Nowadays, with the in-depth promotion of the concepts of green environmental protection, energy conservation and emission reduction, domestic and foreign auto parts companies have been seeking breakthroughs in the traditional engine field, and a series of small-displacement engines have sprung up at the historic moment. With the gradual maturity and widespread application of turbocharging and in-cylinder direct injection technology, small-displacement turbocharged direct injection engine will become the mainstream of the market. The superior performance of this technology in terms of fuel saving, emission reduction and power performance improvement is beyond doubt. As an independent engine enterprise with 70 years of development history and military industry background, the DAM12TGDI turbocharged direct injection engine independently developed by Harbin Dongan automotive power co., LTD. (hereinafter referred to as Dongan Power) has attracted much attention from the industry. Facing the fuel consumption limit in 2020, what measures should enterprises take? What are the new technologies behind the excellent performance of the newly developed direct injection turbocharged engine? Where is the market positioning? With these doubts let us into Dongan Power to explore the key to independent engine enterprise product innovation.  

■ Fuel consumption YanKao

How to get past the 2020 regulations?

Energy saving and emission reduction is the general trend. China's fourth-phase fuel consumption limit standard sets a threshold for all passenger vehicle enterprises: the goal of reducing fuel consumption to 5.0l /100km by 2020 is a great challenge for autonomous vehicle enterprises, especially those that promote SUV or MPV models. Due to a combination of market expectations and regulatory response, Dongan has taken a series of actions in recent years, including the DAM12T supercharged model and DAM12TGDI supercharged direct injection model, to further reduce the pressure on the main distribution plant to meet the average fuel consumption target. In response to the fourth-phase fuel consumption regulations, Dongan Power is by no means to simply adopt high-cost technology and substantially increase product prices. Instead, it uses the regulations to relax the ladder rules before 2020, and gradually adopts new technologies to meet the standards in stages by calculating the reduction of fuel consumption in each stage. Before 2017, based on natural aspirated engines, low-cost fuel-saving technologies such as comprehensive wear reduction, dual VVT and idling start and stop were adopted to meet fuel consumption regulations. The engine cost was low, the model price competitiveness was strong, and the user acceptability was high. After 2017, Dongan Power will be "supercharged/supercharged direct emission motor + six-speed transmission" as a power train to the market, while developing different fuel consumption solutions for different customers, to further meet the requirements of fuel consumption regulations in 2020.

In the face of strict fuel consumption regulations, the engine lightweight, miniaturization design and the application of energy saving and high efficiency and advanced technology become the solution to the fuel consumption problem. To meet the demand of domestic economy passenger vehicle powertrain products, deal with the country's car industry laws and regulations, Dongan Power from the initial antifriction technology, air intake VVT + EGR, double VVT and three cylinder arrangement, low-cost oil-saving technologies such as the exhaust gas turbo technology, increase engine technology development and application, and then to today's direct injection(gdi) as well as the hybrid of long-term planning in the future, while meet different phase fuel consumption regulations limit, Dongan Power from the Angle of the vehicle customers, gradually import meet different life of fuel economy regulations in stages, with a higher ratio of engine product solutions to enhance the competitiveness of models, In order to deal with automobile policies and regulations, improve product technical content and maintain product competitive advantage.

■What "black tech" does superior performance hide?

DAM12T engine in full inheritance DAM self-priming series engine antifriction, into the exhaust double variable valve timing system and miniaturization, the technical advantages such as lightweight, by increasing the exhaust turbocharging system, variable displacement pump, efficient thin, mechanical vacuum pump, a new design machine, gas distribution, cold piece and inlet and exhaust system, further optimized to improve the combustion, the engine power, torque, respectively, the ascent to 75 kw and 150 n. m, engine dynamic performance to achieve the same industry leading level. While maintaining high efficiency, it achieves a wide torque range, and also gives consideration to the balance between high performance and low fuel consumption, which is highly consistent with the overall trend of domestic automobile market and policies. The rated power of DAM12T series engine is 90kW and the maximum torque is 180N·m, while the rated power of DAM12TGDI series engine is 102kW and the maximum torque is 216N·m. The power performance is completely comparable to that of the 1.5l ~ 2.0l natural inspiration models. Therefore, it can be used as the power upgrade product of SUV/MPV models, and the emission meets the requirements of euro VI regulations.

The outstanding performance of the DAM12T series engine results from the pursuit of perfection in technical details in product development. TGDI adopts a top-mounted injector in line with the international technology development trend; TPFI adopts the same system configuration as existing engines, with the lowest cost; TPFI and TGDI share the cylinder head blank; the whole system is reserved for double injection. Choose fully electronic supercharger, flexible control, fast transient response. The combination of the structure of the three-cylinder machine and the rubber anti-vibration balance shaft can solve the problems of noise, vibration and non-smoothness (NVH) of the traditional three-cylinder machine. All aluminum cylinder block and buried casting cylinder liner are used to reduce the weight of the whole machine and improve the bonding rate and thermal conductivity. The cylinder head integrated exhaust manifold is directly connected to the supercharger to shorten warm-up time and effectively reduce fuel consumption and emissions. Automatic tensioning wheel and elastic multi-wedge belt are adopted to enhance the reliability and NVH performance of wheel train. Hollow filled sodium exhaust valve has good heat resistance and thermal conductivity. Copper alloy valve duct, good thermal conductivity, high reliability. Honeycomb valve spring can further reduce wear and save oil.DLC coated mechanical stiffening column can effectively improve engine dynamic performance and economy. According to customer demand, use variable displacement machine oil pump or variable flow machine oil pump to save oil. In addition, the dual mass flywheel (DMF), idle start-stop technology (STT), mechanical vacuum pump, single stage tightly coupled ternary catalytic and ultra-thin low tension piston ring, and many other technology adoption, make M12T series engines have excellent performance, energy saving of carrying vehicle fuel consumption compared with four-cylinder power naturally aspirated engine can reduce more than 20%, adhering to the engine power of the east Anglia, consistent "low oil consumption, low emission, high reliability and high performance" the pursuit of the goal, a sharp DAM12T engine overall performance and competitiveness.

■ Where are the market segments?　

According to market research, in the next five years, models with T will gradually descend to a displacement of 1.2 ~ 1.5L.From 2019 to 2020, 1.2t is expected to account for 15% to 16% of the market share and become the mainstream displacement in the market segment. Recent engine plans from major carmakers suggest that the popularity of small turbocharged engines may even come sooner than expected. In this context, the launch of Dongan Power's DAM12T turbocharged engine with golden displacement won the initiative among its own brands, which can provide the best integrated solution of turbocharged direct injection engine +6MT/6AT powertrain for newly developed or upgraded suvs, MPVS and sedans to deal with the stricter sixth phase fuel consumption regulations.

Better power performance and fuel economy with the same displacement are favored by users, which are also the technical features of turbocharged models. With superior power performance and good fuel economy, the DAM12T series supercharged engine has attracted market attention. At the beginning of the development, has had several automakers to DAM12T series showed a keen interest in the engine, new product development and propulsive synchronous machine matching project, at present, the car has several machine matching project formally, and complete the car machine match scheme of preliminary confirmation, including Chang’an G203 project is in the vehicle calibration, blowing the battle-cry for turbocharged models quickly to the market.

According to usual practice, with car sales off-season and busy season, enterprise production arrangement also have obvious changes, but since this year, Dongan Power continues to flourish, production and sales thanks to Dongan Power engine product competitiveness and market share, brand awareness and enhancement of the recognition, the turbocharged direct injection type listed is expected to further enhance the brand influence.

■ Independent research and development practices the national craftsman spirit

Outstanding products come from the tireless development team and willing to study the craftsman spirit. In order to seize the market opportunity and push the supercharged series of engines with superior performance to the market as soon as possible, the project team held several all-night review meetings, coordinated material cost and special parts procurement, etc., ate the noodles and then fight, working overtime is common, product design into the night is more common. The project team built up a solid foundation, and successfully formed a series of system documents of powertrain design, research and development, experimental verification, quality control, etc., which provided valuable experience for subsequent projects.

In the process of project development, the project team of the company was responsible for every possible way to shorten the time of trial production, testing and installation of special parts. It took only 180 days from data freezing to engine ignition. From project establishment, the determination of platform, product development decisions to determine target, each stage before rob catch early, measures strength, in strict accordance with the product development process for each scheme review, including the machine development, component design, CAE analysis, calibration of powertrain matching, material technology, performance, development, trial production test, the competing goods analysis and harshness (NVH) validation, project and technical management, product development system, formed the whole machine and components design, development and test specification. In addition, the company has complete engine, transmission performance and reliability of the test bench, can undertake the vehicle wheel hub, road vehicle test, harshness (NVH) testing and component testing, with 3 d / 2 d modeling, simulation, rapid prototyping, product development of machining, assembly, test, test a complete set of product design, development, development ability.　

 Dongan's DAM12T series deeply caters to consumers' demand for power and low energy efficiency, and is in line with the country's increasingly stringent fuel consumption standards for passenger vehicles. In the next five years, turbocharged engines could account for more than 35 percent of the market, according to the research firm.

The competition among automobile enterprises will focus on turbocharged engines with small displacement. How to use smaller displacement to get more power and less energy consumption and emission will be the problem that all major automobile enterprises and parts enterprises need to face and solve together.