GM gives Engine Research Center $500,000 grant for clean fuel studies

Rolf D. Reitz (25K JPG)

The college's Engine Research Center in March received a $500,000 grant from General Motors to support the Center's research towards producing cleaner, more efficient gasoline and diesel engines.

The one-year, $500,000 grant will be used to study and produce advances in direct-injection gasoline and diesel engines, including combustion, fuel spray model development, engine and exhaust aftertreatment system modeling, and turbulence modeling.

According to Professor Rolf Reitz, director of the ERC, "These new projects continue the tradition of ERC research, which is to respond to the challenges that face the engine industry. Meeting upcoming emissions mandates will require exciting new engine design concepts and new understandings of engine phenomena. The ERC faculty continues to be committed to the development and application of new analysis and diagnostic tools for engines, and to the transfer of this technology to the engine industry."

Hazem A. Ezzat, director of GM's Powertrain Systems Research Laboratory, said, "The ERC at UW-Madison's College of Engineering is one of the leading engine research facilities in the world. Its work focuses on improvements to direct-injection engines, an area of technology we believe has great promise for the future.

"Because the ERC's advanced research is a key to developing clean and efficient engines, GM expects to work more closely with this respected facility in the future. And since this is an independent institution of higher learning, we are confident the research will significantly impact the scientific knowledge base," Ezzat said.

General Motors has been expanding its technical network through alliances and partnerships with universities around the world. Some other universities with which GM has partnership agreements are Brown University, Carnegie-Mellon University, Stanford University, The University of Michigan and Jiaotong University in Shanghai, China.