Internal combustion engine

An internal combustion engine (ICE or IC engine) is a heat engine in which the combustion of a fuel occurs with an oxidizer (usually air) in a combustion chamber that is an integral part of the working fluid flow circuit. In an internal combustion engine, the expansion of the high-temperature and high-pressure gases produced by combustion applies direct force to some component of the engine. The force is typically applied to pistons (piston engine), turbine blades (gas turbine), a rotor (Wankel engine), or a nozzle (jet engine). This force moves the component over a distance, transforming chemical energy into kinetic energy which is used to propel, move or power whatever the engine is attached to. The first commercially successful internal combustion engine was created by Étienne Lenoir around 1860, and the first modern internal combustion engine, known as the Otto engine, was created in 1876 by Nicolaus Otto. The term internal combustion engine usually refers to an engine in which

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Performance evolution and modeling of PEM fuel cell systems

Nicolas Roggo

In the context of climate change mitigation, different alternatives to reduce the atmospheric CO2 emissions are; increasing the efficiency, switching to renewable resource and reduce emissions from fossil resources by CO2 capture and storage (CCS) . Hydrogen is considered as potential alternative to cover the energy needs by using it as a fuel in internal combustion engines or fuel cells, or as chemical source. In proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells, also known as polymer exchange membrane fuel cells, pure hydrogen fuelis combined with the oxygen from the atmosphere to produce water, heat and electricity. Many research has been done in recent years on fuel cell systems leading to higher efficiencies. The performance is influenced by the membrane properties, the catalysts, the number of cells and the operating conditions. For studying the performance of fuel cell systems process modeling is a well-known approach. Here the evolution of fuel cell efficiency, especially of PEMFC is studied within the aim of updating previously developed PEMFC process models to integrate them with different hydrogen production processes using fossil and renewable resources in order to assess the competitiveness on the energy market.

2012

Fueling a SOFC with agricultural waste derived biogas - Analysing the Swiss case -

Samuel Joseph Christian Majerus

The use of fuel cells for valorising agricultural and food-waste-derived biogas in Switzerland is studied. The Swiss agricultural case is characterised by farms with small numbers of animals (20 cows) and high feed-in tariffs for biogas derived electricity. Thus, small-scale biogas installations are reviewed and the possibility to couple them with solid oxide fuel cells and photovoltaic panels is analysed. It is shown that solid oxide fuel cells become competitive over combustion engines if the investment cost of the first decreases to 13,000 CHF/kWel with a lifetime of 10 years. However, a small-scale biogas installation is not profitable yet: the main challenge is to bring down the lifetime cost of the fuel cells and to reduce the investment cost of small-scale biogas facilities to around 6,000 CHF/kWch. The case of equipping the EPFL and UNIL sites with a digester and a solid oxide fuel cell is examined and is considered feasible from a technical and legal point.

2016

Robust control for an electromagnetic actuator for a camless engine

Zlatina Kirilova Dimitrova

The increase of the effective efficiency of the internal combustion engines is important for the fuel consumption reduction and the CO2 emission reduction. The variable engine valve trains are important for the gas exchanges and influence directly the effective efficiency of the internal combustion engine. With the increased electrifications of the vehicles, variable valve train based on electricity driven actuators presents interest for investigation for gasoline engines for vehicular application. This article presents an innovative application of an electromagnetic actuator for a future variable engine valve train. The actuators are designed for small gasoline engine. The design of a high performing and dynamic electromechanical system leads to a nonlinear behavior of the actuator. The nonlinearities that have to be faced come from the magnetic laws and the mechanical friction. In the final control strategy, it is proposed to compensate them both with nonlinear feedforward actions and with a linear robust feedback controller, which is able to reject all what cannot be predicted. An experimental test bench is built for the correlation of the control model with experimental measures. Control strategies are developed and the performance indicators of the actuators are evaluated. The robust controller method uses CRONE system control methodology. The investigations show that very good dynamic performances of the controller are obtained.

PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD2019

Diesel engine

The diesel engine, named after Rudolf Diesel, is an internal combustion engine in which ignition of the fuel is caused by the elevated temperature of the air in the cylinder due to mechanical compr

Car

A car, or an automobile is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of cars say that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people, no

Two-stroke engine

A two-stroke (or two-stroke cycle) engine is a type of internal combustion engine that completes a power cycle with two strokes (up and down movements) of the piston during one power cycle, this pow

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