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Fiat Powertrain Technologies


Lucio BERNARD – Fiat Powertrain Technologies – Research & Technology

Q. How will biofuels affect the engine of 2018?

A. The European Community has fixed very ambitious objectives for the replacement of mineral fuels with biofuels, in particular, 5.75% within 2010 and 10% within 2020. But today, notwithstanding the EC recommendation, the real percentage available in Europe is not far from 2%. Moreover there are no indications if biofuels must be used pure or blended with traditional gasoline and Diesel oils.
It is evident that, as the present engines do not manifest any problems with blends of mineral fuels and biofuels up to 5%, we do not expect any problems if biofuels will be blended with mineral ones.
Taking into account the well known problems of the present first generation biofuels (competition with food, raw materials price increase, lack of arable lands, availability of water….) we are convinced that this situation will not change very much in the next future. Anyway we are testing the possibility to use blends with percentage of biofuels within a range up to 10 - 20% without significative changes of the engine components.
In the future, with the development of the second generation biofuels – produced from waste materials and chemically “tailored” for application – many of the potential disadvantage should disappear.

Q. How big will engines be in 2018?

A. A continuous growth of the cars weight and size has been experienced in the last years, due mainly to safety and comfort reasons. The engine power and torque improvement has been obtained mainly through new technologies and a slight displacement increase. For the future we do not expect a drastic reduction of the car weight, therefore to comply with the new low-CO2 emissions targets engine downsizing is a must, together with the introduction of new technologies for fuel economy improvement. For gasoline engines a high degree of downsizing (till 40%) is likely, with a widespread adoption of new generation turbochargers suited to recover not only the maximum power, but above all optimized for an outstanding low-end torque. On the Diesel side, downsizing is necessary as well to recover some fuel economy, but of course with less effectiveness; the adoption of more sophisticated turbocharging technology, like the current two-stage one, is foreseen.
Due to this downsizing need, for example, two-cylinder engines with less than one liter total displacement will be used on the smallest car segments.

Q. What sort of valvetrain / induction developments do you expect?

A. Since many years we have been believing that the development of new, electronically controlled valvetrain technologies is a fundamental step to increase the flexibility of the in-cylinder air induction process, to be exploited in terms of engine performance, fuel consumption and emissions. We will put in production in 2009 the Multiair technology, that combines a very flexible and fast intake (and if necessary exhaust) valve actuation system with a reliable and fail-safe architecture based on the preservation of the conventional camshaft. We think that this kind of technology in the future will be adopted not only by Spark Ignited engines mainly for fuel economy and performance improvement, but also by Diesel engines to help to meet the future emission standards, especially as NOx emissions are concerned.
Maybe in 2018 other camless technologies could be industrialized, even if the smaller additional benefits with respect to e.g. the Multiair technology, combined with higher costs and reliability problems could limit the application to small production volumes.

Q. How will combustion strategies develop?

A. This is an area in which there is today a lot of innovation ferment, for all the internal combustion engine types. For the gasoline engines we think that in the future the winning technology package will be the combination of turbocharging, electronic valve control and direct injection, with a stoichiometric combustion control. This is the way to achieve the maximum engine efficiency while preserving the potential to comply with future emission standards at very low cost, maintaining the current aftertreatment system. The adoption of a lean (stratified) combustion strategy would in general add costs for the NOx aftertreatment without further remarkable improvement of fuel economy.
As regards the introduction of non conventional combustion strategies, like HCCI, we foresee it more likely for the Diesel engines, where it is absolutely necessary to do the most at the combustion
chamber level to avoid the introduction of additional, costly, aftertreatment technologies, that could be no more bearable by an engine yet highly expensive. By the way, new variable valve systems will be the enabling technologies for these innovative combustion strategies.

Q. What will be the cutting edge engine technology of 2018?

A. If the answer is related to a single technology only, no doubt that the electronic valve control is the real candidate to be the cutting edge technology of 2018. Speaking instead of a complete technology package, I would see an engine fuelled by natural gas – hydrogen mixtures, turbocharged, of course with the electronic valve control, with a stoichiometric combustion strategy. This could be an engine with ultra-low polluting emissions, able to reach very impressive CO2 figures, as we have demonstrated on the Panda Aria concept shown in the recent Frankfurt Exhibition, where a two-cylinder engine with this technology package, combined with a very efficient vehicle, can achieve 69 g/km of CO2 emissions. This could be a big step in substituting the present oil-derived fuel with an already widely available fuel (natural gas), creating a bridge that could allow the development of infrastructures for the future production and distribution of the hydrogen.

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