Brunel University London is the first to begin researching future powertrain concepts using Camcon Automotive’s new Single Cylinder Intelligent Valve Technology (SCI). The system uses the company’s Intelligent Valve Technology (iVT) and is intended to significantly speed up OEM and Tier 1 engine development, helping meet upcoming emissions regulations while also reducing cost.
Brunel’s Centre for Advanced Powertrain and Fuels (CAPF) plans to use SCI to further investigate the vast potential and control that digital valves provide. Comprised of three Professors and three Senior Lecturers, alongside 20 PhD students, CAPF is one of the UK’s leading automotive technology research centres.
“We are very excited to collaborate with Camcon Automotive in exploring and demonstrating the great potential of Intelligent Valve Technology,” explained Professor Hua Zhao, Director, CAPF, Brunel University London. “The technology’s flexibility and superior controllability will enable the development of the next-generation powertrain with very high efficiency, low carbon and zero environmental impact emissions.”
Based on iVT – which replaces the traditional camshaft on a gasoline engine with a set of digitally controlled electric actuators, dramatically reducing emissions and improving driveability – Single Cylinder iVT (SCI) is the next-generation of single cylinder development systems, bringing real-time digital control and flexibility to the gas exchange process.
Compatible with most single cylinder combustion development engines, SCI has everything a research centre or R&D department needs to ‘plug and play’ straight out of the box.
It operates on both inlet and exhaust valves, offering endless development opportunities, including allowing researchers to focus on crucial combustion and after-treatment strategies, key to reducing emissions and improving fuel consumption.
“We are thrilled to see our new SCI system being put to use by such a highly-regarded team,” explained Mark Gostick, Chief Operating Officer of Camcon Automotive. “It has been designed to facilitate exploration of next generation combustion strategies and highly efficient engines by OEMs and research institutes alike; a gateway to a new era of engine development. The boundless possibilities of digital valve control make it a very attractive option for those looking to refine ICE powertrain.
“iVT completely eliminates the conventional camshaft and for researchers, significantly reduces time needed to do a series of experiments – and improves the consistency of the results. Any valve event profile can be achieved and valve position can be monitored throughout the event using a bespoke sensor. It can mimic any valvetrain, enable on-the-fly cam changes and innovative combustion strategies. It represents an exciting opportunity for researchers, providing a significant new line of inquiry with industry-transforming implications. We will continue working closely with Professor Zhao and the CAPF team, eagerly anticipating the results of their research projects.”
SCI enables ‘event shaping’, allowing the maximum opening point of the valve to be skewed within the event. It also facilitates multiple events within one cycle, allowing extra exhaust events for Homogeneous-Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) or Controlled Auto-Ignition (CAI) combustion studies.
SCI provides each valve with a virtual camshaft of its own that can be ‘changed’ from one firing stroke to the next, rather than needing an engine strip and rebuild.
“It is this feature that saves so much time – and improves accuracy by allowing ‘a-b-c-b-a-c’ type testing to be conducted consecutively in the same run without stopping the engine and therefore under the same running conditions and with no engine stripping to disturb frictional effects,” added Roger Stone, Camcon Automotive’s Technical Director.
The system has built in fail-safes and automatic protection against any events that might produce valve clash. A single cylinder engine using this equipment can either reduce the time taken to gather a set of combustion data covering a given set of valve event options or permit hugely more complete data sets to be gathered in the same development time.
“In practice, significantly larger data sets will be gathered, allowing more detailed response surfaces to be determined in a fraction of the time a conventional single cylinder development programme would take,” continued Stone. “What’s more the system is compact, and apart from the actuators fitted to the cylinder head assembly and a dedicated absolute crank position sensor, requires only a power supply plus a laptop with a custom interface to control the system. The entire system, including valve position instrumentation and power supply, can be provided ready to interface with a customer’s data acquisition equipment.”
Under development for the last seven years, the iVT system has completed more than 1,000 hours on a dynamometer and a demonstrator vehicle has been built. Jaguar Land Rover has been an R&D partner throughout the project. iVT has been designed for ease of manufacture and affordability.
“The car industry is facing huge pressure to meet upcoming emissions regulations in both the short and the long term. Petrol engines will still have a major role to play, particularly in electrified, hybrid powertrains.
“For those applications, a smaller, more efficient, more controllable engine is a must. Rapid, reduced cost combustion development is absolutely key and we believe SCI will be crucial to continuing to unlock the potential of the internal combustion engine. Reducing CO2 now – and other harmful emissions – is better than preventing doing it in 2030,” added Gostick.
Read a Q&A with Mark Gostick here.
