An Electrical Capacitance Based Measurement Method for Soot Load Estimation in a Diesel Particulate Filter

2014 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 8463-8468
Author(s):  
Ragibul Huq ◽  
Sohel Anwar
Author(s):  
Ragibul Huq ◽  
Sohel Anwar

Diesel engines are widely used in heavy duty trucks and off road vehicles due to their fuel efficiency and high power outputs. Environmental regulatory agencies have pushed ever stringent regulations on all internal combustion engines, including Diesel engines on gaseous as well as particulates (soot) emissions. In order to meet today’s and tomorrow’s stringent emission requirements, modern diesel engines are equipped with diesel particulate filters (DPF’s), as well as on-board technologies to evaluate the status of DPF. In course of time, particulate matter (soot) will be deposited inside the DPFs which tend to clog the filter and hence generate a back pressure in the exhaust system, negatively impacting the fuel efficiency. To remove the soot build-up, regeneration (active or passive) of the DPF must be done as an engine exhaust after treatment process at pre-determined time intervals. Since the regeneration process consume fuel, a robust and efficient operation based on accurate knowledge of the particulate matter deposit (or soot load) becomes essential in order to keep the fuel consumption at a minimum. In this paper, we propose a sensing method for a DPF that can accurately measure in-situ soot load using Electrical Capacitance Tomography (ECT). Simulation results show that the proposed method offers an effective way to accurately estimate the soot load in DPF. The proposed method is expected to have a profound impact in improving overall PM filtering efficiency (and thereby fuel efficiency), and durability of a Diesel Particulate Filter (DPF) through appropriate closed loop regeneration operation.


2018 ◽  
Vol 51 (31) ◽  
pp. 362-365
Author(s):  
Tiexiong Huang ◽  
Yuanxian Zhu ◽  
Yong Ran ◽  
Mingchao Zhang ◽  
Si Jing

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Z. Gerald Liu ◽  
Devin R. Berg ◽  
Thaddeus A. Swor ◽  
James J. Schauer‡

Two methods, diesel particulate filter (DPF) and selective catalytic reduction (SCR) systems, for controlling diesel emissions have become widely used, either independently or together, for meeting increasingly stringent emissions regulations world-wide. Each of these systems is designed for the reduction of primary pollutant emissions including particulate matter (PM) for the DPF and nitrogen oxides (NOx) for the SCR. However, there have been growing concerns regarding the secondary reactions that these aftertreatment systems may promote involving unregulated species emissions. This study was performed to gain an understanding of the effects that these aftertreatment systems may have on the emission levels of a wide spectrum of chemical species found in diesel engine exhaust. Samples were extracted using a source dilution sampling system designed to collect exhaust samples representative of real-world emissions. Testing was conducted on a heavy-duty diesel engine with no aftertreatment devices to establish a baseline measurement and also on the same engine equipped first with a DPF system and then a SCR system. Each of the samples was analyzed for a wide variety of chemical species, including elemental and organic carbon, metals, ions, n-alkanes, aldehydes, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, in addition to the primary pollutants, due to the potential risks they pose to the environment and public health. The results show that the DPF and SCR systems were capable of substantially reducing PM and NOx emissions, respectively. Further, each of the systems significantly reduced the emission levels of the unregulated chemical species, while the notable formation of new chemical species was not observed. It is expected that a combination of the two systems in some future engine applications would reduce both primary and secondary emissions significantly.


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