爱豆传媒

The money will be injected into the university's £150m redevelopment scheme for its Moulsecoomb campus in Brighton which includes Preston Barracks, a partnership scheme between the university and Brighton & Hove City Council.

The Central Research Laboratory (CRL), as it will be known, will be a 55,000 sq ft business incubation centre, a cutting-edge facility to support hi-tech and design-led manufacturing and to commercialise university research.

The new monies will boost research opportunities including the search for the near-zero emissions internal combustion engine (ICE), according to Professor Morgan Heikal, Professor of Thermofluids in the School of Computing, Engineering and Mathematics.

The university has been working with Shoreham-based Ricardo, world leaders in technical and environmental consultancy and specialising in the development of low carbon vehicle technology. The partners have been working on research projects since the 1990s and in 2006 the company and the university jointly opened the Sir Harry Ricardo Laboratories at the university's Moulsecoomb campus where much of the collaborative research has been carried out.

Professor Heikal said the collaboration has already led to significant improvements: "Internal combustion engine research at the university’s Centre for Automotive Engineering is focused on the development of novel combustion systems to produce near-zero emissions to meet the stringent European and world regulations at the same or improved fuel economy. The work spans all engine types and sizes including light duty petrol and diesel light and heavy duty."

"Investigation of very high injection pressures and multiple injections on the heavy duty single cylinder engine at Brighton contributed to the technical approach adopted by large truck makers. This has resulted in a new generation of diesels with much improved emission levels that retain the high efficiency of previous generations.

"Significant improvements in the overall efficiency of the ICE are essential to reduce demand and hence carbon emissions from fossil fuels."

In their 2013 'Powertrain (ICE) Roadmap', the Automotive Council in the UK recognised the reduction of thermal losses and recovery of waste heat through the application of new thermodynamic cycles as critical technologies in achieving a step improvement in the efficiency of ICE's.

Professor Morgan Heikal

Split cycle engine

Professor Heikal said: "A new major research project at the university and funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council will investigate a novel ICE concept aimed at achieving a step improvement of 20-40 per cent reduction in fuel consumption from the ICE at near zero emissions.

"At the heart of this project, a split cycle engine will be developed to recover waste heat from the exhaust in order to reduce energy losses. A new test cell will be developed for this project in collaboration with Ricardo and will be transferred to the new building of the centre of excellence.

"This high-pressured recuperated split cycle engine offers a radical departure from the conventional Otto or Diesel cycles in that the compression and combustion processes are performed in separate cylinders (see diagram), enabling cooling of the compressed air and a 17 per cent reduction in the compressor work by spraying water or liquid nitrogen directly into the cylinder.

"The air is transferred to a low heat loss hot cylinder just before top dead centre, and fuel is injected, burnt and the charge expanded to generate work. Recuperation of waste heat between the cold and hot cylinders maximises waste heat recovery. Analysis indicates a 60 per cent brake efficiency is attainable from this concept. However, the hot cylinder combustion process is challenging as the air motion is dominated by the high pressure difference across the intake valves (>70bar) and thus will be radically different to conventional CI engines Rapid ignition after injection of fuel combined with a controlled rate of heat release is essential to achieve quasi isobaric combustion conditions and hence maximise efficiency."

Ricardo is partnering the research and has welcomed the new government investment. Professor Neville Jackson, Ricardo's Chief Technology and Innovation Officer, said: "Ricardo is pleased to be collaborating with the 爱豆传媒 on the new engineering research Centre of Excellence that has been announced.

"This new initiative builds upon the highly successful collaboration, of over 20 years standing, between Ricardo and the university on next-generation clean combustion technology and high fuel efficiency engine research."

Professor Neville Jackson