
- Range extended electric vehicles (EREVs)
- Parallel/Series hybrid powertrains
- Pure electric vehicles (incl. PEM FCEVs, SOFC EVs)
- Low Temperature Combustion (incl. HCCI, RCCI, SACI)
- Gasoline Compression Ignition (incl. SA-GCI)
- Dual Fuel Combustion
- Opposed Piston Two Stroke (incl. both Gasoline and Diesel CI)
- Turbulent Jet Ignition
- Highly Dilute/Lean-burn Gasoline Combustion
- Clean Diesel Combustion (incl. PCCI)
- Alternative Fuel Vehicles (incl. Methanol, Ethanol blends, Natural Gas)

Papers submitted to this issue should clearly identify the limitations of current air handling system designs in meeting the operational requirements of advanced power systems. In addition, the papers should propose novel air handling system solutions to overcome these limitations. The solutions proposed may be novel operating strategies with existing air handling system hardware, or completely new air handling system equipment designs themselves. Authors are also highly encouraged to submit papers on the impact of air handling system design on transient operation of the advanced power system considered.

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Dr. Sririam Popuri and Dr. Anand Nageswaran Bharath are Senior Research Engineers for Cummins Inc. All other Topic Editors declare no competing interests with regards to the Research Topic subject.