Weichai Wins National Science and Technology Progress Award for Core Power Techn
July 13,2026

On the morning of July 8th, the National Science and Technology Awards Conference, the General Assembly of Academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering, and the 11th National Congress of the China Association for Science and Technology were grandly held in the Great Hall of the People. Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee, President of the State, and Chairman of the Central Military Commission, presented awards to the recipients of the highest national science and technology awards and delivered an important speech. The project on key technologies and applications of high-performance diesel engines, led by Weichai and in collaboration with Tianjin University, Guiyan Catalysis, Shandong University, and six other units, relying on the National Key Laboratory of Internal Combustion Engines and Power Systems and other national scientific research platforms for collaborative research, was awarded the second prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award. The project successfully broke through the three major technical bottlenecks of high reliability and long life, high thermal efficiency, and ultra-low emissions of diesel engines, developed a new generation of high-performance diesel engines with complete independent intellectual property rights, achieved independent control of core key technologies of heavy-duty diesel engines, and promoted China's vehicle and machinery industry to the world-class level.

National Science and Technology Awards Conference

Focusing on Industry Challenges, Three Original Technologies Achieve Global Leadership

The diesel engine is the leading power in the fields of commercial vehicles, construction machinery, agricultural machinery, and ships, which is related to the development of the national economy and national security, and has an irreplaceable position in the global power industry. However, for a long time, the strong coupling and mutual restriction of thermal, mechanical, and chemical factors in the cylinder of diesel engines have made it difficult to optimize the three core performances of reliability, thermal efficiency, and emissions synchronously, becoming a technical bottleneck that plagues the global internal combustion engine industry.

In China, more than 70% of diesel consumption and more than 50% of NOx emissions come from diesel engines. Therefore, breaking through the core technologies of high-performance diesel engines has become an urgent strategic demand for China to promote energy conservation and carbon reduction, optimize the energy structure, and transform and upgrade the manufacturing industry.

Reliability is the key to measuring the performance of diesel engines. The highest temperature in the cylinder of a diesel engine can reach 2500°C, and the peak pressure can reach 300bar. Under extreme conditions, problems such as piston carbon wear, valve-seat wear, and cylinder liner-piston ring wear seriously restrict the improvement of diesel engine reliability and life. In response to industry pain points, the Weichai scientific research team accurately explored the underlying mechanisms of key component wear and loss, and innovatively developed three original technologies: piston ring land pressure reduction, valve low-slip wear reduction, cylinder liner zone lubrication, and piston double-peak profile line, which extended the wear life of key friction pairs in the cylinder, making the whole machine B10 life take the lead in breaking through 2 million kilometers, leading the world.

Chinese Academy of Sciences General Assembly

Improving the thermal efficiency of diesel engines is a goal that the global industry has pursued for a hundred years. The Weichai scientific research team innovatively opened up a new technical route for oil and gas mixing optimization, and developed three major technologies: dual main injection combustion, high-flow low-resistance gas exchange, and ordered vortex group staged induced combustion, which for the first time globally broke through the thermal efficiency of diesel engines to 50% and 51%, and the minimum fuel consumption was reduced to 165g/(kW·h). On this basis, the team continued to attack and increased the thermal efficiency to 53.09%, further expanding the differentiated competitive advantage of China's internal combustion engine industry.

However, the technical characteristics of high thermal efficiency diesel engines with high original exhaust and low exhaust temperature have made the difficulty of ultra-low emission control increase sharply. The scientific research team innovatively proposed the "effective ammonia storage" theory, invented low silicon-aluminum ratio, cerium-copper bimetallic SCR catalysts, high-efficiency dual swirl strong mixing and urea crystallization self-adaptive control, high-efficiency pore domain reconstructed CDPF catalysts, and a series of key technologies, which made the product's nitrogen oxides and particulate matter emissions optimize by 51% and 62% respectively compared to international mainstream competitors, achieving ultra-low emissions throughout the life cycle, and becoming the first heavy-duty diesel engine product in China to pass the strict national six emission certification.

Wechai 2025 Test Lab Material Video Screenshot