Conference report: ASME ICE 2009 Spring Technical Conference

May 18, 2009

The ASME Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) Division 2009 Spring Technical Conference was held on May 3-6, 2009 in Milwaukee, WI, United States. The two-day technical program addressed the design, development and application of compression-ignition engines. Sessions at the meeting covered advanced combustion, fuels, large bore engines, numerical simulation, engine design, emissions control and instrumentation, control & hybrids. The event was hosted by Dresser Waukesha. A technical tour on the third day included the Waukesha engine manufacturing, assembly and production test facilities located in Waukesha, Wisconsin.

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The conference started with keynote address by David Foster from the University of Wisconsin—Madison. His talk focused on the role of combustion technology, aftertreatment and alternative energy carriers in simultaneously reducing carbon emissions and criteria pollutants from internal combustion engines. According to Dr. Foster, while hydrocarbon and/or biofuels fueled internal combustion engines (including hybrids) will continue to be the energy carrier/power plant combination for mobility applications for decades to come, more work is required to improve our fundamental understanding this system in order to achieve a simultaneous reduction of carbon and criteria pollutants. In some cases, this fundamental understanding is lacking in many system components that may go into production as early as 2010.

Large Bore Engines. Presentations on large bore engines reflected responses by manufacturers and researchers to regulatory pressure to reduce emissions from new and existing stationary natural gas engines, expanding markets for natural gas engines for gas compression and power generation engines and pressure to recover various sources of methane such as those found in biogas.

The ASME ICE Fall Technical Conference will be held on September 27-30, 2009 in Lucerne, Switzerland.

Conference website: asmeconferences.org/ICES09