Particulate Traps for Construction Machines Properties and Field Experience

Occupational Health Authorities in Germany and Switzerland require the use of particulate traps (PT) on construction machines used in underground and in tunneling since 1994. Swiss EPA has extended this requirement 1998 to all construction sites which are in or close to cities. During the VERT*-project, [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]**, traps systems were evaluated for this purpose and only those providing efficiencies over 95% for ultrafine particles < 200 nm have received official recommendation. 10 trap-systems are very popular now for these application, most of them for retrofitting existing engines. Efficiency data will be given as well as experience during a 2-years authority-controlled field test.

LIEBHERR, producing their own Diesel engines in Switzerland and construction machines in Germany is the first company worldwide supplying particulate traps as OEM-feature (Original Equipment Manufacturing) on customers request. LIEBHERR has decided to use the passively regenerating OBERLAND-system with OCTEL iron based fuel regeneration. An information about the experiences with this particulate trap system will be given.