Mahdi Shahbakhti (MEEM) is the principal investigator on a project that has received a $269,976 research and development grant from the National Science Foundation. Jeffery Naber (MEEM/APSRC) is the Co-PI on the project “Control-oriented Modeling and Predictive Control of Advanced Dual Fuel Natural Gas Engines.” This is a three-year project.
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About 200 million internal combustion engines (ICEs) are produced in the world every year and used in energy, transport and service sectors. Furthermore, ICEs account for over 22% of the U.S. total energy consumption and produce the largest portion of CO2 greenhouse gas emissions in urban areas. Dual fuel natural gas (NG) engines in advanced low temperature combustion regimes represent the state-of-the-art ICE technology with some of the highest reported fuel conversion efficiencies and 25% lower CO2 emissions compared to conventional engines. However, achieving a robust and high-efficiency performance of these engines on a broad operational range using existing control technologies is not possible due to their highly nonlinear and uncertain dynamic behavior.
This project is a collaborative effort between Michigan Technological University, University of Georgia, and the industry partner, Cummins Inc.