The Alternative Motor Fuels Act, alternative-fuel vehicles, and greenhouse gas emissions

The corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standard is the major policy tool to improve the fleet average miles per gallon of automobile manufacturers in the US. The Alternative Motor Fuels Act (AMFA) provides special treatment in calculating the fuel economy of alternative-fuel vehicles to give manufacturers CAFE incentives to produce more alternative-fuel vehicles. AMFA has as its goals an increase in the production of alternative-fuel vehicles and a decrease in gasoline consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. This paper examines theoretically the effects of the program set up under AMFA. It finds that, under some conditions, this program may actually increase the production of fuel-inefficient gasoline vehicles, gasoline consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.     

Forecasting bunker prices; A nonstationary,multivariate methodology

This paper suggests a methodological approach for the forecasting of marine fuel prices. The prediction of the bunker prices is of outmost importance for operators, as bunker prices affect heavily the economic planning and financial viability of ventures and determine decisions related to compliance with regulations. A multivariate nonstationary stochastic model available in the literature is being retrieved, after appropriate adjustment and testing. The model belongs to the class of periodically correlated stochastic processes with annual periodic components. The time series are appropriately transformed to become Gaussian, and then are decomposed to deterministic seasonal characteristics (mean value and standard deviation) and a residual time series. The residual part is proved to be stationary and then is modeled as a Vector AutoRegressive Mooving Average (VARMA) process. Finally, using the methodology presented, forecasts of a tetra-variate and an octa-variate time series of bunker prices are produced and are in good agreement with actual values. The obtained results encourages further research and deeper investigation of the driving characters of the multivariate time series of bunker prices.     

Resolving the property right of transportation emissions through public–private partnerships

The application of public–private partnerships (P3’s) in the transportation sector has grown in popularity worldwide. Despite this important shift in the provision of transportation service, there are clear gaps in knowledge about the impacts of P3 projects, especially on emissions from transportation systems as a whole. Not only should policy makers evaluate the emissions impacts from P3 projects, but they should also think about innovative models that address or charge for emissions into P3 contracts. This addition to P3 contracts could provide a new solution to the long-existing property right paradox: who owns (is responsible for) emissions from transportation systems? This study attempts to fill the research gap by analyzing these innovative models. Using the road network of Fresno, California, as our case study, we offer a number of interesting insights for policy makers. First, average peak emissions costs range from 1.37 cents per mile (the do-nothing case) to 1.20 cents per mile (profit-maximizing cases) per vehicle. Although emissions costs from the P3 projects are lowest for the profit-maximizing cases, the system-wide emissions costs of these cases are highest because of spillover effects. Second, charging project owners for the emissions costs of P3 projects is not an effective way to reduce emissions or the total costs of travel, especially on a VMT basis. Instead, the public sector should implement emissions-included social cost-based price ceilings. When employing these limits, project owners could still be charged for the emissions costs. Finally, using total travel time as the only objective function for evaluating P3 projects can be misleading. Several P3 projects have shown better outcomes using total travel cost with the inclusion of emissions and fuel consumption costs, instead of using total travel time as the only objective function.     

冷却液温度为边界条件的柴油机起动试验研究

为了研究冷却液温度对柴油机起动过程初期燃烧不稳定性及排放的影响规律,在一台单缸直喷式柴油机上,利用缸压和单循环采样测试系统对柴油机起动初期单个工作循环的燃烧和排放进行了试验研究。结果表明:冷却液温度是影响柴油机起动过程不稳定的重要因素之一。较低的冷却液温度导致柴油机起动初期燃烧不稳定性增加,失火和不完全燃烧循环较多,从而导致HC排放升高,而且冷却液温度低造成的滞后燃烧会产生较高的CO排放。冷却液温度升高后,失火循环消除,同时着火延迟期明显缩短,最高燃烧压力升高,HC和CO排放显著降低,NOx排放升高,表明燃烧状况改善。     

重型矿用汽车车架的疲劳寿命计算

介绍了一种用于重型矿用汽车车架疲劳寿命计算的实用方法。这种方法把随机载荷下的疲劳寿命直接与描述一个应力历程的有关统计参量联系在一起,在对车架进行疲劳寿命计算时,只要求知道常幅应力-寿命数据和车架所经受的应力历程的标准离差与度规频率。用这种方法对我国某矿山使用的重型矿用汽车车架进行了疲劳寿命计算,计算结果与实际情况比较吻合。     

A study of the environmental impacts of intelligent automated vehicle control at intersections via V2V and V2I communications

This article presents a novel intersection traffic management system for automated vehicles and quantifies its impact on fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions of CO₂ relative to traditional traffic signal and roundabout intersection control. The developed intelligent traffic management (ITM) techniques, which are based on a spatiotemporal reservation scheme, ensure that vehicles proceed through the intersection without colliding with other vehicles while at the same time reducing the intersection delay and environmental impacts. Specifically, the spatiotemporal reservation scheme provides each vehicle a collision-free path that is decomposed into a speed profile along with navigational instructions. The integration of the developed microscopic traffic simulator with instantaneous emission model, provides improved assessments of the environmental impact of traffic control strategies at intersections. The simulator architecture integrates several ITM algorithms, vehicle sensors, V2V/V2I communications, and emission and fuel consumption models. Each vehicle is modeled by an agent and each agent provides information depending on the specific vehicle sensors. The ITM system is supported by V2V and V2I communications, allowing the exchange of information among vehicles and infrastructure. The data include the estimated vehicle position and speed. Compared with traditional traffic management techniques, the simulation results prove that the proposed ITM system reduces CO₂ emissions significantly. The research also shows that these reductions are more significant when the traffic flow increases.     

Improving pollutant emissions in diesel engines for heavy-duty transportation using retarded intake valve closing strategies

A combined theoretical and experimental study has been carried out to determine the real potential of reducing pollutant emissions in a HD diesel engine by means of retarding the intake valve closing. The effects produced by this alteration of the basic operation cycle have been examined by a preliminary modelling study, and from the obtained results, a modified camshaft was manufactured with a delayed intake valve closing of 60 crank angle degrees. Single-cylinder engine tests were carried out with this modified camshaft, and the emissions and fuel consumption were recorded. The results showed that the retarded intake valve closing can enhance the premixed combustion phase, and thus simultaneously reduce soot and NOx emissions. Moreover, the combustion process attained is extremely tolerant to exhaust gas recirculation, and by adoption of this measure, Euro-5 emissions limits can be achieved at the tested conditions without after-treatment.     

掺烧乙醇/水对柴油机燃烧与排放性能的影响

针对TBD234V6型柴油机,采用AVL-fire软件对额定工况下,不同乙醇/水掺混比进行三维数值模拟研究,对比分析缸内压力、缸内温度、缸内温度场、燃烧放热率、NOx浓度、NOx浓度场、Soot浓度、Soot浓度场,并通过赋权法确定最优乙醇/水掺混比。结果表明：随着乙醇/水掺混比的增加,缸内压力逐渐升高,燃烧放热率滞后,燃油消耗率呈上升趋势,但在0E10W时,最高燃烧压力下降率约为3.7%;燃油消耗率下降0.38%;缸内高温分布区域缩小,NOx和Soot浓度下降。通过计算确定最优掺混比为20E10W,此时,最高燃烧压力提升5.6%,燃油消耗率上升2.41%,NOx排放下降率约为18.8%,Soot排放下降率约为29.6%。研究结果可为船用柴油机采用柴油/乙醇/水三燃料燃烧提供一定的指导依据。     

The Pollution-Routing Problem

The amount of pollution emitted by a vehicle depends on its load and speed, among other factors. This paper presents the Pollution-Routing Problem (PRP), an extension of the classical Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP) with a broader and more comprehensive objective function that accounts not just for the travel distance, but also for the amount of greenhouse emissions, fuel, travel times and their costs. Mathematical models are described for the PRP with or without time windows and computational experiments are performed on realistic instances. The paper sheds light on the tradeoffs between various parameters such as vehicle load, speed and total cost, and offers insight on economies of ‘environmental-friendly’ vehicle routing. The results suggest that, contrary to the VRP, the PRP is significantly more difficult to solve to optimality but has the potential of yielding savings in total cost.     

考虑环境因素的公交车队管理研究

提出了一种公交车辆管理模型,可以在考虑环境因素以及资金、技术等限制条件下做出车辆购买、淘汰的决策.在满足污染物排放限定条件下达到成本投入最小.通过案例分析,结果表明该模型行之有效.