Cold-Start WHTC and WHSC Testing Results on Multi-Cylinder Opposed-Piston Engine Demonstrating Low CO ₂ Emissions while Meeting BS-VI Emissions and Enabling Aftertreatment Downsizing

Reducing the greenhouse emissions from on-road freight vehicles to meet the climate change mitigation objectives, has become a prime focus of regulatory authorities all over the world. Besides India, the United States, the European Union, Canada, Japan, and China have already established or planned heavy-duty vehicle efficiency regulations addressing CO₂ and NO_X emissions. In addition, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, and South Korea are all in various stages of developing policies to improve the efficiency of their commercial vehicle fleets. For CO₂ emissions reduction standards, the U.S. mandates 27% reduction by 2027, EU is calling for 15% reduction by 2025, China for 27% by 2019 over 2012 levels, and India is mandating 10%-15% reduction by 2021 for phase 2 of the new standard. There has also been considerable focus on further reduction in NO_X emissions from current levels (0.2 g/hp-hr), to the proposed ultra-low NOx standards (0.02 g/hp-hr) in the U.S. for heavy duty engines by 2024.

Given these planned and proposed regulatory standards being implemented around the globe, there have been substantial studies and publications focusing on exploring and evaluating technologies that can help deliver the lower tailpipe NOx targets and understand the CO₂ impact associated with it. Majority of the NO_X emissions from engine, occur during the cold-start portion of the transient regulatory cycles, like HD FTP and WHTC. This is because, a typical heavy-duty diesel aftertreatment system does not achieve substantial NO_X reduction until approximately 400-500 seconds into the cold-start cycle due to lack of heat from the engine. The result is untreated NOx escaping through to tailpipe. To achieve low NOx emission levels over the composite transient cycles, the engine must provide rapid exhaust heat energy, during the cold-start portion, to reduce the time required by the SCR catalyst to reach catalyst light-off temperature, while controlling the NO_X emissions. Moreover, high NO_X conversion efficiency must be maintained during the hot-start portion of cycle. For a conventional heavy-duty engine, providing rapid exhaust heat while controlling NOx emissions has been a challenge, because these are competing demands. Implementing secondary or auxiliary heat sources downstream in the exhaust after treatment system (ATS) comes at CO₂ penalty and adds significant cost and complexity. This has been established in recent publications by organization like SwRI [1], CARB and Bosch [2].

Achates Power Opposed Piston (OP) engine technology provides ideal solution to this challenge. The opposed-piston engine has several inherent advantages over conventional four-stroke engines, like higher BTE (15-30% higher), higher power density, an air-system that results in reduced pumping work, the ability to control residual combustion gases, two fuel injectors per cylinder providing greater timing flexibility, and the ability to provide rapid engine out heat and temperature rise for the exhaust emission system while maintaining low engine out NO_X.

This paper demonstrates results from cold and hot start transient WHTC testing and WHSC testing, conducted at Achates Power, on a three-cylinder opposed-piston engine. Results show that the Achates Power OP Engine can deliver engine out heat and temperature rise that exceeded and sustained catalyst light-off temperature thresholds (250°C) within the first 60-100 seconds in the cold start cycle, while controlling engine out NOx to lower levels when compared to a conventional four-stroke heavy-duty diesel engine. As a result, the OP Engine not only meets current BS-VI and future regulatory emissions requirements but is also able to do so with a significant CO₂ emissions advantage. Furthermore, the inherent advantages of the OP Engine offer unique aftertreatment optimization and downsizing opportunities thereby enabling cost reduction.