Southwest Research Institute will launch a consortium to study how lubricants might reduce low-speed preignition, a condition that causes heavy engine knock in boosted engines and can seriously damage engine parts or cause engine failure.
Low-speed preignition is considered a major impediment to automobile manufacturers efforts to aggressively downsize engines to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. The Preignition Prevention Program consortium will develop control solutions and guidelines to prevent or reduce incidences of low-speed preignition (LSPI). It will investigate interactions of fuels and lubricants to understand what role chemical and physical properties play.
The consortium will look at the root causes and work to develop new lubricants and lubricant testing methods. The research institutes data shows that if the lubricant is changed, the frequency of the low-speed preignition will also change, said Chris Chadwell, senior research engineer in the advanced combustion and emissions section in Southwests engine, emissions and vehicle research division.
We havent peeked in on it enough to know exactly what makes it worse and what makes it better – we just know that we can change it, Chadwell told Lube Report. So part of this consortium is going to be doing more fundamental measurements to try and determine what it is about the lubricant that makes it increase or decrease the frequency of LSPI. Certainly, ideally when we find which knobs make it go in which direction, then we can start to try and work on something that makes it go away.
No real current solutions exist, Chadwell asserted. Weve demonstrated that exhaust gas recirculation makes it go away, but theres an expense in putting an EGR system and a cooler and everything on the engine, he explained. Other than that, weve never seen any particular technology that eliminates it. Theres certainly things you can do that make it happen more often or less often, but nothing else that makes it just go away like EGR does.
Chadwell said Southwests intended member target for the Preignition Prevention Consortium are super major oil companies and major additive companies. We obviously wouldnt turn anyone away because more membership helps the program, but those are the ones that are going to have the biggest interest, he added.
Cost to join the Preignition Prevention Consortium is $225,000 for original equipment manufacturers and for those in the fuels and lubricants industry. For engine component suppliers the fee is $175,000. According to Southwest, consortium members will have the right to access any patents that are produced from the consortiums work.
The initial meeting for the Preignition Prevention Consortium is scheduled for January 2011. A P3 Consortium web site is under construction, Chadwell said, and will eventually be at P3.swri.org. For more information, contact Chris Chadwell at 210-522-5494 or by e-mail at christopher.chadwell@swri.org.
Southwest Research Institute has managed the HEDGE-II consortium, which is developing high efficiency spark ignition engine technologies, and the Clean Diesel V consortium, which develops efficiency and emissions solutions for future diesel engines.