A Study for the Fuel Economy Improvement of a Heavy Duty Engine in Commercial Vehicles(II)

Recently, studies conducted by our research group, revealed the possibility for reducing BSFC, NOx and PM emissions to meet the Euro 4 & 5 legislations. The main objective of the present study is to get better fuel economy in commercial vehicles by considering real driving conditions. Firstly, in order to improve fuel economy on fields, specifically it is required to analyze the driving pattern and make the representative modes from real field data. Secondly, it is performed to make the engine dynometer test to optimize the fuel consumption by reflecting on the representative driving modes, based on the Korea 2008 emission legislation equal to the Euro 4. The engine components such as engine calibration, combustion chamber, turbocharger and ancilliaries were modified to optimize vehicle fuel economy over a typical customer drive cycle whilst still meeting the exhaust emission restrictions. Finally, these results were confirmed by field testing of vehicle equipped with the updated calibration engine. It was placed the two vehicles together traveling the same route and accomplishing the same amount of stops(back to back), in order to evaluate the fuel consumption in comparison to the current vehicle. Through several repeats such as the engine calibration and field test, we could get 3 % to 7.7 % vehicle fuel economy improvements compared to previous vehicle.