Reducing harmful exhaust emissions by improving the fuel injection system used in diesel engines is the focus of a new research team that includes a UWindsor automotive engineering professor.
Ming Zheng is part of a strategic research team that received a $324,000 three-year grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council to improve the efficiency of piezoelectric fuel injectors. Piezo is a Greek word which means to squeeze or press, and piezoelectricity refers to the energy generated by applying mechanical stress to some materials such as crystals or ceramics.
In a typical combustion engine, injectors spray diesel fuel into a chamber in the engine block where it mixes with oxygen and is ignited by compression, causing a contained explosion that propels the pistons. That energy is transferred to the vehicle’s wheels. Most current fuel injectors are powered by electromagnetic solenoids or piezoceramic stacks that operate a hydraulic nozzle needle that opens and closes the injector’s spray valve within a fraction of a millisecond.
Dr. Zheng and his team believe using new piezoelectric technology to power the injector will provide a faster and more precise way of getting the fuel mix into the engine’s combustion chamber. That will create a more even distribution of fuel and maximize the engine’s efficiency by reducing the amount of oxidized nitrogen—a byproduct of the combustion process—emitted into the atmosphere, he said. His team will design new injectors, install them on engines in his lab and monitor their performance.
“They’re all very good researchers,” Zheng said of his collaborators at Toronto, Ryerson, and Simon Fraser universities. “This is a great way to work with other universities.”
Ming Zheng holds up a fuel injector powered piezoelectric energy.
News Story Courtesy of UWin Daily News