Development of Air-Assisted Urea Injection Systems for Medium Duty Trucks

Urea injection is required to meet EU IV to EU VI emission regulations as a main stream technical route to reduce nitrogen oxides (NOx). In heavy and medium duty trucks, compressed air at 3-5 bar is often available, therefore can assist urea injection by mixing with urea, forming liquid droplets, and releasing mixed fluid into the exhaust gases. The development of air assisted urea pump and injectors, or the assembly, seemingly simpler than airless counterparts, however poses multiple challenges. One challenge is to properly mix urea in the mixing chamber inside pump with the compressed air, leaving no residual deposits while achieving high mixing efficiency. Another is to maintain good spray quality for a given length of delivery pipe as the liquid phase and gas phase tend to coalesce as they propagate along the pipe flow direction. In addition, the urea pump and injector need to provide robust and reliable performance under stringent road conditions. Given these challenges, this paper addresses key development aspects for air assisted urea pump and injector with goals to provide insights on design improvements and validations.