Title: Diesel engine performance improvement with suitable low cost technologies for tractor applications

Authors: S. Karthikeyan; K. Annamalai; M. Sathyanandan

Addresses: Department of Automobile, Anna University, M.I.T. Campus, Chennai 600044, India ' Department of Automobile, Anna University, M.I.T. Campus, Chennai 600044, India ' Product Development, Ashok Leyland, Chennai, Chennai 600103, India

Abstract: Off-road engines for tractor applications are developed with limited space due to packaging constraints and low cost targets. Hence major challenges faced by several off-road engine manufactures are to achieve higher power density and to comply emission legislation with low cost modifications. Henceforth in this work a cost-effective research approach is investigated for conversion of naturally aspirated (NA) engine to turbocharged intercooled for off-road diesel engines performance improvement. Further, reducing the charge air temperature into the engine by using water spray cooled intercooler strategy minimised the combustion temperature, consequently power and torque increased. To reduce the exhaust emission such as oxides of nitrogen (NOx), strategies such as cooled exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) are computationally optimised. This analysis is executed for selection of the EGR cooler tube to achieve better exhaust gas cooling effectiveness. In addition to the NOx reduction strategy, substrate volume for lean NOx trap is also optimised to investigate its effectiveness in this research work.

Keywords: off-road engines; tractors; diesel enginee; turbocharger; intercooler; performance improvement; charge air temperature; water spray cooling; combustion temperature; power; torque; exhaust emissions; nitrogen oxides; lean NOx trap; exhaust gas recirculation; EGR; exhaust gas cooling.

DOI: 10.1504/PIE.2015.073087

Progress in Industrial Ecology, An International Journal, 2015 Vol.9 No.2, pp.207 - 216

Received: 17 Apr 2015
Accepted: 06 Jul 2015
Published online: 16 Nov 2015 *

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