Date of Award

2016

Document Type

Open Access Master's Report

Degree Name

Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering (MS)

Administrative Home Department

Department of Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics

Advisor 1

Jeremy Worm

Committee Member 1

Scott Miers

Committee Member 2

Jason Blough

Abstract

Currently, one of the biggest challenges the world is facing is energy insufficiency. One of the contributors to energy consumption in United States are the idling semi-trailer trucks. In May 2001, President Bush issued The National Energy Policy in which he directed The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Department of Transportation (DOT) to reduce the idling of trucks. This was done in order to reduce energy consumption by lowering fuel consumption and emissions coming out of semi-trailer trucks in the United States of America.

This project deals with the efforts of installing an Auxiliary Power Unit (APU) as a device to reduce the idling on a Freightliner Argosy Auto Transport. A Yanmar YDG3700 series diesel generator set was mounted on the truck as an APU in order to reduce the fuel consumption and emissions of the truck. It was also used to power the 12V/120V accessories inside the truck’s cabin, charge the truck’s batteries and power the truck’s block heater. In order to make the APU operation silent, a new exhaust system was designed and fabricated and mufflers were installed in it. Various engineering reviews were conducted and decisions were made to install the entire system on the truck.

In order to validate the results, various thermal and noise tests were conducted on this system. A load test was conducted to observe the load bearing capacity of the APU. Based on its results, calculations were done to estimate the efficiency of the APU operation. Tests were conducted to observe the temperatures reached inside the systems and appropriate ventilation requirements were selected for safe operation of the system. Sound measurement tests were conducted to validate if the APU was actually an aid to the driver during rest times. The sound measurements were made in a real time simulated truck rest stop environment. Apart from the tests, parallels were drawn between the truck’s idling engine and the APU for fuel consumption and CO2 emissions and conclusions were made on the saving in fuel consumption and emissions.

Download

Share

COinS