EU “POWERFUL” project developing new low-emission combustion engines

1 March 2013

A European consortium is developing new low-emission spark ignition (SI) and compression ignition (CI) engines for road transport. The EU-funded ‘POWERtrain for FUture Light-duty vehicles’ (POWERFUL) project is targeting a 40% reduction in CO₂ emissions for SI (gasoline) engines and a 20% reduction for CI (diesel) with respect to 2005.

The four-year, €24.3-million (US$32-million) project, which wraps at the end of this year, also seeks to deliver at least 10% less CO, HC, NO_x and PM figures than the Euro 6 emissions limits. In order to achieve their goals, investigators are studying three engine concepts:

1. A novel miniaturized four-stroke SI engine integrating variable valve actuation (VVA), advanced turbo-charging (TC) and direct injection (DI).

2. An advanced four-stroke CI concept able to run on new tailored fuels and integrating the low temperature combustion (LTC) mode in the CI combustion system.

3. A down-sized two-stroke CI engine concept running on diesel fuel and integrating the low thermal homogeneous combustion (LTHC) mode in the CI system.

These advanced engine concepts are accompanied by a transversal sub-project for the development of:

• new simulation tools describing the strong interactions between combustion systems and engine architecture;

• means for reducing engine frictions and performing an intelligent energy management; and

• a PEMS (portable emissions measurement system) approach.