On Road Durability and Performance Test of Diesel Particulate Filter with BS III and BS IV Fuel for Indian Market

The future emission regulation (BS V) in India is expected to create new challenges to meet the particulate matter (PM) limit for diesel cars. The upcoming emission norms will bring down the limit of PM by 80 % when compared to BS IV emission norms. The diesel particulate filter (DPF) is one of the promising technologies to achieve this emission target. The implementation of DPF system into Indian market poses challenges against fuel quality, driving cycles and warranty. Hence, it is necessary to do a detailed on-road evaluation of the DPF system with commercially available fuel under country specific drive cycles. Therefore, we conducted full vehicle durability testing with DPF system which is available in the European market to evaluate its robustness and reliability with BS III fuel (≤350ppm sulfur) & BS IV (≤50ppm sulfur) fuel under real Indian driving conditions. The testing was performed on several vehicles with instrumented DPF systems and data acquisition hardware for city and highway cycles. At periodic intervals, the oil and fuel samples were collected and analyzed. Also, the emissions levels in all vehicles were regularly checked over the Modified Indian Driving Cycle (MIDC) on a chassis dynamometer. Throughout the testing parameters like temperature profile inside filters (diesel oxidization catalyst (DOC) and DPF), pressure drop across filter, soot loading and few signals from engine ECU were monitored and recorded. This paper presents the test set ups and results of field trials conducted on DPF fitted vehicles using BS III and BS IV fuel.