Future emission legislation for 2 and 3 wheelers in EU and many other Countries will introduce durability of pollution control devices. Along with a durable coating technology, the mechanical durability of the substrate must be ensured to guarantee the requested conversion efficiency for the entire life of the motorcycle.
A traditional approach consisting in engine bench and vehicle testing is no more competitive considering the very short time to market needed in the motorcycle market and the relevant cost related to this kind of tests. For this reason a new time and cost efficient accelerated component durability test was developed, which can account for the combined effects of critical load at a metallic catalytic converter.
This paper shows the methodology used to determine the critical stressors and their levels in real operating conditions by measuring and analyzing a broad range of vehicle test information. The information was used to develop a temperature profile and a high vibration load, which were implemented in a superimposed hot vibration / thermal cycling component bench test.
This highly accelerated test provides a time and cost efficient reproduction of field failure modes and allows the project team to choose a tailored and robust design for metallic catalytic.