Alternative fuels are increasingly important in the redesign of commercial vehicle engines. So far natural gas (methane) was the pioneer for the conversion of existing commercial vehicle drives. The market penetration on the different continents however varies a lot: In the EU the market share of commercial natural gas vehicles play a minor role, whereas in China around a tenth of all heavy commercial vehicles run on methane. In the USA the sales numbers for gas-powered commercial vehicles are below the expectations from a decade ago, although a local commercial engine manufacturer is constantly expanding its portfolio and preparing for higher sales volumes in near future.
The rising prices of precious metals in the methane three-way catalytic converter and the higher costs for natural gas additionally damp the sales increase of gas engines. Furthermore, the refueling infrastructure is still not fully established in the entire EU. The CO2 fleet reduction targets in the EU are more favoring the penetration of completely CO2-free drives, which in recent years draw the attention to hydrogen as a fuel for engines.
The hydrogen engine has a lot of economic advantages compared to other CO2 free powertrain concepts, however the development taking the Diesel as baseline has some challenges.
Currently more and more commercial vehicle manufacturers are considering the use of alcohol fuels. Ethanol turns out to be very popular on the American continent, Methanol is of particular interest for Chinese OEMs. Non-road applications (e.g. agricultural machinery) could become one of the most important for alcohol fuels which turned out to be particularly challenging in view of mixture formation, cold start and mechanical durability.
All alternative fuels mentioned (natural gas, hydrogen, ethanol, methanol) bring their individual development challenges with regard to mixture formation, combustion anomalies, cold start behavior, thermomechanical strength and mechanical durability. What they all have in common is an otto-engine combustion concept. AVL shows possibilities of adapting existing engine platforms in the best possible way for these fuels, so that maximum availability of identical parts with a highly efficient diesel concept (e.g.: HVO) is ensured.
Commercial engine concepts for the flexible use of low-carbon and sustainable fuels
Proceedings
Internationaler Motorenkongress ; 2024 ; baden-baden, Deutschland April 19, 2024 - April 29, 2024
2024-07-01
17 pages
Article/Chapter (Book)
Electronic Resource
German
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