Jaguar Land Rover Renews Commitment to Engine Research at Imperial

The Centre, in the Dept of Mechanical Engineering, will focus on new research to make JLR's engines and powertrains more efficient

In January, Jaguar Land Rover resumed the Centre of Excellence for Spark-Ignition Engine Combustion Research at Imperial for a period of 5 years

The Centre was originally established at University College London in 2013, led by Professor Pavlos Aleiferis.  In 2016, however, Professor Aleiferis was appointed as Chair in Thermofluids in Imperial’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, prompting its movement.

Professor Aleiferis' research expertise in the fundamentals of fuel systems and internal combustion engines for low-carbon vehicles has been historically utilised by a number of automotive companies including Honda, where he originally completed postdoctoral research into optical techniques applied to internal combustion engines.

The JLR Research Centre will continue to form an integral component of the company’s commitment to producing fuel-efficient powertrain technologies and the findings will help considerably to deliver the company’s ambitious goal of a 25% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2020 to comply with both governmental policy and broader consumer demand.

"Jaguar Land Rover is committed to researching advanced propulsion technology that improves efficiency and reduces emissions,” said Anthony Harper, Head of Engineering Research at Jaguar Land Rover.  “The petrol engine combustion research activity led by Pavlos Aleiferis builds on our past successes during his time at University College London.  The expertise of Imperial's research ecosystem will help us fulfil our mission of developing sustainable vehicles that meet the needs of our customers now and in the future."

The Imperial team will focus on Thermodynamic Single Cylinder and Optical Single Cylinder Engines with student research projects in Experimental Combustion and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) Research and Development running in parallel up until 2021.

"Jaguar Land Rover represents British Heritage in automotive engineering and it is a privilege and honour for us to have been entrusted by JLR for another 5 years of engine combustion research at Imperial College.”  Professor Aleiferis commented.  “We envisage that the renewed Centre of Excellence will continue to work on both fundamental and applied research topics to provide JLR with specialist capability to put on the market new vehicles with even more efficient powertrains, for both reduced fuel consumption and consistently lower exhaust emissions.

“One of the main advantages of having a University Centre is that it can respond to questions and needs that are of direct benefit to on-going product development, as well as conducting longer term basic research and training PhD students. This strengthens our scientific understanding for Academic excellence but also has direct industrial impact via expert knowledge transfer, as well as great societal benefits via improved quality of life in a greener future environment.”