Impact of future EU7 regulations on high performance gasoline-ICEs and possible innovative technologies for extension of lambda 1 operating range

The aim of pollutant emissions legislation is to bring environmental benefit by helping reduce, for what road transport is responsible, the concentration of pollutants where levels are too high and endanger human health. Europe is considering several changes in “post Euro 6d” regulation from 2025. Several measures have been proposed for Euro 7, most of which introduce new challenges in the development of high-performance turbocharged gasoline engine such as the extension of lambda 1 in the whole engine map. In this Master Thesis, possible technologies to expand the engine operating range with lambda 1 in the entire engine map, without widely reducing the engine performances are analyzed. In particular the focus is on the Pre-Chamber Spark Ignition (PCSI), the Exhaust Gas Recirculation (EGR), the Miller Cylce, the Water Injection and the Ultra High Pressure Injection. Subsequently, the modeling and validation in Simulink/Matlab of thermal models to analyze and monitor the exhaust gas temperature in the entire exhaust system is presented and explained. The aim of the modeling is integrating the modules into the Model-in-the-Loop environment and co-simulating with GT-Power/Simulink for a virtual pre-calibration of exhaust gas temperature control. Finally, homologation cycles are run to obtain a first analysis feedback regarding the pre-calibration and to understand which are the cycle zones where the fuel enrichement will be necessary to reach the desired temperature.