Abstract
The outstanding fuel economy and driveability of vehicles powered by high speed direct injection diesel engines are well known. They are the reason for the increasing popularity of HSDI diesel powered vehicles in Europe. It is expected that about 75% of all 4 million European diesel vehicles produced in the year 2000 will be DI diesels. However, some concern exists as to whether the HSDI diesel engine will be capable of meeting the future challenge of legislative NOx- and particulate emission standards, while remaining cost competitive with gasoline fuelled alternatives.
The development activities to cope with this challenge follow an integral approach to examine engine plus vehicle in steady-state as well as dynamic operation. The paper reviews both the vehicle and engine sided parameters affecting DI diesel emissions and economy and describes the achievements of AVL's research and development work with respect to drive train, engine design, operating fluids, mixture preparation and combustion, control technology and exhaust gas aftertreatment systems. Starting from currently obtained emissions and fuel consumption data of prototype engines developed at AVL, future achievable emission data are predicted, taking into account various technology elements which are not yet ready for production. From that it becomes obvious that even with higher inertia vehicles the diesel engine will survive the Europe IV emissions challenge.