Selective Catalytic Oxidation of Nitrous Oxides
Experimental investigation of phenomena in SCR-deNOx exhaust aftertreatment systems (2011-)

PhD-Student: Alexander Spiteri
Supervisor: Dr. Panayotis Dimopoulos Eggenschwiler

The selective catalytic reduction of NOx with urea is a key technology for nitrous oxide abatement in the field of heavy-duty vehicles and naval engines. The fulfilment of Euro VI emission limits, effective from 2014 onwards, is expected to require all heavy-duty vehicles to be equipped with exhaust aftertreatment systems, most likely in the form of urea-SCR systems. Although this technology is well established for stationary diesel engines, mobile applications impose additional challenges due to, amongst others, transient operation and space limitations.

Click here for more information...

Combustion Analysis and Exhaust Gas Aftertreatment in Turbocharged Natural Gas Engine (2006-)

PhD-Student: Reto Egli
Supervisor: Dr. Patrik Soltic

Reducing CO2-emissions and other regulated emissions is one of the major aspects of current research and development within the domain of combustion engines.

The scope of this PhD Thesis is the investigation of in-cylinder processes as well as the exhaust gas aftertreatment of a direct injected natural gas combustion engine to support the design matching between the engine and the aftertreatment.

Click here for more information...

Downsizing and Turbocharging in Hybrid Electric Vehicles
Optimizing Control Strategy and Component Sizes (2006-2009)

PhD-Student: Olle Sundström
Supervisor: Dr. Patrik Soltic

Reducing fuel consumption and carbon dioxide emissions is a major competitive advantage of automotive manufacturers today. The CLEVER-Project aims to optimize a turbocharged direct injection CNG electric hybrid powertrain and reduce the carbon dioxide emission by 40% in comparison to a conventional gasoline engine based powertrain with the similar performance.

Optimizing such powertrains include turbocharger sizing, combustion engine sizing, and electric path dimensioning. This will be done using an integrated design method of control system and component sizes. Optimizing vehicle powertrains can provide insight into what configuration lowers the fuel consumption without increasing powertrain cost and complexity.

Click here for more information...

Evaluation of aerosol road traffic emissions in Switzerland by chasing experiments and dynamometric tests (2004-2008)

PhD-Student: Silke Weimer
Supervisor: Dr. Martin Mohr

Aerosol particles have an impact on the radiation budget and on the human health depending on their properties (size, mass, chemical components).

In this PhD Thesis we focus on particles produced by vehicle combustion.

Click here for more information...

Direct dynamic instantaneous emission modelling (2001 - 2005)

PhD Student: Delia Elisabeta Ajtay
Supervisor: Dr. Martin Weilenmann

The goal of this project was to develop an instantaneous emissions and fuel consumption model. Such a model should be capable to predict emission factors for unmeasured speed diagrams using just a small number of measurements. Beside that, contributory aspects like load, gradient, gearshift strategies can be also included.

Click here for more information...

Study of flame propagation and knock in a turbo- charged natural gas engine (2000 - 2005)

PhD Student: Christian Laemmle
Supervisor: Dr. Patrik Soltic

One of the major objectives during the development process is to reduce costs and time to market. Increasing computational power and continuous improvements of models for internal combustion engine applications promise to replace some optimisation steps by computer simulations. A prerequisite for that is that trends can be reasonably predicted and that calculations adequately incorporate the physics to support the understanding of the complex processes involved.

Click here for more information...