Topic: Light Duty Compression Ignition Engines: good for global warming but bad for the environment

Time: 9^th April 1026

Location: A420

Content:

It is well known that Light Duty Compression Ignition Engines have lower emissions of carbon dioxide than do spark ignition engines. It is also well known that in Europe, the has been a large increase in the number of Light Duty Compression Ignition Engines over the past ≈15 years and that this has resulted in a substantial lowering in the emission of carbon dioxide from passenger automobiles. The permitted emissions of soot and NOx have become smaller and smaller with each change of the regulations: and the future regulations will more strict. How do the emissions arise? What can we learn from optically accessible compression ignition engines? The first part of the talk will concentrate on answering these questions.  
However, it is also well known that the future legislated limits of emissions from compression ignition engines be harder to meet. Is there any ‘clever’ idea which can really reduce the emissions? The second part of the talk will suggest that ‘gasoline is the best diesel fuel’!

The Introduction of Alex Taylor:

Alex Taylor graduated from the Imperial College of Science & Technology with a first class honours in Mechanical Engineering in 1975 and received his PhD degree from the same institution in 1981. Following brief periods as a temporary lecturer and a post-doctoral research fellow, he won a Royal Society Research Fellowship in 1985. In 1990 he was appointed lecturer and was appointed Professor in 1999. He was an Editor of the Springer Journal “Experiments in Fluids”. In 2009 he was elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Academy of Engineering. His interests include experimental research, using on optical instrumentation, into turbulent flows, two phase flows and flows with combustion as well as their application to spray dryers, Internal Combustion Engines and Gas Turbines.