Research activities in sustainable propulsion including research in high efficiency clean combustion engine, renewable fuel, low-carbon/non-carbon fuel, and hybrid powertrain.
The Clean Combustion Engine Laboratory (CCEL) at the University of Windsor was founded in 2003. Since 2009, the state-of-the-art facilities in CCEL have enabled world-class research as an advanced engine research lab. As the director of CCEL, Dr. Ming Zheng has led his research team in establishing advanced engine research platforms and has engaged in many innovative research projects with automotive industrial partners that target sustainable heat engine development to improve engine combustion efficiency and to reduce pollutant emissions.
• Injector testing and profiling
• Injection strategies
• Engine design
• Combustion control and diagnostics
• Ignition control
• Spark energy measurement
• Fuel management
• Thermal management
• Fuel spray atomization and visualization
• Gas sampling and conditioning
• Intake-exhaust heating-cooling
• Particulate matter analysis
• Aftertreatment flow test bench
• H2 concentration measurement
• Exhaust gas analysis and speciation
• Hybrid control testing
• Renewable fuel/alternative fuel engine testing
• Engine dynamometer testing
- Automotive
- Clean technology
- Education
- Energy
- Environmental technologies and related services
- Transportation
Specialized labs and equipment
| Specialized lab | Equipment | Function |
|---|---|---|
| Clean Combustion Engine Lab | AVL 300 Bar Single Cylinder Engine | High-pressure single-cylinder research engine platform to study extended load under high-pressure and heavy-duty applications. |
| AVL VisioScope with high-speed camera and intensifier | Optical system for in-cylinder combustion process and thermal imaging for imaging the fuel delivery and combustion processes inside the cylinder under the full range of engine conditions. | |
| Horiba Fuel Conditioning Unit | Fuel conditioning system to condition fuel temperatures (-20ºC to 95ºC) for accurate fuel consumption measurement, to improve test repeatability. | |
| AVL KMA4000 Fuel Consumption Unit | Fuel consumption measurement system to precisely measure the fuel flow rate and to calculate the fuel consumption rate during an engine test. | |
| MKS MultiGas 2030 HS continuous FTIR multi-gas analyzer | Exhaust emission analysis for CO, CO2, NO, NO2, and select hydrocarbons. | |
| Gas-chromatographer, mass spectrometer, and exhaust sampling system | Sampling and analysis of hydrocarbon species present in exhaust. | |
| H-Sense and multi-gas mass spectrometers | Continuous hydrogen and multi-gas mass spectrometry analyzers to measure hydrogen gas from 100% down to ppm levels without interference of any other gases from the exhaust. | |
| Multi-fuel management system | Direct-injection and fuelling of bio-alcohol, and dual fuel system (ethanol-diesel, gasoline-diesel, butanol-diesel, DME/biodiesel). | |
| Spray and Combustion Lab | Laser Phase Doppler Anemometer | Spray analysis system to measure velocity and diameter of fuel and urea spray droplets. |
| High pressure injector test bench (EFS) | Fuel rate-of-injection measurement system to measure high-pressure common-rail injector and fuel delivery dynamics. | |
| High pressure injector test bench (BOSCH long-tube method) | Fuel flow rate-of-injection measurement system to measure high-pressure injection and fuel delivery dynamics of liquid fuels. | |
| High pressure and high temperature combustion chamber with optical viewing windows | A constant volume (3L) up to 150ºC temperature and up to 50 bar pressure vessel for gaseous fuel mixing and ignition research. | |
| Optical high pressure combustion bomb with high speed camera system | A constant volume (2L) with high pressure up to 200 bar vessel with optical access for liquid fuel spray, mixing, ignition, and injection tests. | |
| Optical high-speed combustion chamber with swirl flow field | A constant volume (0.2L) with swirl flow field up to 70m/s for spark ignition research under high turbulence conditions. | |
| Optical high-pressure chamber with ignition energy measurement | 0.5L constant volume chamber for testing spark plugs and ignition research. | |
| Advanced ignition systems (built in-house) | Includes high-power discharge, transient high current, constant current boost, multi-core, multi-coil ignition, for high efficiency ignition and clean combustion. | |
| Flame tube ignition (designed in-house) | For clean combustion and hypersonic combustion research. | |
| Schlieren Imaging system with high-speed cameras | Schlieren images and shadowgraph images can be taken to observe the phenomena with density change of gas or liquid. | |
| FPG 50-5NM10 high voltage pulse generator | Nanosecond discharge and ignition system for higher discharge power and more efficient combustion. | |
| High-pressure gas mixing chamber (designed in-house) | A constant volume (6.0L) mixing chamber for preparing high-pressure homogeneous mixtures for laboratory testing. | |
| Ignition and Control Lab | Keysight E4990A Impedance Analyzer | To measure the impedance of electronic components and parts, and for ignition system characterization. |
| Rapid compression machine (designed in-house) | Experimental device operates a rapid compression stroke to elevate pressure and temperature for efficient combustion process with optical accessibility. | |
| Celeroton CM-2-500 series Ultra high-speed motor | Operates half million RPM to control and enhance the turbo boost. | |
| Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA) control systems (Intel DE10-Nano, Intel DE10-Standard, Intel DE10-PRO, Digilent Cmod A7-35T) | For microsecond-level high-speed control, multi-task control logic, and data synchronization. | |
| Control Lab | NI-based FPGA Embedded control system and real-time controller (developed in-house) | Injection and combustion controller, independent control of EGR, back pressure, rail pressure, online heat-release analysis. |
| In-house engine test managing system | Monitor dynamometer and engine tests with engine parameters, sensor information, emission data and CAN communication. | |
| Emission analyzer and speciation | Exhaust gas analyzers for NO/NO2, CO/CO2, O2 and total hydrocarbons | In-house automated emission analyzers integrated with heated gas sampling system, heated filters, gas conditioning units to analyze emission gases. |
Private and public sector research partners
• Ford Motor Company of Canada
• FCA Canada/ Stellantis US
• Imperial Oil Limited
• Mitacs