Experimental investigation of a hydrogen powered heavy-duty truck engine

A baseline HD diesel truck engine is converted to a port fuel injection hydrogen engine. Dedicated components, developed for this application proved to be suitable in this full engine run. The paper focuses on thermodynamics investigation and crankcase ventilation. The performance target of > 80% of the baseline engine is achieved with 20.5 bar BMEP and 315 kW peak power. A very good thermal efficiency, similar to that of the baseline engine, is demonstrated with > 44% in significant areas of the map. Second main topic is MAHLE’s solution to ensure uncritical hydrogen concentration in the crank case. An active ventilation system, including the High Pressure Impactor (HPI) component, uses scavenging with ambient air to ensures safe hydrogen concentration levels. Its development was aligned with the hydrogen PCU applied, with in turn is optimized for good blowby performance.