Professor Harry Watson
teaching
Power Generation Systems, Alternative Fuels, Thermofluids, Professional Practice, Energy Efficient Technology, Sustainable Energy, Introduction to Design and Manufacture.
Teaching in 2007
biography
Professor Watson was awarded a Personal Chair in 1996 for his research in energy and emissions. He obtained degrees and diplomas at Imperial College London where his doctoral thesis was on the combustion of hydrogen in engines. This led at Melbourne to building two hydrogen cars and the invention of several patented processes including Hydrogen Assisted Jet Ignition and Diesel Engine Oxygen Enrichment.
He has supervised more than sixty doctoral students and over twenty research masters students in work extending from combustion fundamentals through complete engine design and manufacture to the measurement and modelling of vehicle emissions in traffic and city air-sheds.
The Transport Energy Research and Development team at Melbourne is highly regarded worldwide and frequently delivers keynote papers looking to the future of mobility engineering. His consultancies include every road vehicle manufacturer and oil company and oil company in Australia and many overseas.
He has been responsible for setting several ISO and other standards including national light duty vehicle fuel and CO2 limits and heavy vehicle road fund charging. He is the recipient of the Rodda medal and many best paper awards.
He is a member of several University senior committees and responsible for major changes in the department's curriculum, teaching and learning in the period 1987 to 2000, and Head of Department for four years. Professor Watson is a member the Federal Governments’ Automotive Committee, the first academic to be President of SAE-A, a member of the Executive and Council of FISITA the world body of SAE’s and a Fellow of the Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering.
research interests
Prof Watson’s research ranges from combustion fundamentals in engines to the environmental impacts of engines in vehicles as summarised below:
- He was first to apply detailed reaction chemistry to the autoignition of hydrogen and methane in engines. This led to the understanding of the requirements for HCCI engines and the examination of spatial variability in ignition using CFD. This work has evolved into tracking the origin and survival of NOx and hydrocarbons in homogeneous and stratified charge engines.
- Study of the widely acclaimed HAJI (hydrogen assisted jet ignition) process which uses about half per cent of the fuel as hydrogen, allowing conventional engines to run ultra lean burn, at air fuel ratios where efficiency improves by about twenty per cent and the difficult-to-control nitrogen oxides are almost completely eliminated. This has been funded in part by five ARC grants. Present work includes direct injection towards the elimination of HC emissions
- LPG and natural gas engine development program, initiated twenty years ago, leading to Ford/ERDC/Algas natural gas taxi. Vehicles are in use in Brisbane, Melbourne and Auckland.A similar program is underway for Ford on the optimisation of its dedicated LPG engine.
- Engine development. In the past the supervison of the CMC Research, Scotch yoke engine development project valued at $8.1 million with the University. Recently the construction of a student designed turbocharged two cylinder constant power engine for Formula SAE and specialist engines for the extermination of pests.
- Use of genetic algorithms in the optimisation of engine combustion, emissions, combustion chamber shape and control variables.
- Emissions from the national vehicle fleet including procedures for developing driving cycles from measured driving in traffic, for testing exhaust emissions in the laboratory, that have recently been adopted by the Californian Air Resources Board and the U.S. Environmental protection Agency.
For information about current projects and postgraduate supervision.
curriculum vitae
selected publications
WATSON, H.C. and MILKINS, E.E. Comparison and optimisation of emissions efficiency and power of five automotive fuels in one engine. Journal of Vehicle Design 3, No 44:463-477 (1982)
WATSON, H.C., MILKINS, E.E., PRESTON, M.O., CHITTLEBOROUGH, C. and ALIMORADIAN, B. Predicting fuel consumption and emissions - transferring chassis dynamometer results to real driving conditions. SAE paper 830435 (1983)
WATSON, H.C., ROSENKRANZ, H.G., BRYCE, W. and LEWIS, A.Driveability fuel consumption and emissions of 1.3 litre turbocharged spark ignition engine developed as a replacement for a 2 litre normally aspirated engine. Proc. I.Mech.E., C118/86:139-150 (1986)
Kyaw , Z.H. and Watson, H.C. Hydrogen assisted jet ignition for near elimination of NOx and cyclic variability in the s.i. engine. Proceedings of the 24th International Symposium on Combustion. Sydney, pp. 1-25, (1992)
Soderbaum J and Watson H.C National average carbon dioxide emissions by vehicles - a possible target for new light vehicles. Report to Federal chamber of Automotive Industries and the Australian Greenhouse Office May 2004 (to be published on AGO website)