FPT Industrial has always looked toward the future: its commitment to developing new advanced technologies was also shown at this first Tech Day. Inside a special Tech Cube, installed at Industrial Village, visitors had the chance to experience the Cursor 13 NG with a virtual reality experience, and to discover mock-ups and applications, through video and engineer lessons, to get a deeper knowledge of the present and future challenges and improvements of FPT Industrial technologies.
The Cursor 13 NG was presented in a 360-degree view, thanks to the Virtual Reality experience: a new way to discover the engine and its components, such as the stoichiometric combustion, the injection swirl-angle and the 3-way catalyst.
Inside the Tech Cube, there were also special projects and mock-ups that underlined FPT Industrial involvement in the European project. GASTone, for example, was funded by the European Commission, and it involved FPT Industrial and various institutions for the last four years. During this time, a high-efficient energy conversion concept was developed: GASTone, which is based on the integration of energy recovery devices, energy storage and energy auxiliaries’ electrification, and mounted on a FPT Industrial Cursor Natural Gas Euro VI engine for On-Road vehicles. For this project, the FPT Industrial engine was integrated with components like TEG, TBG and BSG, in order to reduce kinetic energy and waste heat. The test bench activities were held in FPT Industrial R&D facilities, and FPT Industrial’s main tasks in the project were the mechanical integration and installation of all components on the engine, as well as the control system development for electronic devices’ management.
If GASTone aims to reach a high-efficient energy conversion, the Hi-eNG (High Efficiency Natural Gas) wants to develop a low pressure direct injection, positive-ignition combustion system for the next generation of Heavy Duty Natural Gas engines. In order to do reach this goal, new components, such as a specific cylinder head with pentroof combustion chamber and tumble intake ports, the Corona Ignition system and the high pressure cooled EGR circuit, were integrated to the engine by FPT Industrial. The result is a 10% improvement of the brake thermal efficiency, the reduction in Greenhouse Gas emission, the Torque and rated Power of the Hi-eNG, when compared to baseline engines.
Inside Tech Cube, FPT Industrial wanted to demonstrate its effort in achieving the 50% brake thermal efficiency for Diesel engines as well. In this case, FPT Industrial engineers explained using a video that three main tools were used: a combustion bomb for fundamental research and simulation calibration; a combustion simulation for virtual combustion development; and a single cylinder engine for combustion validation, whose modularity allows quicker variations of combustion relevant components.
What concerns both Diesel and Natural Gas, instead, is the reduction of Real Driving Emissions and fuel of heavy-duty on-road haulage. This is why FPT Industrial developed an Energy Management project, which allows to reduce fuels consumption (diesel and urea) whilst respecting the legal limits for pollutant emissions. In order to do this, FPT Industrial directly optimized the control of the main components (i.e engine, transmission, e-drive, etc) to maximize their performance; integrated the powertrain energy manager to coordinate and optimize the various energy sources; and provided a more comprehensive understanding of the mission, in order to efficiently plan the energy sources in a long term.
Innovations were also outside the Tech Cube, where visitors could discover the Waste Heat Recovery System. FPT Industrial collaborated into its development to optimize both the components and the performance: once the system was ready, it was applied to an Iveco Stralis. FPT Industrial’s control system and the hardware was designed together with the target to decrease the complexity, while using a safety approach to have better confidence in roads’ measurements.