Integrated Aftertreatment Systems to Reduce Emissions from Gasoline and Alternative Fueled Engines, 03-R8014

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Principal Investigators
Reggie Zhan
Scott Eakle
Phil Weber

Inclusive Dates:  01/01/09 – 01/01/10

Background - Gasoline direct injection (GDI) technology has recently become of great interest to automotive original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). GDI offers significant advantages over traditional port-fuel injected (PFI) gasoline engines in fuel economy, performance and reduced CO2 emissions; however, particulate matter (PM) emissions from the GDI engine is of serious concern. Future legislation will require significant PM reduction from GDI engines.

Diesel particulate filters (DPFs) have proven effective at reducing PM emitted from diesel engines with high efficiencies for both PM mass and count. Since PM emitted from a gasoline engine has a smaller average size, PM filters for a GDI application must have a smaller pore size to maintain high filtration efficiency, while avoiding increased pressure drop.

The objective of this project is to develop an integrated aftertreatment system to simultaneously reduce HC, CO, NOx and PM from a state-of-the-art Ford EcoBoost GTDI 3.5L engine.

Approach - Two aftertreatment system configurations are being demonstrated: one uses a close-coupled gasoline particulate filter (GPF) and a conventional under-floor three-way catalyst (TWC); the second uses a close-coupled TWC and an under-floor GPF. Raw gaseous emissions of HC, CO and NOx, as well as PM mass and count, are measured at engine-out, in-between the two aftertreatment system components, and tailpipe location, in order to define the efficiencies of each aftertreatment component and the entire system. Both steady-state and transient engine operating conditions are used for the aftertreatment system evaluation.

Accomplishments -

  1. Integrated aftertreatment systems with two different configurations have been developed.
     
  2. Three engine operating cycles have been developed on the pre-production Ford 3.5L EcoBoost GTDI engine, including a simulated FTP-75 engine operating cycle, European Stationary Cycle (ESC), and a rapid acceleration cycle.
     
  3. Preliminary test results show that the test engine generates significant PM mass (over 4.0 mg/m3) during rapid acceleration operation. Generally, the engine generates high PM mass at rapid acceleration, as well as high speed and high torque engine operating conditions.
     
  4. The developed aftertreatment system can effectively reduce PM emissions.

Future Work -

Age the aftertreatment systems to 100,000 mile equivalence, and evaluate PM, CO, HC and NOx efficiencies over the three operating cycles.

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