Development of a Natural Gas-Powered APU for a Hybrid Electric S-10 Pickup Truck

摘要

An Electromagnetic valve actuation (EVA) system was developed and applied to aKohler Command Series engine. The EVA system was developed for the Kohler engine by Aura Systems of El Segundo CA. Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) was responsible for evaluating the performance of the EVA equipped engine, running on natural gas, in a laboratory test environment. As part of this effort, SwRI applied a personal computer-based engine control system which managed the fueling, ignition, throttling, and intake/exhaust valve control functions. Advantages from utilizing the EVA system on the engine proved to be increased engine power and tall load efficiency at low speed operation, and increased part load efficiency at all engine speeds.