Prestigious award for Scania’s engine development

“Our customers are the real winners. Thanks to Scania’s awarded research, they get engines that fulfil forthcoming environmental requirements without any additives or exhaust aftertreatment and with exellent fuel economy,” says Lars Tegnelius. Yesterday, Lars Tegnelius, responsible for ’Performance and emissions’ within Scania's engine development, received The Swedish Technology Award from the hands of the Swedish Crown Princess, HRH Victoria.

The jury unanimously agreed on Lars Tegnelius as the winner of The Swedish Technology Award for his innovative approach to lowering both nitrogen oxide (NOx) and particulate (PM) emissions from Scania's diesel engines. The technology involves reducing emissions by improving the combustion process, without using any additives or aftertreatment of the exhaust gases. Lars Tegnelius’ successful research contributed to the fact that Scania as the first manufacturer of heavy trucks already in September 2004 could deliver trucks with environmental performance according to the emission regulations valid from 1 October 2005. Trucks with Euro 4 engines are favoured by lower road fees in countries like Germany, Austria and Switzerland. ”I regard the award to Lars Tegnelius and Scania’s EGR technology as an acknowledgement of our leading position in diesel engine development,” says Urban Johansson, responsible for Powertrain Development at Scania. Under Lars Tegnelius’ leadership, for example, Scania's inline engines have been optimised to comply with the Euro 4 emission standard without exhaust aftertreatment. Systems like Scania HPI and Scania EGR, both developed in-house, have been employed for the optimisation. Tests show that with the aid of this technology and a novel injection system, Scania will be able to achieve Euro 5 as well within a few years. Scania HPI (high pressure injection) is a fuel injection system that is capable of handling very high injection pressures. The use of extra high injection pressures gave considerably lower particulate emissions than legally required for Euro 4. This provided a margin that could be used to reduce emissions of nitrogen oxides. Scania HPI was developed in co-operation with US engine manufacturer Cummins during the 1990s. The system is produced by Scania and Cummins in a jointly-owned facility in the US. Lars Tegnelius took part in this development work. Scania EGR (exhaust gas recirculation) uses part of the engine’s exhaust gases, which are cooled and then fed back into the engine’s intake system. The cooled exhaust gases lower the combustion temperature and thus emissions of nitrogen oxides. The Swedish Technology Award is presented every second year by Swedish technology weekly Ny Teknik and Vinnova (The Swedish Agency for Innovation Systems). The candidates are nominated by a jury consisting of prominent persons from industry and research and the award is a scholarship worth SEK 300,000 (approx. EUR 33,000). One of the basic requirements for technical solutions to be nominated is that they have resulted in completely developed products that influence the profitability of companies and contribute to a sustainable economic development.