Italian City Buses with Particulates Traps

From september 1988 a fleet test started in Italy on urban buses equipped with a single ceramic monolith filter plus a by-pass and Diesel fuel burners for regeneration. The operation of the particulate trap, during the normal bus running in the city, has been assessed in three different ways:

1. 1.
   Continuous control, by means of a data acquisition system purposely designed, of the main parameters affecting regeneration (i.e. time between consecutive regenerations, temperature in three selected zones in the filter during regeneration,filter loading);
2. 2.
   Periodic control of smoke opacity of the bus measured, with and without the filter, under free acceleration and when bus is accelerating from 50 to 65 km/h on proving ground;
3. 3.
   Particulate collection efficiency of the trap by using a dilution tunnel with the engine operated at the test bench.

Information carried out from the fleet tests and additional information deriving from laboratory results were used for the system improvement.