Grants and Contributions:

Grant or Award spanning more than one fiscal year (2017-2018 to 2018-2019).

Natural gas is quickly becoming a viable alternative fuel for transportation because of its clean burningx000D
characteristics and its abundance in North America. Westport Innovations is one of the world's largestx000D
developers of natural gas technologies for vehicle internal combustion engines. Westport pioneered highx000D
pressure direct injection (HPDI) compression ignition engine designed for the heavy duty natural gas truckingx000D
sector. Westport has an ongoing research and development program at its Vancouver location. Test equipmentx000D
includes high pressure chambers used to characterize diesel fuel spray at post compression pressure. Thex000D
company lacks equipment to characterize fuel spray in a high pressure and temperature atmosphere, and morex000D
importantly the ignition of a mixture of natural gas and air at prototypic post compression diesel conditions.x000D
The objective of this project is to develop laboratory equipment that can be used to study the ignition of ax000D
premixed high pressure and temperature mixture of natural gas and air by diesel injection. Of specific interestx000D
to Westport are mixture conditions corresponding to minimum load, below which either the natural gas is toox000D
lean to burn or the diesel pilot will not ignite. The equipment will subsequently be available to Westport forx000D
future injector development and testing.