Iida, Norimasa

Prof. Iida has been an innovative leader in the field of high thermal efficiency, low emission combustion engines for over 30 years. His work has been based on experimental combustion diagnostics using both optical and conventional techniques, detailed numerical simulations, and on-board emissions measurement. Through this work he has made significant contributions to the science and techniques used for engine research, to our understanding of the operation of advanced engine combustion technologies, and to policies and practices that can reduce urban air pollution. Prof. Iida joined Kanagawa Academy of Science and Technology (KAST) in 1988, where as a project leader he developed a low heat rejection ceramic two-stoke methanol engine. His novel prototype engine used the ATAC (Active Thermo Atmosphere Combustion) combustion concept, which was the forerunner of more recent HCCI combustion concepts. This work was foundational to both Prof. Iida's future research as well as to the massive effort in HCCI combustion expended by the research and development community during the last two decades. Based on this experience in KAST, he became deeply involved in Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) engine research, and performed a number of groundbreaking studies analyzing HCCI combustion. In this work, Prof. Iida combined experiments using new measurement techniques with simulation and analysis using detailed chemical kinetics – leading to significant advances in our understanding of fuel effects on HCCI combustion and to the development of new control techniques. This work led to numerous publications in SAE, JSAE, and JSME journals which have significantly impacted the work of other researchers. The quality and influence of this work is demonstrated by hundreds of citations and by the many awards (10) these papers have received, including the High Quality Paper Award of the Small Engine Technology Conference in 2005 and the Outstanding Technical Paper Award of the JSAE in 2008. Apart from these combustion studies, Prof. Iida has made significant contributions in other technical areas. He has performed considerable work in life-cycle energy use assessment for next generation vehicles and in on-board emission measurements. In the latter area, he has evaluated the real-world emissions of nitrogen oxide and particulate matter exhausted from diesel freight vehicles and proposed a solution to improve local air pollution. In addition to these technical contributions, Prof. Iida also has a prolonged record of supporting professional societies and the mobility community.