In the last few decades India has advanced socioeconomically due to the rapid growth of industries and automobile sector. This in turn increases the use of fossil fuel and diesel. The atmosphere gets polluted due to the harmful substances, which comes from the burning of fuel. These pollutants can be in the form of gaseous, liquid or solid particulate. Diesel engines, the major source of power in industries and automobiles, play a significant part in causing air pollution. The major pollutants in diesel exhaust are oxides of nitrogen (NOX), sulphur dioxide (SO2), carbon monoxide (CO), hydrocarbons (HC), particulate matter (PM), volatile organic compounds (VOC), aldehydes and alcohols. Due to the heavy consumption of diesel as a fuel there is an urgent need to control diesel exhaust. Diesel exhaust is a complex mixture of several gases and fine particles (commonly known as soot) that contains more than 40 toxic air contaminants. Amongst the gaseous pollutants in diesel exhaust, the major concern and a challenging task is to control oxides of nitrogen, commonly referred to as NOX as it is the major contributor for acid rain, photochemical smog etc. Successful control of emissions from diesel engines is yet to be achieved. The conventional techniques which are available to control emission now are either difficult to operate or does not satisfy the stringent emission standards. This has made the researchers throughout the world to find an alternative and effective non-conventional after treatment technique to reduce diesel engine emission. The failure of conventional techniques lead to the development of non-conventional techniques such as high voltage electric discharge based plasma which has already been proved to be economical and highly efficient in industrial electrostatic precipitators. Electric discharge plasma or non-thermal plasma produce energetic electrons which react with background molecules in flue gas leading to active species such as radicals. These radicals being chemically active selectively react with the harmful pollutants facilitating their removal/reduction. The present thesis work is an attempt to provide a technical solution to achieve higher removal efficiencies of oxides of nitrogen in the backdrop of shortcomings that exist in conventional technologies to do so. The current thesis describes the research in four stages: (i) studies on NOX removal from diesel exhaust by cross-flow DBD reactor, where design and fabrication of cross-flow DBD reactor, exhaust treatment using cross-flow DBD reactor and exhaust treatment with cascaded plasma-adsorbent technique is described (ii) studies on NOX removal from diesel exhaust by compact discharge plasma sources, where design and fabrication of high frequency high voltage AC (HVAC) using old television flyback transformer, Design and fabrication of high voltage pulse (HVPulse) using automobile ignition coil, exhaust treatment with both HVPulse and HVAC and exhaust treatment with cascaded plasma-adsorbent technique is described (iii) studies on NOX removal from diesel exhaust using solar powered discharge plasma source is described (iv) studies on the NOX removal from diesel exhaust using red mud, where exhaust treatment with red mud and Exhaust treatment cascaded plasma-red mud is covered. The results have been discussed in light of enhancing the NOX removal efficiency for stationary and automobile engine exhausts.

In order to meet future emission norms for small carbureted SI engines, such as those used on motorcycles in India, there is a need to study mixture preparation, specifically the two-phase flow exiting the carburetor and entering the inlet manifold. A fully functional, modular experimental rig is designed and erected for performing both qualitative and quantitative flow visualization. The vibrations of the engine are minimized to reduce their effect on the flow. A special, optically accessible tube of square cross-section is added between the carburetor and the inlet manifold, to enable the visualization of flow at the exit of the carburetor. An electronic circuit to obtain a signal for the engine crank angle and convert it to a standard TTL pulse, for use on standard imaging systems to capture cycle resolved-images is also designed. The flow in the optical section is qualitatively visualized using high and low speed cameras. The resulting images and movies show two modes of fuel transport within the inlet manifold, one of which is in the form of a dense cloud of fine fuel droplets during some part of the intake stroke. The second mode is in the form of a film at all times in the cycle, along the lower surface of the inlet manifold during idling and along vertical walls under loaded conditions. Recirculation is seen on the vertical walls of the manifold during idling and under load. Finally, the thickness of the fuel film in the optical section at the exit of the carburetor is measured, using PLIF. This part of the study also reveals that there is a film on upper surface of the optical section, at all loads and speeds. This film is lesser than the resolution of measurement for low loads, and increases to 0.5 mm in the case of highest load and speed attained at full throttle. In contrast to the loaded conditions, during idling, the film occurs on the lower surface of the manifold and its thickness is highest (1 mm.). The film is also present throughout the cycle during idling and all load-speed conditions, suggesting that the mixture that goes into the engine has a significant part of fuel in liquid form.

Two and three-wheeled vehicles are being used in increasing numbers in many emerging countries. The dynamics of such vehicles are very different from those of cars and other means of transportation. This thesis deals with a study of the dynamics of a motorcycle and an extensively used three-wheeled vehicle, called an “auto-rickshaw” in India. The commercially available multi-body dynamics (MBD) software, ADAMS, is used to model both the vehicles and simulations are performed to obtain insight into their dynamics. In the first part of the thesis, a study of the two wheeler dynamics is presented. A fairly detailed model of a light motorcycle with all the main sub-systems, such as the frame, front fork, shock absorbers , power train, brakes, front and rear wheel including tire slips and the rider is created in ADAMS-Motorcycle. The simulation results dealing with steering torques and angles for steady turns on a circular path are presented. From the simulation results and analytical models, it is shown that for path radius much greater than motorcycle wheel base, the steering torque and angle can be described by only two functions for each of the two variables. The first function is related to the lateral acceleration and can be determined numerically and the second function, in terms of the inverse of the path radius, is derived as an analytical approximation. Various tire and geometric parameters are varied in the ADAMS simulations and it is clearly shown that steady circular motion of a motorcycle can be reasonably approximated by only two curves–one for steering torque and one for steering angle. In the second part of the thesis, a stability analysis of the three-wheeled “autorickshaw” is presented. The steering instability is one of the major problems of the “auto-rickshaw” and this is studied using a MBD model created in ADAMS-CAR .In an Initial model the frame ,steering column and rear-forks (trailing arms) are assumed to be rigid. A linear eigenvalue analysis, at different speeds, reveals a predominantly steering oscillation, called a “wobble” mode, with a frequency in the range of 5 to 6Hz. The analysis results show that the damping of this mode is small but positive up to the maximum speed(14m/s) of the three-wheeled vehicle. Experiments performed on the three-wheeled vehicle show that the mode is unstable at speeds below 8.33m/s and thus the experimental results do not agree with the model. Next, this wobble instability is studied with an analytical model, similar to the model proposed for wheel shimmy problem in aircrafts. The results of this model show that the wobble is stable at low speeds regardless of the magnitude of torsional stiffness of steering column. This is also not matching with the experimental result. A more refined MBD model with flexibility incorporated in the frame, steering column and the trailing arm is constructed. Simulation results with the refined model show three modes of steering oscillations. Two of these are found to be well damped and the third is found to be lightly damped with negative damping at low speeds, and the results of the model with the flexibility is shown to be matching reasonably well with the experimental results. Detailed simulations with flexibility of each body incorporated, one at a time, show that the flexibility in the steering column is the main contributor of the steering instability and the instability is similar to the wheel shimmy problem in aircrafts. Finally, studies of modal interaction on steering instabilities and parametric studies with payload and trail are presented.